try burning in a3rd party app too, like nero.

hi Kenny, just talked to Sony. who couldn't help me... seems I must take the pc apart to get the model number off the chassis bc they don't recognize it. Tried one at 6x just now, it worked. I'm disappointed. Misrepresentations to capabilities cost money and leave a bad taste in the mouth. Thanks for helping!

I did, same thing, but see the other response... it's the drive. If you have a DW-Q120A, don't use 8x... it can't handle it apparently. Thanks, Friar.

There are many factors that go into the system that could cause a failure of writing at x&y speeds.

CD capability (drive)
CD capability (disc) - regardless of what the manufacturers state
HDD sustained read ability
DMA/PIO settings
Processes going on at same time
+ more.

Discs tend to be a big thing - it really does make a huge difference using cheap/decent branded discs. What discs are you using?

You didn't say what kind of failure you are having. If the burn fails with an error message, that is one set of problems. If the burn completes with no errors, but the disc fails to play in your DVD player, that's a somewhat different set of problems.

Reading between the lines, it sounds like the burn didn't complete, or completed with an error message. This can be due to all the things already mentioned (bad media, defective drive, and improper support of your specific burner by the software you are using. You didn't specify which version of DVDA you are using). Some of the early versions did not support some Sony drives very well. Using a later version of DVDA, or using DVDA to prepare and Nero to burn will solve that problem. The version of the software can also affect whether you can burn at all speeds.

Finally, some media will not burn at rated speed on every burner. I recently lost my wonderful Plextor 760A and they replaced it under warranty with a PX-800A. This newer drive is inferior in every way and one of the many bad things is that it will not burn one brand of media that is rated at 8x at any speed beyond 2.4x. Normally one can get a firmware upgrade to solve these kinds of problems, and you certainly should do that with your drive, if you don't have the latest firmware.

I've been using Verbatim discs, dvd-r, inkjet hub printable, which seem pretty nice. In my situation, as I mentioned above... when I burned them at 6x instead of 8 ... they all worked.

John, in each instance it said completed with no errors... interestingly it only displayed the "would you like to burn another" box twice, all the other times it said "command completed successfully with no errors" along with a details list.

I'm using DVDA 3.0c build 133. I'll upgrade when I can swing it. I'll also be updating the firmware for the drive, as I did that recently on my audio interface, a PreSonus Firebox, and it works much better now. I thought it was strange though that the "model number" isn't really the model number and I need to pull it to check... sigh. Sorry to hear about your Plextor... that sort of thing is disillusioning when good stuff is replaced by inferior product.

Since in the end it turned out fine by burning them successfully at 6x, it is likely in this setup a media/drive interaction phenomena. At least I've learned a bunch of important stuff!

I want to thank all of you for all your help... I hope I can reciprocate somehow.

Be well,
Iggy

One other thing to suggest. I still think it would be worthwhile to update the firmware in the drive and upgrade to DVDA 4 or else use Nero to burn (you can get an older version of Nero on eBay for almost nothing).

The other thing to do is use CD/DVD Speed to test the burn. You can get this free utility by clicking on the link I just provided. Use the "Disc Quality" tab for the test. If you can, test in a drive other than the one you used to burn. If you get a really low "quality score" then you should also consider trying some other media. Verbatim is supposed to be really good, but I think they have certain brands that are not the top line stuff. The Taiyo Yuden Premium brand (available at Meritline and Supermediastore) are usually considered the best.

The maximum burn speed advertised on drives and media is always a bit optimistic.
In the best of worlds you could burn at max, but there are lots of reasons not too -- buffers, bus traffic, media imperfections, jitter errors, random bit errors -- maybe it will play and maybe it won't, but it's always best practice to throttle back a notch or two to get a 100% success rate. JMO