Burn speed - does it really matter?

FYI I use iDVD 6 and am wondering about the burn speed issue. I was given a stack of . . . um, no yelling from the gallery please . . . TDK 16x dvd-r and I really cannot see any quality difference between a 2x, 4x, or 8x burn as some posters claim. Should I? If I use a superior dvd as suggested in the forum will it matter?
BTW I think the quality of my slideshows on my TV (4:3 18 yr old Sony 32") are beyond acceptable. Shimmering edges, pixelization, shakes etc. are not problems I've encountered but maybe this is for another post.

um, no yelling from the gallery please . . . TDK 16x dvd-r and I really cannot see any quality difference between a 2x, 4x, or 8x burn as some posters claim. Should I? If I use a superior dvd as suggested in the forum will it matter?
Depends on the burner. If you own an old pioneer DVR-103 thru 107 then I'd say yes burn speed will matter (slower is better for older systems). But if you own a Pioneer 110U or higher (found on newer systems mainly) then burn at the speed you see fit.
Can't say I'd recommend using TDK nor Memorex medias on older macs, But many newer macs have no issues at all. You may be one of those people. I would suggest you at least try using Verbatim or Maxell DVD-R and see if you notice any quality difference on your own system or set top DVD Player/s.
Now here's the thing, you may not see any visible difference today, and maybe not even in a few months. But I can almost guarantee you will see a difference in a year or two from now when the organic dyes in this lower quality media begin to fade and render your DVD (or at least parts of the DVD) unreadable.

Similar Messages

Does it really matter if Verizon reps read posts?

Just read a few posts about Verizon reps not reading the posts on this board. Though that may be true, who cares if they do or don't?
If you are an unhappy Verizon customer and you voice your opinions, others will see it. Do you not think that is powerful? Every single one of these people viewing these posts will someday in the future be faced with the decision of staying with Verizon or selecting another carrier. This site is in fact very powerful with or without the eyes of Verizon upon it. The customers are the ones that make or break a company. My experience with Verizon has been a nightmare. We are very responsible, kind people and have been treated unfairly. The customer service with Verizon has been unacceptable. We have not been customers we have been victims to their incompetence and ability to solve problems and then harassed because we won't pay the bills that are not correct. Other people need to know this. Obviously by the contents of this site, we are not alone. This is not good news for Verizon. I would NEVER recommend them to anyone. As I said, whether they see it or not, that has to matter. In my opinion they are shooting themselves in the foot with this site.

Our experience with Verizon is legitimate. Before I logged on to this site I was thinking it had to be an exception to their customer service. I thought for some unfortunate reason we had fallen victim to some bad luck with Verizon but I soon discovered different. I certainly wasn't happy to learn that anyone else had experienced what we have been going through but it opened my eyes to the truth about the way this company treats their customers when problems do occur, as they will with any cell phone company. I saw a few complaints that were unwarranted but most of what I've read associated to customer service have been parallel to what we have experienced therefore confirmed in my mind that Verizon does not care about their customers time or frustration when trying to solve a problem related to their company.

I want to purchase an ipod classic in england but i live in spain will i be able to use itunes the same way to download music, does it really matter which country you buy your ipod

does it make any difference if i buy my classic ipod in another country, i live in spain (dont speak spanish) & have itunes already on computer, but will be buying my new ipod in the uk, cheaper!

I would recommend trying to purchase an iPod in the United States. iPods sold in the EU have the volume control crippled.
http://www.amazon.com/Apple-classic-Silver-Generation-NEWEST/dp/B001F7AHY6/ref=s r_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1374103540&sr=8-2&keywords=ipod+classic

Burning speed 1x 2x ?x

I made an disk image .img file using iDVD.
I am now using the disk utility to burn that file to the dvd disks.
Does it really matter which speed I use.
Does burning at 1X have any advantage over burning at maximum speed?
-Jake

FYI,
I burned three DVDs this morning, all verbatim disks, rated for 8X (but I only have a 4X DVD burner).
Burned 1 at 4X, 2 at 1X. All three disk play fine in my Mac, my Panosonic DVD player, and my APEX DVD player. But only the disk burned at 1X plays correctly in my PS2....and I have seen this behavior before. So yes, 1X burning will work on more players.
My undereducated guess is that the laser spends more time and creates a cleaner "1" or "0" in the dye on the disc. But don't quote me on that!
Regardless, the compatibility is improved.
John B

Does the make of Blank Media I use really matter?

