dvd burn issues

[cougar618]

I have a lg 4167b with the latest firmware, and i've been having issues recently.

This drive starts off well and reaches 16x, but instead of staying at 16x, it speeds up and slow down for a little bit and then just burns at 12x.

any ideas???

[hoxlund]

that is very normal, all drives cannot sustain a 16x burn all the way through

most drives however can sustain a solid 6x burn

6x and 8x is the fastest ill ever write dvds just because it stays a very steady burn all the way through

sorry tiny bit to drink

look up CLV writing on google and that should answer your question a lot better then i can

here is an quick explantion:

Zonal burning. It's pretty much impossible, at least with current hardware, to spin a disc at 16x from start to finish. Blame physics. With 4x and slower media, the drive spun up to the burn speed, and burned 4x from beginning to end, using the CLV (constant linear velocity) burning method. The disc also had a uniform look on the burned dye.

With the advent of 8x media, Z-CLV (zonal constant linear velocity) and P-CAV (partial constant angular velocity) were introduced. Z-CLV starts at a speed like 4x, then at a certain point in the media, jumps to 6x, then 8x, etc., until it reaches the maximum speed. Sometimes a 16x Z-CLV burn will only burn a few hundred MB at 16x, which is why "x" speeds mean almost nothing anymore. P-CAV is similar, but does not jump speed. It increases velocity from 4x to 4.5x to 5x, etc., until it reaches it's top speed. Much like Z-CLV, it may not hit max speed until the last 30 seconds worth of burning. This is why a 12x burn is almost an identical wait time to the speed of a 16x burn.



taken from this site here: http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/advancedconcepts.htm

its a 1/4 down the page

[cougar618]

I already know all of that stuff. My burner is suppose to burn 16 using p-cav. When it reaches 16x instead of maintainig 16x, fluctuates between 16x and 4x for while before doing 12x. It use to never do this.

[Ian]

Have you started using different media?

[cougar618]

I have been using 1 media initally, dynex. It's a store brand from bestbuy. I've honestly have never had problems with it reaching and maintaining 16x before until now. i'm including a pic that will hopefully clear things up.

[Grain]

Dynex isn't a reliable brand, some are proper media, but a lot are Chinese, and not that great. While that may not be the issue, if you were using a constantly reliable brand (Verbatim, Taiyo Yuden, Japanese Maxell) and it still happened you could safely rule media problems out. Another common problem is if your running something else in the background which is also reading from your HDD, known or unknown.

[dolphinius_rex]

I don't believe dynex uses a consistant supplier, I think they shop their orders around to various manufacturers. It's possible a new spindle you bought was manufactured by someone different then the previous spindle and your burner doesn't like these ones as much.

How's the playback?

[cougar618]

Sorry, i meant to say that I bought only 1 15 dvd spindle, and that the first couple i've used burned at 16x flawlessly. ( i only burnt maybe 10 dvds total.)

I do have maxell, and it does the same thing. However, after doing a bit of testing on CD Speed, I think I know what the problem is. I am having buffer issues. When i look at the CPU and Buffer under the create disc tab during a simulated burn, I'm getting 100% CPU activity and and the buffer has trouble staying at 100% around 15x.

[Ian]

The jagged graph and drop off suggest to me that this could also be a throughput issue. Have you checked to see if DMA is enabled?

[hoxlund]

when we burn recovery discs for customers all we ever use is dynex dvd+r

i keep a close eye on it but there always ritek

[cougar618]

After a bit of testing, i believe this is a throughtput issue. Sometimes using CD-DVD speed, i can get it to reach and maintain 16x. I initially thought that there was high CPU usage but there wasn't. But when i burn actual DVDs, the DVD burner's buffer actually starts to have trouble keeping up around 13x before it slows down to 12x. The physical memory keeps up and is at 100% the whole time though.

DMA mode 2 is enabled on my burner, and DMA Mode 6 for my HDD. They are on 2 different cables.

System specs.
A64 3000+
1.5 gigs of ram
250 gig hd split into 2 logical drives
VIA K8M800 chipset (this is a MSI SSF barebone)
nVidia 6800XT agp, (No extra power needed for this card)

While this is a issue I can live with, seeing it only takes an extra 40 secs to burn a disc, I would love for it to be resolved. I am using Nero 7 on Vista Ultimate

Thanks for your time.

[Scour]

Maybe the Via IDE-driver, try to use windows-standard-driver

[Wesociety]

Might not hurt to try using a new 80 wire IDE cable also...

[cougar618]

Ok guys... I've done some testing.
I've tried different IDE cables, but that didn't work. I also tried a different burner, the Sony DRU-710A and it did reach 16x with DVD+R media; However, my the LG sees it as a 12x max DVD, so I couldn't test it out.

All of this kinda points to the burner. However, on a different computer with Windows XP, the LG burner preformed flawlessly. CPU usage was around 20% vs 30-40% on my comp, and the burner's buffer never dipped below 80%

I also suspected the power supply, and i measured the 12v line at a whopping 13.1v! But I don't know what that means. I didn't see an increase or decrease in power while the DVD spun up and was burning. I also haven't had a chance to test a different power supply, but I guess I'll have that by Friday.

So, what do you guys think? Anything else that I should test or do?

[Scour]

Like I said, it could be a driver-issue