cannot burn at 4x, only 16x

[ekbrewer]

Hello,
I am having trouble burning DVD-R's at a slow speed such as 4x or 2x to increase compatibility with DVD set-top players. The DVD-R's are from Verbatim, up to 16x, w/Lightscribe. It is important to me to have the Lightscribe. Not a perfect technology, but I like it.

I checked out the disc in Nero DVD speed and it claims that the disc can only burn at 6x, 8x, 12x, 16x. Any idea why that is?

When trying to burn one of these discs from ULead or from the DVD Image Recorder, the options only allow me to choose Max or 16x. Either one I choose, it actually burns at odd speeds like 6.4x.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[BrianCee]

see here :-

http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=19118

..

[lancecarr]

One possibility is that the burner's firmware does not have a specific write strategy for that media. Check the manufacturers website for any firmware updates. (The burner's manufacturer, not the media!)

[ekbrewer]

Well, I went out and bought 2 more brands of DVD-R: Maxell 16x and Memorex 16x. I checked them out in Nero DVD Speed and both of them, as well as my original Verbatim Lightscribe 16x, only list burn speeds of 6x, 8x, 12x, and 16x. Seems like those 3 discs can't all have that anomoly. I have checked HP's website for an update firmware for the dvd940, but can't find anything.

Eric

[ekbrewer]

I checked the videohelp website and found that most newer dvd burners that are available on the market do not list speeds of 4x. 6x seems to be the lowest available burn speed.

Question: To those who prefer to burn at slow speeds of 2x or 4x for compatibility, what do you think of this?

Thanks, Eric

[heinz-oz]

Do you have problems at the slowest speed your burner can do? It can hardly be Uleads fault if your burner does not allow for slower speeds which are considered save by the majority of users. I have a new Light-On burner and generally burn at maximum without problems. It's only when there are problems, that we recommend slower burn speeds. The newer burners are probably just as efficient at 4x or 6x than what the older ones were at 2x.

Why worry about it if you don't have a problem.

[ekbrewer]

I've had some minor problems. Have burned some videos and some of them stutter, pixelate, stop temporarily on my Denon DVM1815 set top player. I'll be looking more in depth at my settings at this point.

Apparently, the disc was fine on a relative's vcr/dvd player, which can't be very high tech.

I think 1 possible cause is that I've been using data rate 9100, to match the videos that come from my Sony SR100 HDD Camcorder.

Thanks, Eric

[BrianCee]

I think 1 possible cause is that I've been using data rate 9100, to match the videos that come from my Sony SR100 HDD Camcorder.

Now you tell us - the majority of desk top DVD players are not at all happy with bitrates above 8000 - try burning at 8000 or less and see what happens.

[heinz-oz]

Here we go again. If you had given us this little detail right at the start you would have been off and running in no time.

[ekbrewer]

I've learned a lot from this board and am overall pretty happy with Ulead.

There are so many details about burning a dvd that could be posted. I chose not to post everything, since I really was trying to find out more about the lower burn speed options before I moved on to other things.

I see that several of you have provided a great deal of help to people. Software companies really should provide some type of benefit to people as generous as you.

Have been reading about the data rate in the archives, but have not been able to find general knowledge about it on the web. Will try lowering it.

Thanks again, Eric

[heinz-oz]

Don't try, just do it but wait with that until you have done all your editing. Mpeg2 editing can be troublesome, the lower the bitrate the more troublesome it gets. Render your final DVD compliant mpeg2 at a bitrate not higher than 8000 kbps and you should be fine.