Michel S. said:
Hi !
I just bought a Memorex DVD-R spindle. Both the package and the disk
shows "16x" as the maximum write speed.
I made a test burn and Nero refused to write at a speed higher than 8x.
Nero DVD-Speed (Disk Info) shows the following "basic" information :
Disk Type : DVD-R
Book Type : DVD-R
Manufacturer : Ritek
MID : RITEKF1
Write speeds : 4x-8x <---- ?? where's the 16x ?
only 4x and 8x were available in list box? ie: you cant even select 16x
let alone test it right???
Blank capacity : 4.38 Gb
My burner is a LG GSA-4163B, firmware : A106 (the latest)
Am I missing someting or did I bought a "mis-labeled" batch ?
I am not sure where nero gets their info. The do maintain a cdrom.cfg
resource file for audio extraction rates and look up values in that file. A
grep thru their code does not show tables of drive names so I assume that
nero.exe and infotool.exe query the device.
Their infotool is known to not always to report correct capabilities, both
drive and controller. I upgraded the dvd firmware in two slightly different
and older thinkpads. Both before and after nero infotool incorrectly listed
both dvds (one dvd-rom the other dvd-cdrw) as *NOT* capabile of DVD+R
reading. That was incorrect. Not only were they capable of reading DVD+R
they would also handle DVD+R DL just fine and I was able to verify that. I
really dont know where nero gets their info, assume there must be some codes
in the firmware of the device they lookup. My guess is that the device
capability might be influenced by sales staff more then engineering. They
would get into legal trouble if they said it read +R/DL and it didnt. If it
only worked at 4x and not 16x they could always blame it on the media and
you really cant find fault with that approach.
I tried burning a +R/DL on both a benq 1655 and a 1620 both with latest
firmware. Nero 7.0.8.2 allowed 2x and 2.6x on the 1655 but only 2.6x showed
up on the 1620. I would think that if it could do 2.6x it should allow 2x
for a safety margin. I have also seen this on CD-R not just DVD. On one
burn I did recently, I noticed that nero's speed could not be set lower than
32 (as I recall), but I was using a really old cd that I wanted to get rid
of and I knew when I bought it years ago the media was not capable of more
then 4x. Nero must depend on the device to report back speeds.
I inadvertantly burned a dvd+r at 8x using nero. I forgot that both the
source and destination were on firewire. After clicking on start it dawned
on me that it was not going to run faster than about 2x if that much. I
never saw the HW buffer get above %80, not even once. It consistenly stayed
at %20 and hit zero a bunch of times. It started off saying 15 minutes and
ended up done 2+ hours later. Verify worked fine! However benq implemented
buffer underrun on their 1655 they did an incredible job ( i do now work for
benq). I thought for sure I had a coaster. I have a pioneer A08 that I know
would have failed in the same situation.
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