Slow DVD burn speed.

I'm having an issue, burning DVDs with K3b or most other software is slow. My LG DVD drive is capable of 16X speeds, I would have no problem burning at this speed under Windows XP. Under Arch I'm only burning at around 4X, you can imagine that it's quite slow. For comparison say a 4.3GB DVD takes me 3 times as long to burn, roughly 13-15min. I haven't tried burning CDs because I haven't bought them for a few years.
If this is of any help:
hdparm -I /dev/dvd | grep -i dma
DMA: sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4
Thanks for any help, I really need to resolve this because I burn DVDs quite often.
Last edited by PrimoTurbo (2008-07-22 11:53:29)

Same brand. Also I've tried at least 3 good quality brands with the same results.
Last edited by PrimoTurbo (2008-07-22 23:03:13)

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DVD Burn Speed - should I go Fast or Slow?

Please help! I am getting conflicting advice regarding the best speed to burn a DVD Video (in DVDSP, iDVD, Disk Utility etc) that will be used as a duplication master. I have read online that you should avoid slowing down the burn too much (I think because the disc dyes etc are 'optimised' for faster speeds) and that you will run into problems if you burn an 8x disc at 1 or 2x. However, a technician assures me that you should slow the burn right down and that professional duplicators and production houses never burn a DVD at its rated speed! Who is correct? Any help or links appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Burning too slow is often just as bad as burning too fast.
It's possible this may apply to the latest / newest DVD Burners on the market but not necessarily to the Burners that have been on the market for some time now like the Pioneer 103 for example. I own three separate burners, all Pionneer (103, 107, and 110U). The newest S-Drive I own is a Pioneer 110U in an ext. FW Enclosure. Originally my G4 733 came with a Pioneer 103. It still works but it now lives in an older G4 PM as a backup ... Still works great (at SLOWER BURN SPEEDS)!
But slower is better on this particular early model /S-Drive. And the same applies to the Pioneer 107. However, it does not apply to the latest Pioneer burners like the 110U, 111, nor the 112.
As pointed out in the above article you mentioned media can and often does contribute /influence the actual write speed that the drive will default to when burning a DVD. Very good article btw and thanx for bringing it to our attention.
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Slow DVD burning - how to reach maximum speed?

I've been trying to burn DVDs at the maximum speed that seems to be supported by my new MBP (8x).
However, the burn speeds seem to fluctuate around 4x-7x.
It seems that my system is fast enough to support 8x, and I'm burning large files that aren't fragmented (so no chance of the hard drive being the bottleneck imo).
Any ideas what may be slowing things down and for any workarounds?
Thanks!

I doubt it has to do with the media - I'm using quality Verbatim 16x certified DVD+R media.
Also, I'm not doing anything at the same time when it is maxing at 4-7x, but on the other hand when I am doing many things in parallel to burning (playing an mp3, decompressing a large zip, doing massive downloads, all at the same time), this maximum speed doesn't seem to be adversely affected.
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Dvd burn speeds way to slow

Why can I only burn dvds at 1x and 2x? I have the newest version of the pb and it should be able to burn at 8x.....can anyone tell me whats going on?

Dustin
I have come upon the problem you seem to be experiencing with both my Mac minis. Neither of them have been able to burn at anything more than 2x - even then it is only with certain media. Both superdrives are the UJ-835, is yours the same?
I have not found a solution to the problem other than replace the drive. I now use an external DVD burner with the minis for more urgent DVD burning.
15" 1.25GHz/12" 1GHz PBs, PPC Mac minis, 12" iBooks G3/G4, Mac OS X (10.4.5) Cube, TAMs, iPods 2G/4G, iPs, AEBS, AX

DVD burn speed options?

I've been told conflicting things in regards to burning DVDs. I understand that the speed listed for the DVD is how FAST you can burn. What I'm looking to confirm is whether you can burn at slower speeds on a DVD regardless of how FAST it is listed as. For instance, can you burn at 1x speed with a DVD-R that is rated as 8x?

Other than timing the burn from the point it finishes the lead in to the point it starts the lead out, I'm not sure there is a way in Toast 6. Toast 8 shows the speed that the disc is currently burning at as it's going.
On Toast 6, if you check the burn speed pull-down menu after it's read the disc and indicated that there's a blank disc in the drive, do some of the burn speeds show in bold and others show in italics? The bold ones are the speeds that the disc officially supports - the italic ones are the speeds that Toast can "force".

Max DVD burn speed 2x!?!

Hey all, is anyone else not getting full burn speed on their iMacs? Mine only gives me the option of 2x as the fastest. My external LaCie will let me burn at 4x with the same media. What gives?