Brand-name vs. discount DVD blanks
In its latest issue 14/2005, c't has tested blank DVDs. There was one major finding in the test of 63 brands: the quality of the blanks is not, contrary to common opinion, relative to the purchase price. Good blanks are available at 8x burning speeds starting at 60 cents. For instance, discs from Taiwan and India sometimes offer as much quality as brands from Japan. No wonder: after all, manufacturers from less expensive production sites sometimes supply blanks to Japanese brands and have gained their expertise in the meantime. Anzeige
The biggest problem with supermarket blanks is that customers cannot easily tell from the packaging which manufacturer has made which disks. One package may even contain media from various producers. The indication of the country of origin may help consumers discern the manufacturer. However, you can only be sure if you read out the manufacturer's ID on your PC. But even here, you have to be careful: one manufacturer from the Chinese peninsula of Macao imitates the ID of a Japanese brand without attaining the quality of the original. These very inexpensive imitates produced a much larger number of burning errors.
Blank DVD-Rs had much better quality than blank DVD+Rs. The reason may be the physical differences between the two burning formats. For instance, plus media work with a higher wobble frequency and have much greater radial disturbances in the record tracks than minus blanks.
In a climatic chamber test, c't simulated the ageing of the media and discovered some surprising differences: some disks that revealed very good quality just after burning were hard to read after spending time in the climatic chamber, while others that only had mediocre recording quality withstood the climatic chamber almost without deterioration. If you want to archive your data for many years, you should choose your storage media carefully.
The great risk of burning errors is still due to burning speeds that are too fast. Fortunately, in the meantime a few manufacturers of burners and blanks have managed to produce speeds up to 16x reliably. However, many recorders try to burn 8x blanks, in particular, too fast. In such cases, you should manually slow down the burning process to prevent errors and ensure the durability of the media. c't checked the optimal burning speed for each blank based on six different burner models and gives explicit recommendations for blanks for each model.
For details on the test of blank DVDs, tips on the best combination of blanks and burners, and background information on the technology of writable DVDs, see the specialist website below, "Nomorecoasters"
http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/index.htm
Additionally, there is a freeware application you can download called "DVD Identifier". It can be found at http://dvd.identifier.cdfreaks.com/
All you need to do is load up your blank, and it will tell you exactly who made it.

Your MacBook Pro has enough compute power to do airframe stress analysis modeling or weather forecasting. This is not a computational issue.
Most USB printers do the imaging on the Mac, then send the stream of bits to the printer. The speed of doing this depends on the Printer driver.
Some drivers will image the page in "slices", and then pause to image the next slice after the first one completes. This may also depend on whether you have enough RAM memory available to do the imaging for a whole page at a time.
You have not mentioned what Printer, or whether this is indeed the latest driver for it.

Cd skipping after "burning cd" does burning a slow copy really prevent ...

I know I asked this question before but I wanted to bring it up again just 2 double check.
Cd skipping after "burning cd" does burning a slow copy really prevent your cd from skipping in lets just say "Denon" cd players?
Recently we have burned some copies and during play back on the denon sometimes they would skip and no even play the rest of the song.
What is the best way to prevent this from ever happening?

I always burn CDs at no more than 8x maximum. Preferably 2x. Call me old-fashioned but I can't see how a 48x or even 56x burn can ever work without putting tons of (hopefully correctable) errors on it.
As I understand it with let's say "Denon" cd players, if the built-in error correction algorithm is naff or the laser is slightly off then too many errors on the disc are going to show up as splunts and your CD is effectively WATF.

At what speed does DVDSP burn?

I read that burns can fail if the burner is trying to burn at a faster rate than allowed by the media. I can find no controls in DVDSP for controlling burn speed--what speed does it use and can you control that?
Thanks
Bob

In short there are no controls and DVDSP will burn at the maximum available given the speed of the media and the speed of the burner that you have got.
The only way to control burn speed is to use Toast.

I Can't Burn a CD any more! and a lower speed does nothing - HELP!

I have been burning CDs on this machine (imac 10.3.9) the same way for years and years. (7)
Up till last month.
This is what I get when I burn a playlist.
"itunes can not burn this cd because your burn speed is too fast for you cd burner or media. Choose a lower speed in the burning pane then try burning again."
I've tried that - even though that seems silly considering I've had no problems at my current settings until now. The lowest burn speed (1) gives me the same error.
I'm hating life and my mac right now, something I though I'd never say.
Anyone?

