The best discs that I have ever used are Infiniti professional DVD-R AT £8.99 for 25,they are 2X, but in my Plextor 708A Firmware 1.04 they burn at 4X. I have had no failures in about a hundred burns, copying all my familys Dvds, they play back well,I use DVD X Copy XPress. These where best buy in What Vidio. DATASAFE 8x speed DVD+R also seem to work well, but have only tried a sample 25 pack, they burn at 8x and play perfectly. I copy copies with CloneDVD2,seems to have the edge on Nero, no failures. I now see that Infiniti have a Infiniti Dvd+r 4xspeed, have ordered 25 to try, cheap at £8,94, wonder if they will double up to 8x? will see.
Oooohhh God, do I love it I’ve always said, Remember, for DVD backups, purchasing inexpensive media or even average media is a gamble, some people win, the majority of people lose, varying amounts but, they still lose :-( Congrats to you both, I have ALWAYS recommended Ritek G04’s and in both articles they rate right up there - I agree that Apple 2x- MXLRG01 and Apple 4x - MXLRG02 are superior BUT who do you know that wants to pay $4.00 or $5.00 per disc ?? I kind of wish they rated “Branded” Verbatim X4 as they should be rated in the same class as the Ritek G04’s. I hadn’t seen either site but now that you two have found them, I shall sleep the sleep of the just. Cheers all, Pete
This is a follow up to "Braxas" answer about the compatability problems with DVD+R. I have sent many DVDs out to customers and have found that DVD+R burners which allow the "bitsetting" compatability mode is by far the best route to go. I have tried other DVD+R burners without this setting and the results were very poor. Bottom line is, if you want compatability stay with -R Burners and good media or use "Ricoh" type (HP + NEC) +r machines which allow the Bitsetting mode.
scubaP, i am in the middle of a 50 pack of "smart" disc's (DVD-r) absolute crap. As for zooco's comment about bad rips causing pixelation possibly but media definitely causes it. i find 2 out of 3 of my dvd players will not pixelate and the last will. then i can reburn from the copy and it will work. EXtremely FRustrating. I will take note on your earlier comments, thanks. kazafog
I have a question for you guys. I've been reading about which DVD Media I should by. I made the mistake of buying Memorex and Liquid Video before I saw this forum. I have a Pacific Digital 8x dual drive. The only successful burn so far for me is on a Ridata +RW. I really would like to know if a firmware upgrade will make the DVD Burner recognize the Memorex, and will it make it playable in my Sony DVD player. The thing is that the burn always says successful, but my DVD player can't read it. I will check my manufacturer id on the memorex, but I think it is cmc.mag.f01.
Here xdavis, try this link for your drive's firmware - you can find it anytime by using "Google" - http://www.pacificdigital.com/dl/pafiledb.php?action=category&id=6 I There's no way of knowing exactly what information is included in your firmware But to answer your question about Nec making sure your Memorex will play in your Sony, my guess is, not in 10 million years - A short definition of Firmware from the A/D Glossary says: Sort of a "operating system of the hardware", an embedded instruction set built-in or flashed into a hardware equipment, such as a router, CDR drive, DVD-ROM drive, washing machine, etc. You might want to "Google" to find out what it is, what it can and cannot do You also might want to look through of threads to see why your Memorex is an extremely lousy choice of media to use for DVD backups - Lastly, you might want to download this little tool to find out who is making your Memorex today - http://dvd.identifier.cdfreaks.com/ cheers, Pete
Scube Pete On the subject of Firmware, I only installed Nero from the Plextor 708A installation disk then downloaded DVD Shrink From the AfterDawn forum. This seem to work well, using DVD Shrink to view and or compress any disk before writnig with Nero. Is there any great advantage intalling Firmware? or am I missing the meaning or use of the term Firmware. P.S. I am thnking of installling a large Hard Disk on the Raid IDE of my system, any thoughts on this idea? Cheers Joeymac P.P.S. Good to see you still look in and assist newcomers
Went out, and bought a 50 pack of Verbatim DVD-r's. It works like a charm now. Pete once again thanks. Didn't mean to post to two forums. Just started using this yesterday.
samuels, I'm sooo very sorry I didn't cover your post - Not to worry my little Grasshopper, in time you too shall see the light (Translation: As you spend more time here you'll find out how truly important your media really is -) cheers, "P" joeymac, Welcome to our little Club, we're glad to have you onboard Firmware my friend, is a set of instructions for your burner. Among many other things, it tells your drive what discs to recognize (as new discs come out), it tells it at what speed to burn certain discs and it also updates the information your drive had when it was manufactured. It has nothing to do with the interaction of software programs on your PC. An ASPI layer, on the other hand, are a layer of drivers that help with the interaction of your software and your hardware, in other words, your DVD Drive. We want to make sure we have an ASPI layer in place on your PC. Finally, I have 3 HD's. A 120 GB for my primary C: drive and 2, 200GB HD's. One internal and one on a USB connection. All HD's are NTFS, with Primary partitions and, "I love them all equally." I'm not sure I understand, this is the place on the forum I like the best. Working with my "Newbies," ) cheers, Pete xdavis, (And yet another convert to go out and carry the word to a dark and unknowing world) You're more than welcome. It is amazing how many problems are eliminated by using the proper media when doing DVD backups Go forth young xdavis and spread the word cheers, Pete
Thanks for all the info Pete, just a small point re your info: Is it advisable/possible to upgrade Firmware ie from the Plextor website? Thanks for you patience Pete Joeymac Carpe Diem
carpe, Sure you can go there and look for your firmware - I found this for you if you don't find it else where - http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?download_id=1651 cheers, Pete
I have been following this thread and have gone off to read-up on some of this new information. If I may... "Ironbiter" began the thread with Dvd playback problems- At one point "Braxas" suggested a fix by locating and setting your burner's "DVD-Rom booktype settings". I have been studying this issue (as in "where does one make these changes") and just noticed that the new Nero upgrade version 6.3.1.20 supports this feature as well as DL media recording. I poked around in my newly upgraded Nero to see if I could find these settings and haven't yet. I would appreciate anyone who is experienced in these matters to comment. Richard
Not a very accurate statement. When DVD Video burning, the necessity of good media is a major concern. Attempting to use "el Cheapo" media may cause power calabration errors as your PC may find itself unable to even see your disc. Game copying isn't the only "game" in town - Cheers,
I had the same problem. 2 of my dvd players would not play them and some would be choppy sometimes. Since then I have burned with the correct region instead of region free and they play in all my dvd players now with no freezing etc. Try setting the correct region.
