dbminter

LUK, do you remember in a previous post I made where I was in Build mode and the ISO9660 label field suddenly turned into all Asian characters after I dragged and dropped some data in the Advanced interface? Well, it happened again! I can't recreate it because it appears to be random. Or, rather, there's a cause, but since I don't know how to trigger it, I won't know when it will pop up. This is similar to another random issue in the Advanced interface I once mentioned years ago that still happens randomly. I'll drag and drop a folder or a series of folders and instead of the folder/folders I selected, a different folder appears in the job. Even if I selected multiple folders, only one folder appears in the job. I've also had this happen with files, too.

What exactly is the Buffer? A buffer in system memory as opposed to a memory buffer on the burner itself, which would be the Device Buffer? And does the Buffer pass information to the Device Buffer? I would think so, given it would make sense to send a chunk of information into system memory, which would be larger, and then filter pieces down to the burner itself.

Verbatim has discontinued manufacture of its Lightscribe DVD-R's according to Amazon.com. They've sold out of their stock; I got the last 50 stack it seems. Only resellers have it listed now. At least the prices aren't outrageous... yet!

You'll want to look for something like this in Verbatims: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005F2YPH2/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I live in the United States so I get them from Amazon.com. Where you live, your mileage may differ. You'll also want to try and get the DataLife ones made in Singapore. Like these: http://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-DataLifePlus-Printable-50-Disc-98319/dp/B00DT6OWFG/ref=dp_ob_title_ce It will say so on the white label on the outside of DataLife Plus brand. I think they may have switched to United Arab Emirates now. I've not tested those yet to see if they're MKM's and if they write okay. The Singapore I used to get are no longer sold by Amazon.com, only through resellers selling 50 of them for between $130 and $280! The ones Amazon.com sells now are white inkjet hub printable ones made in UAE rather the non hub printable ones I used to get from Singapore. The above links are ones I've used before with very few failures that weren't down to a failing drive. Except, as I said, I've not tried the UAE made ones yet.

The track size was the first thing I noticed, too. Had no idea what could be done to fix it, though.

MKM's are Verbatims. MKM is part of the Disc ID, the string on a disc that identifies its manufacturer. Well, ideally it does. Sometimes they're faked, like past fake Sony discs were made with SONY in their Disc ID.

Have you used those Ricoh DVD+R DL discs before? i.e. were you able to write to them before and now you can't? The usual cause of write errors for DVD+R DL's is inferior quality discs. Verbatim MKM's are the preferred choice for DVD+R DL. While I've used Ricoh DVD+R DL's before in the past without problems, I've only used a few because I could find them at Office Depot, and I needed them immediately versus waiting for Amazon.com Verbatims. The peripheral device error is probably specific to using a USB burner. However, it could be down to the media not being liked by the drive. Again, have you used these discs before in this drive? Most people's DVD+R DL write problems go away when they use Verbatim DVD+R DL instead of whatever they're using.

So, what is the maximum MB / min size a pressed CD can be?

I remember PrimeDisc. They made the first DVD-R's I ever bought in bulk. From Shop4Tech, back before I put them on my list. Before, the only DVD-R's I could get were $15 a pop from a local Sears. They were quality, though, made by Panasonic.

Funny, I've never heard of them before. The highest I ever heard of was 700 MB/80 Min.

Are they supported by all drives? I checked Amazon.com and saw only 1 entry. TDK's that were only in limited stock. And the sticker on them had Japanese so I'm guessing they're imports. I had never heard of them before.

I created a CD sized project, or so I thought. ImgBurn said there it was 98% of a CD size. Image size was listed as 905,445,376 bytes. Free space was listed as 15,837,184 bytes. But, an 80 minute CD-R is only 700 MB, so when I try to burn this image to a CD-R, it says it wants to overburn it. It's obviously over 700 MB since it's just under 906,000,000 bytes. Why does ImgBurn return that this is only 98% of a CD image and says there's space left when it won't fit on what I think is the largest sized CD-R they make? Do pressed CD's have a slightly larger available space than a CD-R and the listed size as a CD is a pressed CD size? EDIT: I noticed on the bottom bar, ImgBurn returns that the target size is CD (790 MiB / 90 Min). But, the one that fits on a CD-R is the one listed as, of course, 700 MiB / 80 Min. Is there such a thing as a 790 MiB / 90 Min CD-R? Or is it like I said above that 790 MiB / 90 Min CD image size is the maximum size of a pressed CD?

