[AngusMike]

I have a user that is trying to burn a data DVD using Sonic Digital Media LE v7 and the speed settings are set to MAX and when she starts the Project/job the max speed says 8X but the actuall speed of the burn is about 0.8 to 0.95 X. Can anyone explan to me why this is and what we can do to allow her to burn these CDs are her normal rate?

[Brendon]

I can't be sure without her machine on the bench in front of me Mike, BUT if she has set her burn faster than her system can sustain and her machine has buffer underrun protection, she might be getting this scenario . .

-user sets burn speed of 8x, but her machine can only sustain perhaps 6x
-burn starts, buffer runs empty very quickly, and burn is stopped by underrun protection
-software refills buffer and drive recovers position and starts to burn again
-buffer empties, burn stops
-loop until Xmas

The effective burn speed in that scenario would be very low, perhaps what she's measuring. To test for this, drop to half the previous speed and see if the system can handle that. It would also pay to do the anti-buffer-underrun things like defragging the hard drive, stopping any CPU intensive background apps, that sort of thing.