If you don't have Nero, check out http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=9229334#9229334. I think some people have found a way to get just the Burn Rights program.
If that doesn't work, some people seem to have luck with editing the registry or messing with filters or gear drivers. Check out this discussion starting with Tytus (he came up with the Nero fix) on March 22:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1939904&tstart=0
Hope this helps!

Does anyone have problems with their mac having a Medium-write error? Mine is totally out of hand... I have wasted countless CDs, I've purchased the Mac CDs, and I have tried to minimize the burn speed... The problem continues, and I need this for work.

My mac keeps saying medium-write error, and it's become out of hand. I've done all the suggested things to prevent it, by buying apple CDs, minimizing the burn speed, and restarting my computer... I need to burn CDs for my job, and I am a firm apple supporter... This is just out of control it took me 90 mins to finally burn a CD, because I had to go through 10 other CDs... HELP.

I doubt they're any better than anything else.
I may have an Apple CD-R around here somewhere...

Issues burning discs on iTunes/ error message about burn speed

I've never had problems burning discs on iTunes until today, I tried to burn one of my playlists on a Memorex CD-R.
- The burn seemed to be going OK at first, but the drive started making an obnoxious, loud noise by the 4th song out of 16.
- The progress bar in iTunes then said "burning disc, finalizing" even though the CD had not been finished.
- The drive practically launches the CD out, causing it to drop, rather than ejecting half way and holding it like usual. An error message came up saying something along the lines of, "iTunes cannot burn this CD because the burn speed is too high for the CD drive or media. Lower the burn speed in the burning pane of preferences"
- I tried it again without changing the burn speed (which I suppose was set to maximum) thinking it was something to do with the disc. The same thing happened the second time I tried to burn the disc. The reason I didn't change the burn speed when it asked me to was because I'd never been prompted about the burn speed and I've used the whole stack of these Memorex CD's without problems.
I am trying to figure out where the problem really lies - does this sound like an iTunes issue (which needs an update except that my system does as well), CD issue or a drive issue? Is there a more reasonable burn speed I should try next time?
Any help would be so appreciated, thank you!!
Message was edited by: Behnaz

Try a different brand. Highly recommended:
FUJI
TDK
Verbatim
Make sure the CDs are not dirty, smudged and/or scratched.
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=50448 How to Handle and Clean CD and DVD Discs
Your drive may need cleaning. Cleaning kits can be purchased from any store that sells CD/DVDs.
Repair permissions after each burning session.

CD burner error: Burn Speed Too Fast

Whenever I try to burn a CD on my eMac an error message says
"iTunes can't burn this CD because the burn speed is too fast for your CD burner or media. Choose a lower speed in the burning pane of iTunes Preferences then try burning again".
It even says that when the burning speed is on x1. It says that on every speed. So does anyone know how I can fix this problem and make it be able to burn CDs? Is it because I have nearly 10,000 songs on my iTunes, so that is somehow making it slow down?
The blank disc I'm using is "High Quality Pure Silver CD-R 80 Tevion"
It has 700 megabytes (80 minutes) on it, and I want to burn a CD that is 60 minutes, exactly. So, help? Thanks.

Let me see if I can help you understand your delima.
Just because you buy a very expensive Media Brand, doesn't mean it is any good. There is such a wide range of quality in CD's and DVD's it is really hard to select what is considered to be the best.
A very good guide to use for Media in general for both CD, and DVD's is below.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm
Next there are a couple of KEY points to remember when burning, these will help you.
Never have any other Applications open when burning.
I tend to use either CD-R or DVD-R Media, the reason is these 2 formats are the most widely used and recognized in all Players, and Computers alike.
Always choose the slowest speed to get a high quality burn.
This next suggestion is probably the most important.
Not all CD-R's and DVD-R's are the same
Read the packaging carefully
Many will explain that they will burn at all speeds from 1X upwards
This will help insure that your burner Software will choose the correct speed.
Don

"burn speed to fast"

When I try to burn a playlist from iTunes 4.9 I get the error message "burn speed to fast for your CD burner or media". I've tried setting the speed to X2 and even X1 and it still won't work. I've tried it as an audio cd, mp3, and data cd. There were quite a few threads about this in the last few months, but none seemed to end in a solution. I have a superdrive in a year old eMac. I have also noticed intermittent problems with it not reading purchased CD's. Could it be something as simple as getting the lens cleaned?
Please Help!

