[sidchiu]

Greetings to all you forums users.

We've recently purchased an EXT. FW DRIVE (SONY DW-G 120A) SL (?) 16x. I'm using a G4 Mirror Drive door Mac and Patchburn to make the FW Drive visible.

My question is - can I burn at slower speeds when the option is not available?

i've been able to successfully copy DVD-R discs and burn from .img out of DVD SP v4. I've been using Sony DVD-R (1 - 16x) SL (4.7G) discs.

I've read that burning at slower speeds would increase the compatability of the disk with older DVD players. However, whenever I pop in the blank Sony discs it only gives me the option of burning at 6x.

I know for a fact that my PC laptop Combo Drive (Toshiba) which I also use at work can only read DVD-R discs at a rate of 4x or less. So any DVDs burned at higher rates cannot be seen at all.

The DVD does run fine on the newer table top dvd player (Toshiba), and the Macs at work, but not the older player we have that is a Pioneer.

Is this because of the brand of blank DVD? I find it odd that when the blank media is out I'm given the option at burning at whatever speed I want, but when the blank Sony DVD is in I'm limited to burning at 6x or up. I've also read that when possible you should try to buy slower speed blank DVDs which is getting harder to come-by.

Is this a software issue or hardware issue? Are there any settings in Patchburn where I can set the burn speed?

Any help would be greatly appreciated and I'm sure useful for a number of people out there.

My concern is that we send out these DVDs for clients and they can't watch them due to an older player.

[tsantee]

Your 4X drive should be able to read a disc burned at a faster speed. Those don't need to match. The problem with burning at a faster speed is increased chance for disc errors particularly if that brand of media is not well supported by the firmware in that drive. The speeds that Toast shows as available (after you insert the disc) are in bold face while the italic speeds are not available. The bold face ones are the only ones that the drive tells Toast that it will burn with that specific brand of media. Different media may support different burn speeds.

Most drive manufacturers list on their Web sites the brands and speeds of media that have been tested as supported by their drives. Also check for firmware updates because those mostly are done to support more media.

[sidchiu]

Thanks for the response Tsantee.

So do you think that brand of dvd does matter - based on the compatability with the drive's firmware?
If so, which brand in your experience have provided the widest compatability with drives or desktop players?

Also, does the dvd's playability with a drive has more to do with the brand compatability than burning at slower speeds? So even if I could burn the dvd at slower speeds it still may not work with certain drives?

Finally, what is the difference between DVD+ / - R (is one better than the otehr) - I know that certain companies adopted one type of media over another, but for the average user what's the difference?

Thanks again.

[John at Roxio]

Since I work for roxio I wont endorse one brand of media over another. I'll let the other forum users post that info.
Based on my experience though, you have better results getting DVD-R media to play in standard DVD players in general. Most new ones support various media types but the older models are not so friendly. So if you want your disc to work in the most players possible, I would probably just stick with DVD-R.

[sidchiu]

I found a great site yesterday that goes into the nitty gritty of blank DVD media.

http://www.digitalfa...ia/dvdmedia.htm

I highly recommend users to take a look about DVD brand compatability issues.

I did a little test yesterday with buying a small supply of the top brand listed on the website and a cheaper in house big box brand. Using my desktop PC (LG DL Burner and N*RO - sorry Roxio) - I was able to reburn disks that didn't previously work on my table top DVD player (Pioneer) and Laptop (Presario 2100 w/ Toshiba Combo SD-R2312).

However, I tried the same test using my Mac at work with Toast and unfortunately didn't get the same results. Mainly I couldn't burn anything with the Mac that worked on my Laptop. I know its not the brand since my previous test on the PC had no problem being read by the laptop.

My only thoughts are either its the SONY FW DVD Drive, or Patchburn, or Toast that is causing these problems. I've tried updating my firmware on the laptop - although the only improvement is the use of DVD-RAM2 type disks - which I don't really have.

Any suggestions from other forum users?

It's not a super huge issue but something that would be good to solve.

[tsantee]

Interesting. Let me see if I have this all straight.

You've copied DVDs on a PC that play fine on the PC laptop. But copying the same DVDs to the same media using the Sony FW drive on a Mac results in discs that can't be read by the laptop but can be read by the Mac and a standalone player. I'm presuming you used the Toast Copy window for burning these image files, right? Try mounting the image file and drag the VIDEO_TS folder to the Data window (with DVD-Rom as the format). Burn the disc that way. In this case Toast will do the disc formatting rather than using the formatting of the image file (the video will be identical).

[John at Roxio]

It is an issue between the drive and the media. Toast doesnt care what media you use.