Burn time

[Clarity3]

I have used ImgBurn for years without paying a lot of attention because 'it just works'. However recently, I had a major OS failure that required a software rebuild and reinstallation of the majority of apps, including ImgBurn.

I have just burnt a 25GB Blu ray x2 BD-RE (21GB content), which has taken 1hr 25m. As I recall, it never took that long previously and while, as I said, I never really paid a lot of attention, I think it was around the 40-50mins. Please can someone firstly confirm whether my 40-50minutes is correct before I start asking for help to work out what might be slowing the process down.

[dbminter]

Under an hour is generally the burn time I've encountered on full 2x BD-RE.

 

Do you have any other BD-RE you can try?  Particularly one from a different manufacturer?

 

It could be the BD-RE you used before is reaching the end of its life.  As BD-RE approach end of life, they don't write at the maximum rated speed for that disc.

 

Plus, it could be a fluke.  Did you try a 2nd burn?  Sometimes, for a variety of reasons, a drive will not write one particular burn at the maximum rate of speed.

[Clarity3]

Thanks for the reply.

I did try another disc as I wondered if that might be the problem but had the same result. I have also tried a second optical drive and the times are exactly the same (within seconds).

I didn't save a log file, so perhaps I should do another burn and post one, just in case there is a setting I am not seeing.

[Clarity3]

You were right!

Having tried yet another BD-RE (not new but less used) the time dropped to 38 minutes. I guess it's Murphy's Law that I would pick up two consecutive discs that had reached their EOL.

Thanks for the tip.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

Post the log from one of the burns that took a while. Maybe it’ll give us more of a clue.

[Clarity3]

Attached is the log file from one of the lengthy burns.

Interestingly, after doing a 'Full Erase' (which I assume includes a reformat), burning again, the time dropped to 38 minutes as for this disc in its earlier life.

ImgBurn_191120.log

[dbminter]

Another one of the problems could be this:

 

I 09:14:30 Media Type: BD-RE (Disc ID: CMCMAG-CN2-000)

 

CMC MAG media is the absolute worst.  Results can widely vary with that kind of media.

 

However, a reformat wouldn't explain away using CMC media.  However also, a reformat can sometimes do the trick.  For instance, if you have AnyDVD running and burn a DVD+RW disc, that disc will ALWAYS fail Verify after the burn and on every subsequent burn, even with AnyDVD NOT running, until you reformat the disc.  At least, that's what it did about a decade ago.

[Clarity3]

That's interesting. These are Verbatim discs, manufactured in Singapore and chosen for there supposed superior quality. I have elected to use Verbatim discs for the last 15+ years based on a variety of user group findings, in particularly Redfox (previously Slyfox). Up until now, I have only had problems with with other makes of disc and perhaps the odd issue with the initial 50GB versions.

I have not encountered the AnyDVD problem, probably because I heed the warning and ensure it is disabled.

I will watch the future write process times and see what happens.

[dbminter]

6 hours ago, Clarity3 said:

You were right!

Having tried yet another BD-RE (not new but less used) the time dropped to 38 minutes. I guess it's Murphy's Law that I would pick up two consecutive discs that had reached their EOL.

Thanks for the tip.

 

You can't put anything past God as to what he'll do.  For instance, I recently got a new BD burner.  It had a new firmware update that is only applied by the factory to new units.  So, there was the uncertainty of new firmware borking up.  In addition, the drive was put in a new USB enclosure I hadn't tested yet.  So, my first burn to a DVD+RW failed!    Knowing how it was most likely a trick, I put in a new, unformatted DVD+RW, and that worked!  So, the failed burn just happened to be to a DVD+RW that just happened to have reached the end of its life on my first test.  All subsequent burns have performed fine, except for an oddity.  I was burning a BD-R which completed burn, ejected the disc for Verify,, but it got locked up at Waiting for device to become ready.  A manual Verify worked fine.  I'd never encountered such a thing ever before in my 15 years of using ImgBurn. 

[dbminter]

Verbatim farms out to CMC for half of their output.  One of the CMC products is their BD-RE, so I avoid Verbatim BD-RE.  Now, Verbatm uses quality manufacturers for their BD-RE DL, not CMC crap.  My guess is CMC doesn't make DL BD, otherwise, Verbatim would use that, too.

 

Actually, CMC now OWNS Verbatim! 

[Clarity3]

That's good to know. As you see, I use 25GB BD-RE and I also use 25GB BD-R and less so BD-R DL (50GB)/BD-RE DL. Now knowing the quality of Verbatim is more suspect than in previous years, what manufacturers do you suggest for these disc types.

[dbminter]

Unfortunately, I've never found a consistent high quality BD-RE manufacturer.    Most everything is either CMC or the lesser of two evils Ritek.  So, I take Ritek, even though they don't play back properly on the PS3.  However, I mostly just use BD-RE for data purposes.  They write and read faster than CD or DVD media so I use BD-RE for things like bootable rescue media.

 

Now, in the, past, Verbatim used to make their own quality BD-RE, but not anymore.  I have 1 Verbatim BD-RE that is a quality one.  It has a white surface with blue text on it.

 

Panasonic, though, used to be something that wasn't CMC or Ritek.  Some manufacturer who uses the DID MEI.  Don't know if MEI is quality or not, though.  However, I believe the M is short for Matsushita, if that means anything in terms of quality.  I've got a stack of them, but haven't really had a chance to test them out.  The drawback to them is they're only available in inkjet printable surfaces as far as I know.  Panasonic used to make a high quality DVD-R.  Back in the first days of DVD recording, in 2002, Panasonic made a DVD-R that was $15 a pop!    But, they were quality; they're still playable 18 years after recording.  Panasonic also made a quality DVD-RAM.  I've got several DVD-RAM discs from Panasonic that are from 2002 that are still readable and still write!    Best quality media in terms of write life I've ever seen.

[LIGHTNING UK!]

From your log file...

Quote

I 11:00:33 Hardware Defect Management Active: Yes

That's why it took ages to burn. The drive was verifying as it burnt - an internal process and nothing to do with ImgBurn.

Formatting discs without spare areas gets around the drive doing that.

[Clarity3]

I take it, that's a setting I don't have control of and perhaps best not have. So, am I right in thinking for BD-RE, ensuring all three formatting setting conditions are ticked is the ideal?

How best would these three format conditions be set for BD-R?

[LIGHTNING UK!]

I’m pretty sure it defaults to formatting without spare areas. So if you do a full erase on your bd-re, it should then burn at full speed. No spare areas = no defect management = full burn speed

You don’t need to format bd-r unless you specifically want to enable that defect management feature (by formatting with spare areas).