DVDA fails - Nero succeeds!

biggles wrote on 2/24/2005, 3:23 AM
Yesterday I rushed home with a new Pioneer AO9 DVD burner to replace my AO5 (maximum 4X burn rate).

Today I tried my first burn at 8X and it was a dismal failure. I set it going and dashed off to teach my two lessons for the day (I teach part time at a nearby school). When I got home my project was sitting at 9% complete with the clock showing it had been burning for over 2 hrs - hm not good I thought. Further more it seemd to have locked up my system and even though I used the old three finger salute to crash out of DVDA, I couldn't stop the burner spinning or eject the DVD. In fact I had to reboot the system to stop the drive and eject the disk.

As an experiment I started up Nero and had a look in my designated temp folder - sure enough there were the expected AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders with all the required files safely inside. I then completed a successful 8X burn using Nero.

I guess I should try a 6X burn and a 4X burn just to see if DVDA will perform more reliably at a lower speed (pity if it does though!)

Anyone had any similar experiences?

Comments

bStro wrote on 2/24/2005, 7:03 AM
Anyone had any similar experiences?

Nope. No one. DVDA burns discs flawlessly, and always has.

;-)

Rob
ScottW wrote on 2/24/2005, 7:10 AM
In case you miss Rob's smiley, DVDA is infamous for its issues with burners. It's pretty much a roll of the dice as to whether it will burn with your particular configuration. I've found that Nero and CopyToDVD have been able to handle every burner I've thrown at them.

--Scott
BillyBoy wrote on 2/24/2005, 9:05 AM
Burning DVD's and before that CD's has ALWAYS been somewhat problematic regardless WHAT BURNER you used. While things have improved, not all applications support all burners. They never have.

I always wait to buy my burners until till SOMEBODY ELSE was the ginny pig. That seems to make sense. Some of course can't wait to buy the latest and fastest, so if that's describes you, thanks for being my ginny pig.

I remember several years back when a once popular application who's sole product was to burn CD's came out with a new version that was buggy as hell. So bad, they finally admitted it could destroy your Windows install. Unlike here, where the moderators pretty much have a hands off policy, that company had some bozo running a mailing list out of the UK, there was no forum, and this joker was under orders to filter out any post that was critical of their product. HE admitted as much to me in a email. Its wasn't Nero. The other one.

DVDA does not support as many burners as Nero. After all, that isn't the main purpose of the application. Its a DVD authoring application. With Nero, their main purpose is to burn CD's and DVD's, So of course it supports more burners. That's there core business.

Having burned hundreds of CD's and DVD's, maybe now over a thousand, I can say except for one problem with my very first DVD burner a 1X Phillips which had a acknowledged firmware problem, every problem I had and they've only been a relative few could be traced to bad media. The quality control or lack of it, concering blank media production for both CD's and DVD's is appalling. It makes no difference what brand you buy, you can get stuck with a bad batch regardless what you pay.

Example, I took the advice of several in the forum to buy the "R" brand. I got a larger bulk bundle. The first thirty or so burned perfectly. Now the last week or so the failure rate is over 50%. I further note I NEVER had a single burning problem if the media was bought as either a single or as a smaller package of 5 or ten. Every time I've had problems, it was from purchasing either a 50 or 100 pack bundle. Once I complained to a "name" manufacturer because their failure rate was equally high. They didn't send me a replacement bulk package, no, they sent me replacements each in its own jewel case. Those worked perfectly. Interesting.
biggles wrote on 2/24/2005, 9:14 PM
Thanks all - I guess my workflow is now Prep in DVDA and burn in Nero.
ngilbe wrote on 2/25/2005, 2:21 AM
For some reason I haven't worked out yet, I can prep. and burn to a DVD-RW perfectly every time which is fine for testing my DVD's,. As soon as I want to produce a final copy (DVD +R) I have to use Nero.
bStro wrote on 2/25/2005, 9:53 AM
Since DVD-RW works for you, have you tried using a DVD-R instead of a DVD+R for your final copy? Seems the logical step.

Rob