Let me see if I can help out.
Just because your drive says it is capable of 8X doesn't mean it will burn at 8X.
Depending on what you are using to try to burn with in the way of software, I suggest you burn at a slower Speed. like 2X. Apples Software is entry level and it works but many users find harder to use than the top of the line in burning software like Roxio's Toast 7.
Here is the explination on the different DVD's.
http://www.videohelp.com/dvd
Just bear one thing in mind.
When it comes to DVD Players, Formats, and Burners, of the hundreds of different manufactures, All are opting to be the Industry Standard, and it appears they insert there little chinks that almost force users to use there products exclusively.
There is always a backlash from these marketing ploys.
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First check in your particular profiler on EXACTLY what type(FORMAT) of DISK's your burner will burn.
Next please do not just randomly go out and buy a spool of 30 50 or 100 disc's because they are on sale.
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There is also a HUGE Difference in the SPEED of the media you choose.
If any one or a combination of any of the 3 mentioned above can cause burn error's or no burn at all or spit the disk out.
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(ONE LAST NOTE)
Many of the Media Manufactures are becomming aware that many of the Apple Burners are having trouble with there Media. Maxell has just come out with a brand new one that is. Maxell 16X DVD-R.
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Cheers Don

DVD burning speed dropped

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Thanks
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In Toast you can select the burn speed you want up to the maximum your Superdrive will allow.
But there is a lot to be said for using lower burn speeds: 2x or 4x max.
Using 16x DVD media is fine - in fact it is difficult to buy any other - but there is a consensus in the Apple Support Forums that a slower burn is a better burn and that the most reliable brands are Verbatim, Maxell and Fuji, all DVD-R, burned at 2x or 4x (slow burns are better burns!). I always use Toast for burning.
I generally use Verbatim and when I can't get those, Fuji, and have never had a coaster from either.
Plenty of coasters in the early days from Sony, TDK and a few others.
The term "Best" means the fastest speed that the drive told Toast it can write to a specific disc. The drive's firmware and info on the disc decide what speed burns are available. When you press the speed setting button in Toast (after inserting a disc) you'll likely see some speeds in italics and some in bold face. The ones in bold face are supported by that media on that drive. The fastest one is what Toast calls Best.
Audio CDs in particular should be burned at the lowest supported speed.
Verification is a good indicator the disc is burned okay. However, other DVD players can still have problems with the disc. Media problems with various drives is not uncommon. Slower burning may reduce the chance of those problems, and is one of the reasons why RW (read/write) media is always rated slower than DVD-R.
There are some interesting facts here:
http://www.osta.org/technology/dvdqa/dvdqa4.htm and here:
http://www.osta.org/technology/dvdqa/dvdqa4.htm
But many will tell you that the 'slower burn is best' theory is outdated, as in this useful article:
http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/media/dvd-media-concepts.htm
Who really knows? At the end of the day, if your home-made DVD was verified by Toast and will play anywhere on anybody's DVD player, then that is the result we are all after!

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After installation, I burned a DVD of previously recorded material that I had also burned on the old drive.
Much to my disgust, the new 8x drive using the same 8x rated media burned at the same old 2x speed!
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Then there a manufacture ID with a MORE button that takes you to a web site that tells you all about the reliability of the media and even comments from users.
The surprising thing for me was that even though the disk is labeled 8X, Toast rated it for much lower speeds. And it only burned at 2X
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http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm
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Toast isn't doing the speed limiting, the drive is telling Toast what it can burn the disc at.
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Slow DL burn speeds with DVR-112D

Hi guys,
hopefully someone out there can sort me out!
OK. Mac Pro with DVD-RW DVR-112D Pioneer drive. Firmware revision is AC08. Using Toast 8.0.1 to burn.
Recently bought 8x Datawrite DVD+R DL discs.
The problem is Toast only burns them at 2x. Even in the speed drop down in Toast only "Best" and "2x" appear as a speed options.
What gives? How can I burn at 8x? Is it Apple's firmware slowing things up?
For the record I get better speeds from Verbatim DVD+R DL 2.4x discs (about 4x-5x).
Thanks in advance,
d0zer

Different brands of discs can burn at different speeds in one drive. The same brand can burn at different speeds in different drives. When a blank is inserted, the drives reads information from the disk to determine possible burn speeds. Different model drives, or even just different firmware versions, have different capabilities.
The first Verbatim DVD+R DL discs I bought had 2.4X printed on the box, but there was a yellow sticker saying up to 8X with some drives. The latest ones still say 2.4X, but there is now a yellow box (printed, not a sticker) that says "up to 6X speed with compatible high speed DVD+R DL drives". Disk Utility burns old and new ones at 8X with no verify errors.
I have a Pioneer DVD-RW DVR-110 with version 1.41 firmware. A DVR-112 should do at least as well, unless the Apple firmware limits it.
If you want the high burn speed, you will have to buy the Verbatim disks.