I've seen this happen on just about every drive I've ever owned. I'll put in a Verbatim MKM 8x DVD+R DL that, randomly, only writes at 4x max. ImgBurn is set to write at MAX. ImgBurn says that 8x is available for these discs before the burn starts. Yet, sometimes, and it appears to be random, that it only writes at 4x. Is there a particular reason for this? Or is it again down to just whatever the drive returns for the maximum write rate?

What's WOPC?

The Device Buffer on this Pioneer is also different from my other drives. I don't think I've ever had a drive where the Device Buffer ever fluctuated from 99 or 100%. This drive does. It jumps all over the place from 70% to 100% during a burn. However, some drives apparently just do this and it's not an issue, from other posts I've seen in the past.

Yeah, my LG was slower at Verifying everything.

For some reason, the write strategy on DVD-R's I use goes to about 8x, then drops down to 0 for a few seconds before resuming climbing back up to where it was when it dipped. DVD-RW also has an odd idioscyncrisy. It seems to Verify at a slower rate than any other media. DVD-RW verifies at about up to 8x only.

Are the write rates sometimes an estimate? I ask because of this line in a log: I 14:15:58 Operation Successfully Completed! - Duration: 00:00:19 I 14:15:58 Average Write Rate: 117,261 KiB/s (86.7x) - Maximum Write Rate: 117,261 KiB/s (86.7x) Notice how the Average and the Maximum Write Rates are the same. The odd thing is I actually watched the write to HDD image and it said at some point it was writing at 155x! So, I don't know why the Maximum Write Rate isn't 155.

I remember reading several years ago somewhere online that Alcohol supposedly supported up to 32 virtual drives. I said at the time, "How can that be? There are only 26 letters in the alphabet!" Unless they did something DD: Wow, I randomly chose DD: Guess where my subconscious must be!

This is probably a silly question as I can probably guess the answer, but what is the maximum number of drive letters allowed in Windows? The logical answer is, of course, 26, one for each letter of the alphabet. But, is that really the limit?

Noticed this in the log when writing an 8x Ridata DVD+RW: I 17:50:56 Destination Media Supported Write Speeds: 3.3x, 6x, 8x Why would it report such an odd value like 3.3x instead of 4.0x or even 4.1x? Is it just whatever the drive is returning?

Well, after some initial misgivings given my first results, I've decided to keep this drive. I've completed most of my other tests and this drive does pretty much what I need it to do. I haven't tested it with Ritdata 6x DVD-RW, Maxell 4x DVD+RW, or Ritek 4x DVD-RW, but it does write fine to Ridata 8x DVD+RW. So, even if it doesn't write to this media, as some LiteOns don't write to Ridata 6x DVD+RW, I can use something else. I had no problems writing to Ritek Memorex BD-RE so writing to Verbatim BD-RE, which hasn't been tested, shouldn't be a problem. There are some things I wish the drive did better. Like the jumping between 4x, 6x, and 8x speeds on writing DVD+R DL, but I've had LiteOns do the same. I've also had Optiarc/Sony and LG that jump straight to 8x. I also don't like writing 8x DVD+RW at 6x first then jumping to 8x. But, I've only ever had Optiarc/Sony that jumped straight to 8x, so, I can live with it.

Hm, looks like maybe this drive doesn't support it, anyway? I tried changing it, even saving it to the drive, but when I'd go back in and check the setting again in advanced settings, it still said disabled. I never actually tried a burn to see if the log said it changed the setting. I don't want to burn at just 4x or 8x.

It's disabled by default. Is there any reason that I should maybe not enable it?

Makes sense.