Slow burning in Toast 8

[aldridge]

Recently upgraded to Toast 8 from 7. Am burning some DVD's on my G5 2.0 PPC iMac, but after toast encodes, the best speed I'm getting for burning the DVD is 2x, despite having a 8x DVD burner in the iMac. I've checked all the settings I know, don't know what the problem is. The disc's burn just fine, just takes forever. Was wondering if anyone else has seen this or know what the problem is.

 

--Bob

Huntsville, AL

 

Never mind. Turns out the discs I'm using must be 2x only. I checked the "Recorder\disc info" and it said 2x. Doesn't say that on the box anywhere. BTW-I'm using Verbatim DVD+R DL.

[tsantee]

In my case all the speeds are in non-italic face, but Toast just seems to ignore them, whatever I set it to. I've tried setting 16x rather than 'Best', but the best result I've seen is still 5x with 16x disks.

Here is everything I know about burn speeds.

 

The drive's firmware examines information on the blank disc to determine what speeds are claimed to be supported for burning. These speeds appear as bold face in the speed drop down menu in the Recorder Settings menu (only, of course, after the disc is inserted and recognized). Optical drives burn at varying speeds, with the inner part of the disc (the part that is burned first) at a much slower speed than the outer edge of the disc where the drive can reach the top-rated speeds. Various things can slow down the burn, however. One of them is buffer underrun prevention. You can try disabling the underrun prevention (if available for that type of media) to see if this speeds up the burn. It could be the drive is just having a difficult time burning the disc.

 

I don't know what part Toast plays in controlling burn speeds. My sense is that it can only control what the highest speed is for the burn, but I don't know this for a fact. Certainly Toast is furnishing the stream of bits to the burner and there could be a reason why Toast isn't doing that at the optimum speed. The OS and drive interface may also have some influence on burn speed. I know that various Firewire and USB 2 issues can occur after incremental system updates, so a common recommendation at MacFixit is to apply the Combination System Update on top of the existing system update to repair those quirks that could affect external drives.

 

About a year ago MacWorld had an article comparing how long it took different makes of DVD drives to burn different kinds of files. Although the drives and media were rated the same - and connected to the same computer - the actual burn time was different with each drive tested; some very much so. This apparently is due to the engineering of the drives' firmware. So make sure your drive has the most recent firmware. Unfortunately, Apple rarely releases firmware updates for their Superdrives, and several brands of drives require connecting to a PC for firmware updates. Trying different brands of media can also be enlightening because newer media isn't always well supported with older firmware.

 

There is excellent information about individual drives in the Drive Compatibility Database at www.xlr8yourmac.com.

 

With all that said, it could be a Toast 8 problem. I don't know.

[fingerman]

>Well the 16x blanks on my iMac 8x burn at 2x.

 

Are you sure they are rated at 16x? Did you check them in the Disc Info dialog in Toast and check them against the media database?

[paradigm 77]

I have the exact same problem on my 17" powerbook since I installed Toast 8.

The highest speed option it gives me is 2x even though the DVDs are 16x and my burner is 8x.

I have tried 2 different brands of DVD's and no luck.

I never had this problem with Toast 7 so I reinstalled Toast 7 and now that gives me the same problem.

It seems like Toast 8 installed some weird file that will not allow any version to properly read the DVD speeds.

Does anyone have a solution?

 

PLEASE HELP!!!

[Atlantic]

In my case all the speeds are in non-italic face, but Toast just seems to ignore them, whatever I set it to. I've tried setting 16x rather than 'Best', but the best result I've seen is still 5x with 16x disks.

 

There are two sets of selection for burning speed. The first is for CDs and the second set is DVD burning speeds. My drive sets the DVD burning speed at the lowest to 4x, and I am looking for the best quality burning, which would be at a lower speed. The "best" speed, once I checked out all the documentation from Roxio, turns out to be the "fastest" speed, rather than the "best quality" that I would have expected from "best". The minimum 4x burn speeds seem quite fast to me when I leave my DVDs burning when I am either in bed or out to work most of the time anyway. There's no need to do them fast, but I can't find a way of slowing them down further. If I use my very old DVD burner that can only manage 2x (external Firewire) it will let me burn at 1x, but I don't believe it will burn as good quality as my new drive at 4x due to the proportion of the maximum burn speed (but I could be wrong).

 

I am using 8x media (that Toast thinks it can burn at 16x) in a G4 Sawtooth (from 1999) with an after-market Pioneer DVD burner having replaced the old DVD reader that used to be in there.

[Nick Collingridge]

For you there may be no need to do them fast, but certainly in my case (and I suspect for many other people) the speed of completion is very important.

[videocam]

Well,this is my first post !!

 

I have a A-Card duplicator and I am getting MANY coasters.My 160 min iMovie project Toasted in 8 set at burn speed BEST. I am using Sony 1x-8x. Should I be changing to 4x instead of BEST. Not all my copies (TDK -R) are coasters...why is that ...some are,some are not.

[tsantee]

Never mind. Turns out the discs I'm using must be 2x only. I checked the "Recorder\disc info" and it said 2x. Doesn't say that on the box anywhere. BTW-I'm using Verbatim DVD+R DL.

DL discs have lower speed rating than the single-layer discs. My Verbatim's are 2.4X rated.

[GWH]

Well the 16x blanks on my iMac 8x burn at 2x.

 

And I wonder what the problem is. Anyone know?

[tsantee]

Well,this is my first post !!

 

I have a A-Card duplicator and I am getting MANY coasters.My 160 min iMovie project Toasted in 8 set at burn speed BEST. I am using Sony 1x-8x. Should I be changing to 4x instead of BEST. Not all my copies (TDK -R) are coasters...why is that ...some are,some are not.

Try Verbatim media. Many drives work better with that brand. Sony discs can be a problem. Insert the disc and choose Disc Info from the Recorder menu. In the window that appears click the More info button (I think that's what it's titled) to go to the page at videohelp.com where users post their experience with specific blank media. Are the ones you are using highly rated there?

 

Burning at 4X instead of Best should give more reliable disc burns.

[easternherp]

I have noticed that the burn speeds are slower, or at least that is what Toast is telling me but I haven't ran a time trial yet between 7 and 8.

[Nick Collingridge]

I have experienced exact;y the same problem - I have some Imation 16x DVD-Rs and the best speed I've seen from them is 5x. Also some 8x DVD-Rs and again the best speed is 5x. Drive is a LiteOn LH-201AP which is rated at 18x. I have created a PatchBurn profile for the drive but it has not changed this situation.

[Orlando]

I have the opposite problem. I set Toast 8 to burn at 2x and it ends up at anywheres from 5 to 13x. I want to burn slow. To me it seems that I have better results with my disks. Any ideas as to how to set it so that it will burn at what I set?

[tsantee]

I have the opposite problem. I set Toast 8 to burn at 2x and it ends up at anywheres from 5 to 13x. I want to burn slow. To me it seems that I have better results with my disks. Any ideas as to how to set it so that it will burn at what I set?

Choose a burn speed that is appears in Bold Face after the blank disc is inserted. The speeds shown in Italics are not supported by that drive and media combination. That's the only reason I can think of that the drive might be ignoring your speed selection.

[Nick Collingridge]

In my case all the speeds are in non-italic face, but Toast just seems to ignore them, whatever I set it to. I've tried setting 16x rather than 'Best', but the best result I've seen is still 5x with 16x disks.