Burner, DVDs? Which?

dukerss wrote on 2/16/2006, 11:58 AM

Hi, I have a nice new (6 months) Sony computer media center with a Pentium D and the standard equiped burner. When making DVDs (Maxell DVD+R) they only work on about 80% of the dvd players, whereas when I use my old computers that use a Pioneer 108 burner-100& compatability. So I have to keep using my high powered sony to render/edit etc, then move the file to my old computer to burn that has the pioneer 108.
My question... Is there an external or possible internal burner anyone uses or could recommened that will be the most compatible wuth dvd plares? Also I use Maxell DVD +Rs, is that possibly why I'm missing the other 20% campatability?
Thank you, any tried and trusted help would be really appreciated!!
Dukerss

Comments

ScottW wrote on 2/16/2006, 1:18 PM

Are you burning single layer or double layer? If you are burning double layer, the pioneer burner will automatically burn the +R with a booktype of DVD-ROM, which provides close to 100% compatability with players.

If you're burning SL, then I can't explain it - normally you would expect about 80% compatability with +R media when burned with a booktype of +R.

Maxell media is generally considered in the professional grade catagory, so I wouldn't expect it to be a media issue.

--Scott

qsnow1 wrote on 2/18/2006, 10:02 AM

Could the new burner be faster than the old one? It seems a lot of times slowing the burning process down help compatibility.

johnmeyer wrote on 2/18/2006, 10:26 AM

-R used to be considered more compatible than +R. Try changing from + to -.

There is some bogus and just plain bad Maxell media out there. I got some on a rebate deal and it is some of the worst media I've ever had. You can test this yourself -- and you really MUST test it yourself -- in order to know what is going on. You can test different media, different burn speeds and different burners, and then test the resulting discs using CD/DVD Speed, a free utility from Nero. It will tell you various things about how readable the disc is.

So, my recommendation is to change to -R, test your existing media, and change media vendor to something other than Maxell (Taiyo Yuden is my recommendation).

You should also get some software that reads the media ID that is encoded on every blank DVD. While this can be faked, usually it provides accurate identification of what you've really got. The label on the disc really doesn't tell you anything. Lots more info over at dvdhelp.com.