Here's my rule of thumb - I burn at half of what the drive supports as long as the media supports it. Example 16x drive - 8x media = burn speed 8x. If the media was rated 4x than it would be 4x. For the 8x burner even using 8x media I only burn at 4x. I hope this make sense!
I usually keep my burns at 4x, once in awhile I burn higher with my Plextor but I know that drive can handle it. You never know when you may want to backup your backup and you don't want to find out it has CRC errors in it. I have had that happen on some of my older Memorex backups, besides the media being crappy the higher burn speed does not help. You really only save a few minutes in the end with a higher burn speed. But you can find out how drive does at these speeds by doing some scans on your burned disks and seeing what speed works best for you. You can use Nero to scan/verify your disk.
almimac: I found that most of my coaster problems went away after I put more ram in my PC. I would really recommend you put at least another 512mb stick in. That way, Nero has some room to work. Good luck!
I wonder if part of his problem is upgrading to the new ver 7 of Nero.. I've heard some bad reviews about that software so far.... http://www.afterdawn.com/news/archive/6929.cfm
i was getting the problems before i was using 7.. its why i went to it actually, heh :/ ill start burning at 4x.. speed difference isnt really that noticeable.. doesnt bother me anyway.. found a good price on some riteks, and know someone whos gotten them from this place.. but i wanna make sure they're legits.. how would i go about that? Get him to run some test program on them or look for a number/made in <whatever> thing?
actually, the Riteks you found in AUS, are they Ritek branded (Ridata) or are they manufactured by Ritek as per the media ID coding? ok..that may be VERY confusing to you...uhm... try running one of those Riteks that your mate has through a dvd identifier program to find out the manufacturer: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmediaform.php?dvdinfo=1#dvdinfo take your pick which program you want to use, both do the same thing. Riteks are good media for me, i prefer the 8x dvd-r G05 coded ones ditch that TDK crap, i am one of THE MOST fervent people AGAINST that crappy a$$ TTG02 coding...the TTG01s are equally as crappy~ let us know, we'll then take it from there...and yes, keep ur burns @4x~ docTY~
