Toast Keeps Defaulting To 17X Burn Speed

[Midi Man]

Hi hope someone can help.

 

I am on a 2.8 Quad Core imac. I also have a Lacie (TSSTcorpCDDVDW SH-223L) external optical drive. I like to use it because the amount of cds i burn is quite ridiculous and i dont want to put the strain on my new internal drive.

 

So in setting up my new machine and toast i noticed a flaw or maybe i am dong something wrong. So my Lacie drive is connected through firewire and toast recognizes it. So when i go to burn a standard mp3 as an audio disc and go to choose the speed

 

i always choose the lowest 1-4x. So when i insert the blank disc and wait for toast to recognise it to start the burn it keeps defaulting to best. A few times i have got it to stay at 1x BUT no matter what when the burn starts you can see the

 

burn speed in the window and it keeps burning cds at 17x. I cant burn my cds that fast because i get errors on my cdj players and in my car.

 

 

Now i tried using the internal drive that came with my new mac (OPTIARC DVD RW AD-5680H) and on this drive toast WILL let me burn at a slower speed. Its weird though i choose 1x and when the burn window comes up once the burn starts it says its burning

 

at 6-7x speed when i chose 1. This is better than the results with my Lacie but i dont want to burn out the drive in my imac thats why i have this Lacie external to burn on

 

 

 

Has anyone else had this problem trying to use the slowest burn speed ?

 

Another question too why are some of the burn speeds in toast a bold & italic font i noticed when i choose the Lacie drive to burn from

 

 

 

 

Hope someone can help

 

thanks

 

Vince

[tsantee]

The available burn speed depends on the drive's firmware and the particular discs you are using. You can see the actual available burn speeds by inserting the blank disc and opening the recorder settings window after the disc is recognized by Toast. At that point choose the lowest available burn speed. It won't be 1X. It's difficult to find CD media that support burning as slow as 8x; 16x is more common. Contact Meritline or other major disc media seller about what media they have that supports the slowest possible burn speed. Make sure your LaCie drive firmware is up to date.

 

It is the drive's firmware and the media's formulation that determines available burn speeds.

[Midi Man]

The available burn speed depends on the drive's firmware and the particular discs you are using. You can see the actual available burn speeds by inserting the blank disc and opening the recorder settings window after the disc is recognized by Toast. At that point choose the lowest available burn speed. It won't be 1X. It's difficult to find CD media that support burning as slow as 8x; 16x is more common. Contact Meritline or other major disc media seller about what media they have that supports the slowest possible burn speed. Make sure your LaCie drive firmware is up to date.

 

It is the drive's firmware and the media's formulation that determines available burn speeds.

 

Got it! Yeah after staying up really late last night i am narrowing it down to that firmware inside my lacie drive. Its funny because i just upgraded my machine last week. Previously i was on a G5 Power Mac 1.6 single processor osx 10.3.9 using toast 7 and it burned 1-4x speed all day but now using this lacie on my new setup it just wont go that slow. 16x is the slowest the lacie will burn and 8x is the slowest the internal drive on the new machine will burn. Waiting to hear back from lacie, regarding a firmware update. I might have found one for my drive but i am very cautious to install i dont want to damage the lacie drive by putting in drivers that dont belong.

 

Tsantee thank you for the help:)

 

One last question if a cd says "up to" 52x doesnt that mean it can burn at any speed even 1-4x ? (and again as long as your burner can support it)

[tsantee]

Got it! Yeah after staying up really late last night i am narrowing it down to that firmware inside my lacie drive. Its funny because i just upgraded my machine last week. Previously i was on a G5 Power Mac 1.6 single processor osx 10.3.9 using toast 7 and it burned 1-4x speed all day but now using this lacie on my new setup it just wont go that slow. 16x is the slowest the lacie will burn and 8x is the slowest the internal drive on the new machine will burn. Waiting to hear back from lacie, regarding a firmware update. I might have found one for my drive but i am very cautious to install i dont want to damage the lacie drive by putting in drivers that dont belong.

 

Tsantee thank you for the help:)

 

One last question if a cd says "up to" 52x doesnt that mean it can burn at any speed even 1-4x ? (and again as long as your burner can support it)

If you go to Meritline.com and look at a page describing the CD-Rs they rate for audio discs you'll see a table showing burn speeds available with different drives.. I have an older LaCie D2 Firewire drive that contains a NEC unit. I have some older Sony and newer Verbatim CD-R discs that can burn as slow as 8X with the LaCie drive according to Toast (the speed shown in bold face and not italic). When inserted in my recent iMac's internal drive the slowest speed is 10X. I believe I could burn 4X on the LaCie drive with the CD-Rs that Meritline promotes as burning at that speed on some drives but I don't have those to check.

 

Ask LaCie what CD-R media they have tested for slow burns with their drives and what they recommend for audio CDs. Discs are cheap so buy those that the firmware will accept for 4X burning.

 

Complicating this is that drives can burn at variable speeds with the slowest speed near the spindle (when the burn begins) and the speed increasing as it moves outward. I don't know if selecting 4X locks in that speed throughout the burn but I think it does.

[Midi Man]

So i got to check meritline over the weekend and i could not find one single pack of cds that says they support a 1-4x burning speed. All say the standard 48x and above

 

I am in the middle of dealing with lacie on this too, just trying to cover all angles. They didnt say they have any one paticular type of cd they use to test with. They were surprised that i was wanting a burn speed that slow and didnt have an answer as of to what cds would work best in their drives for 4x burning They also did tell me i have the newest firmware on my lacie drive so that angle is covered

 

Over the weekend i did some experimenting and found out that i CAN burn at 1x speed through iTunes and my lacie using tdk & sony & phillips cds. I would prefer to use toast since i have all these years AND would be able to burn dvd

 

 

It baffles me that this lacie drive burned at 1x speed & toast 7 with any type of cds all day with my old mac setup G5 powermac pc 10.3.9 and now i upgrade to the newest machine and software and i cant do it lol. I am trying to narrow this down where the problem is.

 

 

 

Lacie burner & Toast 7 burned all day at 1x speed w/ any cds on old mac but NOT on new mac

 

Lacie burner WILL burn at 1x speed through itunes but not toast 10 w/ any cds

 

 

 

Any thoughts tsantee ? Thanks for helping

[tsantee]

Lacie burner & Toast 7 burned all day at 1x speed w/ any cds on old mac but NOT on new mac

 

Lacie burner WILL burn at 1x speed through itunes but not toast 10 w/ any cds

 

 

 

Any thoughts tsantee ? Thanks for helping

I've written all I know on the subject. My understanding is the drive's firmware and the media decide what burn speeds are available. The drive then provides that information to Toast. Toast isn't what determines available burn speeds.

 

I just inserted a CD-R and checked Apple's System Profiler. It reports the available burn speeds to that disc as mentioned previously. So Toast agrees with the Mac's OS. I don't know what iTunes does to slow down the burn to 1X on a media/drive combination that doesn't natively support 1X burning.

 

The only way I know for sure of burning at 1x speed is to use an older CD-R burner (not a combination DVD/CD burner) such as those manufactured by Yamaha and to find a spindle of older CD media. I don't believe you are taking any risks burning at 4X speed with supported media on your LaCie drive for your audio mastering. But that's something you need to hear from your disc duplicator service. If they say 1x is the only way to go then how do they do it?