While doing some Christmas shopping, I stumbled across some Princo 800min/700mb 4-12x CDRW's. Yes they do say 800min on the cover jacket insert. [How I wish!]. here's the ATIP: Nero CD Speed : Nada SmartBURN CD Analyzer : Zilch Nero "Shift" Refresh Trick : Manufacturer - Digital Storage Technology Co. Ltd. 79:57.74 703 MB. That's all folks. These must be very new media? Here are my results using it on a Litey 52/24/52 for an audio cd, and FYI, 10x is the highest speed Nero would let me burn at. The other listed speeds are 8x and 4x. The source were audio tracks ripped into into .wav's from Feurio!, Nero and Exact Audio Copy. And it was a DAO/96 burn. 18 songs 81:06.45 min 10x overburn - Neroscan disc shows too many errors and I could hear them too so the burn was no good. 8x overburn - even though Nero reported that the LiteON failed to burn at the end it was not bad. Nero CD Speed surface scan showed Good: 99.59 %, Damaged: 0.41 %, Unreadable: 0.00 %. 4x overburn - surprise! Good: 87.98 %, Damaged: 6.58 %, Unreadable: 5.45 %. It was actually worse to burn slower! [Note: for this experiment, I reinstalled Nero]. 17 songs 77.54.21 min [same compilation minus one song] 10x - had a couple of errors, couldn't really hear them but I didn't scrutinize that closely. 8x - perfect burn. It should be noted that my system froze completely twice during burning. Once when I tried to access my "Control Panel", then when I tried to change the channel on my TV Tuner. I did recently defrag my HD so I don't know if that had something to do with it.
Aqua, Commercial resons I guess - demand and supply? Based on the posts around this forum, the most common CD-RW usage seems to be DirectCD packet writing. The need for 700mb capacity is more relevant in audio, movies, etc. I don't know - I always buy 700mb's.
cd-rw.org : Do you know if DirectCD's packet-writing is (roughly) compatible with "DLA" ? DLA (Direct Letter Access) is a product of Verita's software, which came bundled with my dvd burner, but works with either dvds or cds. I <kinda> liked DirectCD better, but it conflicts with DLA, so I had to uninstall it. I'm pretty sure both are UDF (Universal Disc Format). DirectCD was a little easier to use, and (I think) a little more widespread in use. (Memorex sells 10-packs of cd-rws pre-formatted with DirectCD's UDF. Thnx. -- Mike --
I beleive that all UDF software are compatible (InCD, DirectCD...many many more)? I have never tested though - I do not like packet writing method, or the software.
(ok, thank you) That's good to know! (I'll have to check this 'InCD' you mention). Packet writing lets me use DOS (shhhhh!), and (I'm told) UDF provides greater file error-protection than other methods (up to 10 x), which is why you can't fit as much data on a UDF disc - additional space is used up for file integrity. -- mgb --
I've been using CD-RW disc since i owned my Yamaha 8424. They are great for moving large files(MP3's,AVI,huge PSD's etc) from my computer to other computers. Usually a UDF compatible CD-ROM drive can read it no problem. It also seems that the UDF format(in DirectCD) includes a UDF driver for some windows platforms. At least it installed a Drive on my friends Win98 the first time we tried reading my disc on his computer. Recently I bought an LG 40x12x40 so I bought the only 12x CD-RW's i could find Princo 700MB 12x CD-RW. I had a terrible time getting this disc to register in my drive as 12x. I formatted it 3 times and finally its working. Im not sure if its a disc problem or DirectCD packet writing software issue. At 12x, copying onto the disc is really fast, but I will have to see how long the disc will last as I write/erase/rewrite data. I had 2out of 3 of my Sony 4X CD-RW's Die after about a years use. I think reusing them cause to many errors over time. I cant even format the Sony 4x anymore, but that could be some incompatibility with my new burner. Should try em in the old Yamaha. TOM...
mr_lemon : The latest versions of DirectCD's UDF automatically burn the tiny udf reader program onto every disc when you first format it. That way, *every* computer can read what's on the disc whether the full burn program is installed or not. It makes sense too, because the reader is very very small. Whenever I've had to recover from an irrecoverable Windows crash, I have to re-install some core, critical files that are on one of my UDF discs. As soon as I insert the disc, Windows asks if I'd like to install the reader. (Of course I do). Takes only a few seconds, then the disc is totally readable. Like your friend, I too use Win98. The reader is a free download from the Adaptec site. I like UDF (or) DLA because it is simple and foolproof, and, (as the name implies), allows <D>irect <Letter> <A>ccess. (either one). Your files are better protected too (smudges, fingerprints, scratches) because of the extra layer of error protection. -- Klingy --
Princo 700MB CD-RW Follow up: Ok, the CD-RW label says 4x-12x. My LG GCE8400b says it does 12xRW. Turns out im only getting 10x writes with this disk? On top of that, it seems to take forever to copy things at certain point on the disk? Perhaps the version of DirectCD I am using does not support 12x or is that a hardware thing? TOM...