DVD Burn Speed

Sorry if this is a stupid question. But I want to how do I find out what the burn speed/rate a dvd is burning? As I've read that lots of people are only getting 2x.
Thanks

I've had the same problems with burning speed and
found that you won't get more than 2 x with an 8 x
DVD-R. I was using 8 x TDK and they wouldn't burn at
more than 2 x. I then switched to 16 x discs and they
burn at 8 x with no problems at all. This applies to
both TDK and Verbatim disks.
20" Intel Imac Mac OS X
(10.4.7)
I've been using 8X TDK DVD-R discs (single layer) and always get the full 8X burn speed.

DVD burner speed

When I first got my computer (17" Macbook Pro), the DVD burner worked fine. I was able to burn at max speed - 8x, have a DVD done in under 10 minutes. At that point I was using Memorex blanks.
When I ran out of them, I didn't want to spend that much money on more, so got some generic staples brand. Even though they were labeled 8x compatible, they would only burn at 2x max. This was quite annoying, as it took about /2 hour now, but I ascribed it to the fact that they were cheap quality, and it was the price to pay for my frugality. However, I just bought a new stack of DVDs, this time Imation, supposed to be good upto 16x, but I am experiencing the same problem, being able to burn at no more then 2x still, so I now feel it may be something with the drive. Does anyone know what might be causing this problem? I have tried using both toast and disk utility, and both do the same thing...

Welcome to the discussions,
I am sure that most users are not aware of the big difference in the Media.
http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm
In a nutshell there are several things that can, and do affect the quality and speed of your project.
The Media you purchase.
The Burning Software you use.
The burner you have in your machine.
Any one or combination of the above can effect the project.
There are so many Formats, and differences in the formats that the casual user is not aware of the differences.
http://www.videohelp.com/dvd
The sad thing is that there are no step by step instruction and information to explain the in's and out's of copying DVD's in
Audio.
Data.
Video.
You will find that upwards of 95% of all burning issues are caused by using cheap or poor quality media or using the improper format of disc's.
There are so many restrictions placed on the Firmware of the Optical Drives used there in, is the problem.
That is the reason I recommend using DVD-R media and I also recommend the use of the newer 16X media that will support burning at 1X through 16X.
I also recommend letting the software do the work in Automatic rather then fiddleing with the burning speed.
So as you can see, the use of a high quality media and the correct format will make a very big difference. The guide I supplied above will give you the right direction. I personally use Maxell 16X DVD-R the reason I use this media, it is the highest quality, and the speed will allow you to use this media in older Optical Drives as well as the newest. This media or one like it will support just about all burners.
Hopefully this should help
Don

Slow DVD Burning when using IDE card

I have a DVD burner plugged into an ide card and it only burns DVD-R at 2x. If I plug it straight into the board it burns at normal speed (12-16x). How do I configure the board to accept the ide card so that the drive burns at the proper speed?
During startup, raid detects the DVD drive model and indicates UltraDMA mode 4. For bios settings bus mastering is enabled and onboard ide is disabled. If I enable onboard IDE then the computer won't boot, so it is disabled. I am using dvd decrypter for burning and verbatim DVD-R's.
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Quote from: Leroy_2000 on 13-November-07, 13:49:11
Hence what a forum is all about.
Sorry that I only now found this thread but glad to see you worked it all out. I have the same promise controller card laying in a drawer collecting dust right now for the same reason. I did get it to work but it was very unreliable on my K8N board. Because of this, I now only use 2 of my burners so that each can be a master connected to independent channels on the motherboard. I did away with all other IDE drives on this system and now have 4 SATA drives running happily. I may look into purchasing one of those controllers like yours, and reconfigure. I have having my 4 300GB PATA drives collecting dust.

DVD Burn Speed/Media?

Where can I find a list of media burn speeds? If I use any non apple media the fastest burn speed I can get with iDVD/Toast or anything else is 1x. Thanks, Brad

Thanks Len,
I did have to update my 15" flat panal iMac, and checked the 17". By my read of this article I think that both should be able to read at 2x...so I was looking for a list or a database that would tell me which media would be compatable with 2x reading on the 17" flat panal iMac. Perhaps such a list does not exist!
Brad

Very slow DVD burning & any monitoring software?

Although I've owned my iMac for months I've only just tried burning some data DVDs from Finder and the speed is unbelievably slow - though successful. I'd estimate its running at 1x or 2x
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iMac Core Duo 1GB Mac OS X (10.4.8)

The area you are interested in is iMac > Intel-based iMac > Using DVDs and CDs with your Intel-based iMac.

Slow DVD burn speed.

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