Having the same problem myself. Just started today. I burned a few CDs on Sunday, no problem. Now every time I try to burn with media that has worked before I have two things happen:
1) Not matter what media or burn speed I've selected, I get the "burn speed is to fast for your media or burner, lower it in preferences" message.
2) After adjusting the burn speed in preferences, I then try burning again. iTunes will check the media for a couple minutes and then just spit the CD out without any error message.
I've rebuilt permissions and restarted, since those are my only steps to trouble-shoot OS X. It's still doing it.
I'm seeing SEVERAL threads with this same problem from a variety of users in both iTunes 4.8 and 4.9. The only update I've applied between the last time I was able to burn and now was the most recent security update (did that yesterday).
Anyone out there finding any leads?
I'm about to try Toast, but that'll be a pain because it's a specific playlist I wanted to burn that I compiled in iTunes.
Thanks in advance...

Question about burning speeds

This has happened from new.
As you see from my Mac Pro specs, it's not daft , but when I tell it to burn a DVD or CD at x4
which is my preferred speed (nice and safe) it ignores me and does it at x8-10 varying
Importing CDs into itunes it gets up to x22ish
Does anyone know how to slow it down ?

Well, first of all, importing songs into iTunes is not the same as burning. Burning is a write operation. Importing is a read operation. (From the standpoint of the optical drive).
You can't really control the read-speed of the drive when importing into iTunes although iTunes does automatically control it if there are errors detected.
As for burning, what program are you using? I'm assuming you are using Toast if you know the actual speed at which the disc is being burned at as Finder/Disk Utility do not report this statistic. When you select 4x in toast, is the number bold? If it isn't then it isn't a recommended burning speed for your drive/media and will automatically step up to the next safest level.
Hope this helps!

Matshita UJ-846 burning speeds

I've just a got a PowerBook G.4 1.67 GHz Dual Layer Super Drive and it is a Matshita UJ-486 with firmware FAAG
and as I understand it burns DVD-R at 8x and DVD-RW at 4x but when I insert both DVD-RW or DVD-R it says in Toast
that it burn at 2x maximum, is it the media I'm using or the information I have about this drive is wrong?
Thanks for any advice

nOmada wrote:
...I insert both DVD-RW or DVD-R it says in Toast that it burn at 2x maximum, is it the media I'm using or the information I have about this drive is wrong?
Thanks for any advice
The information you have about the drive is correct. First of all, what does the media say for write speeds? If it is 8x or 16x DVD-R, it should be writable at 8x.
How to really find what is going on is to insert a blank disc and let finder show it as essentially a burn folder (but with the DVD icon). Drag any file onto that disc icon, then double click the icon to open the burn folder. Select "Burn Disc..." from the Finder's File menu and you will get a pop-up there which will have a speed setting set for the highest burn speed supported by the drive and the media (should be 8x or the media speed if it is lower for a DVD-R or DVD+R). You can then cancel that dialog and eject the disc.
If Toast still only wants to burn a higher speed disc at 2x, then that is a Toast issue, or at least is certainly looks like a Toast issue.

IDVD - what brand of disk and burn speed?

I have an ibook and bought a Sony DVD burner. I have OS 10.3.9, and the Sony DVD burner said it was MAC compatible for OS 10.4 or later. So I got Patchburn and the DVD works. However, I've got a really crappy burn when i watch it on a DVD player. I read somewhere on here that it could be the make of the blank DVD, that Verbatim's are best (why?), and that it might be my recording speed...instead of 20x perhaps 1x would be better (I believe that's what I read). My questions are this: what are good DVDs to purchase for recording, and how do I control the burning speed for the Sony or is it within iDVD?

Verbatim discs are highly recommended around here; I also like Sony discs. Higher quality discs have fewer manufacturing errors, and the better dyes are more durable/compatible. Here's a discussion:
www.digitalfaq.com/media/burnquality.htm
Slower burn speeds also mean fewer errors on the final disc. Most of the time it takes to "burn" a DVD is actually encoding the video files, so the extra time it takes to burn at 1x or 2x isn't that much different than 8x (that must be quite a burner at 20x DVDs).
To best control the burn speed, there are two options but both involve creating a disc image (in iDVD, Save a Disc Image). This virtual DVD can then be tested, and if it works well, you'll then copy the DVD onto your media. Burning the copy is accomplished with Roxio Toast or Apple's Disk Utility.
John

Burn speed - does it really matter?

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for