Is blank DVD-R media supposed to have a noticeable ring in the burning area?

[yukichigai]

I have an optorite DD0203. It's been finickey with media, but in the past I've always had success with Verbatim media. I just picked up some media from BB and I had one bad burn, then the rest of the discs weren't recognized by my burner. I checked the bottom of the disc and found this peculiar ring of discoloration on the bottom, near the center. I've found that all of the other blank DVD-R media I have on hand has that kind of ring, but the +R media doesn't. Most times when I've had a bad burn there's been a similar ring of discoloration, maybe varying in size. I thought it was my drive, but now I'm wondering if it's the media. So the question is thus: is DVD-R media supposed to have a thin ring near the inside of the disc?

 

[Coquito]

I had a problem of recent with older cdrs that I decided to use up before finally using a dvd burner. After the session finished, just like yours, there was slight wavey discoloration near the center. It wasn't AS visible on the media that wasn't written to yet, but heat probably just exposed it better. These cds are 3year old silver mitsui discs. I took my time using them, but I guess it was there time to go.:|

 

[yukichigai]

*bump*

Still need to know. It's kind of important.

 

[CasTroLTraN]

Yes, all my DVD-Rs have a thin ring near the middle and the worked fine.

 

[Mark R]

DVD-Rs are pre-burned at the factory with some additional information for the burner (recommended write speed, etc.). It is this tiny amount of data which has already been burned that you can see as a discoloured part of the disc.

This pre-burned area also contains the discs 'book type' which tells a DVD-player whether the disc is a pressed DVD video disc, a DVD recordable disc or a variety of other formats.

DVD+Rs are not pre-burned and the burner & software can put whatever they want in that space. With suitable software you can override the 'book type' which improves compatability with some DVD players (most notably the Xbox).

 

[Atlantean]

Yeah all of them have it, I think its used for power calibration for the drive or something like that.

 

[yukichigai]

Ahh. So my drive shouldn't be f%$#ing up because of it then. Damn.

Sigh, guess I shouldn't have blown my money on the Optorite when it first came out. I'm definitely getting a new drive soon.

 

[NightCrawler]

pics ?