I wouldn't even bother to burn at 4x. If the disk is rated at 8x, it's able to do a good job at 8x.

In my own experience, the only factor behind some disks failing to play properly was the label--some DVD players just can't stand full-face paper labels. Other than that, I've never had an instance (with many hundreds of DVDs burned to date) of a case where an 8x burn wouldn't play, but a 4x would.

But to each his own.

I have also found Nero to write faster on the same media. For some reason DVDA writes slower than the selected speed - say 8x. Theoretically an 8x DVD should take about 8 minutes (and does in Nero) however DVDA takes about 11.5 minutes to write the 8x DVD.

Duncan

Ill try that at 8x
Funny thing and I thought I remember a post somewhere talking about this. but when DVDA burned the project at 8x the actual burned area on the disc is about 1/4 the size of the area on the 4x
Why is that ?
They both play fine as far as I can tell on 3 different players.

I have to very strongly disagree on the issue of relationship between burning speed and playability!
I have found that even if both the recorder and the media support 16x speed, the 16 burn could (if ever) barely be open even in a DVD-ROM, and I don't need to even bother trying it in DVD player.
I had some experience with players that wouldn't play a DVD that was burned at 4x or 8x, but it would play fine the ones burned at 1x or 2x. Everything else was the same, only the burning speed was different.

So, my recommendation to everyone is; you will have to choose between burn speed/saving of time, and quality/playability.
If you want to make sure your DVDs will be compatible with most players possible, burn at the lowest speed possible!
And if compatibility is not an issue, and you know the DVDs even burned at maximum speed will play fine, then save some time and use maximum burning speed!

My experience has been mainly with the cheapest brands of DVD burners like Emprex, and DVD media like GQ (Great Quality).
I have found that even the cheapest burners and media can be used as long as you know how to use them.
I haven't seen much difference between the Emprex and Plextor DVD burners I have. In fact, my Plextor SATA DVD burner (PX-712A) had more issues than Emprex. Emprex had zero problems.
I haven't tried more expensive media, it may prove better at higher speeds (or any speeds for that matter).

I have not seen that relationship.

I use Sony (3) DRU-710A writers with TDK -R media ($18/50 on sale). I have shipped at least 50 in the last month written at speeds of 8x and 16x and have had not one complaint from any of my customers.

I also back up my personal DVDs using Shrink 3.1 and burn with Nero 7 Ultra at 16x and have no problems with playback on either Toshiba or Sony home theater systems.

Regards,
Duncan

Two things.

First, DVDA can have problems writing to certain DVD burners. My IT-supplied IBM 'puter at work came with a Samsung multi-burner in it that DVDA won't write the lead-out to. My Pioneer 105 and A07 burners at home work fine, but neither of them write at 8x--a waste of (initially) more expensive media.

Your observation that your burner seems to write less area physically is a warning.

Very likely your DVD does not have the lead-out written. (The DVD is not "closed.") I have found that some players will still play the DVD (a tribute to the player!) but if I try to dupe the DVD in a standalone DVD duplicator like our Microboards, I get an "error master" warning, telling me the DVD is not to spec. Sure enough, when I inspect the DVD, there's only about 3/8" written from the center out, instead of the 5/8" or so that's normal for a minimum-burn for a 3-5 minute program.

Answer is to use DVDA to "Prepare DVD" not "Prepare and Burn" then burn the TS folders "Prepare" creates to the DVD using Sonic Record Now (authorized burning software that came with the machine) because it is compatible with the Samsung Multiburner.

The fact that your DVD plays in different players does NOT mean it was burned to spec.

Secondly, be aware of cheap media.

We had a situation where the DVD's menu stayed up on the screen all day for days at a time, using an Pioneer 7400 industrial player. After a week or so, the show would pixilate and then crash about 30 seconds after hitting "play." Because the DVD just sat there spinning on the same section of the DVD for hours, it seems the Pioneer 7400 was somehow also "pre-reading" about 30 seconds forward...and slowing "erasing" or fading the dyes at that point in the show.

We switched from no-name media to Verbatim media and have never had a problem since. That no-name media also failed to burn well in our Panasonic DVD desktop player/recorder. Verbatim works great. Never fails.

Not sure how it is now, but in the early days our rule was if you held the media up to a light and could see through it, its dye surface was too thin. Good media was "thicker." That was before we switched to media we could directly inkjet print onto, so now I can't do that test. We use reliable, name-brand media. Always.

You may not park your DVD on screen for hours and hours, but the fact that it could be partially erased by the playback laser is bad news. How long will that DVD last in an archival sense if even the player can erase it? Will sunlight or other time and light factors cause it to degrade? Will that DVD work in 5 to 10 years? If they can fail in a week of continuous pause, they can fail eventually. You may not think anyone's interested in playing your DVD in 10 years, but we have One-Inch, Betacam and 3/4" tape archives that are 20 and 30 years old now, not counting 16mm film that goes back to the 1940's. The creators are long retired. But I still use those source reels.

I have my doubts about how long non-pressed (burned) DVDs will last. Five years? That's not much time in terms of family history videos that might be viewed for generations.

Just be very careful as I've had a major problem using RecordNow to burn DVDs, it's a very subtle one that took a while to diagnose.
A DVD-Video is NOT the same as a DVD-ROM. Both are UDF however the spec for DVD-Video only allows for 8.3 file and path names. Now DVDA only prepares using those conventions HOWEVER if you create a UDF disk without the 8.3 restriction in the TOC even though the file and folder names are limited to 8.3 some players will refuse to play them, period!
Main culprits are the DVD recorder / VHS combo machines, almost every other DVD player seems quite happy reading the TOC regardless of the 8.3 compliance.

As to burn speed, in GENERAL slower speeds do NOT give better results, worst results typically come from 1x burns of either CDs or DVDs. The lower rotational speed means less gyro stabilisation of the media during the burn resulting in higher jitter. Without expensive hardware analysers you'll never discover this small factor, I can approximate these results on CDs using Plextools looking at the level of C1 errors which isn't the same as measuring jitter but it does confirm what my supplier advised me, low speed burning for better 'quality' is not only wasting time you're getting a worse burn.
Optimal speeds seem to be 20x for audio CDs and 4x for DVDs.
Bob.

With Nero 5 & 6 over several years, I've encountered no burn problems I can associate with the Nero Program. Nero 7 is too new right now, and needs an upcoming update to fix many reported bugs.

Nero is very good about not re-encoding DVD compliant MPEG-2 files. If you properly encode in Vegas, Nero will use the file as produced from Vegas. You keep the Vegas quality.

I routinely prepare an .nrg, as part of my project "close out", either keeping it on the drive or backing it up as data disk.. Making those needed extra copies later on from the .nrg is a real convenience. As John pointed out, making multiple copies during your "first printing" is highly automated and doesn't require a .nrg.

A Plextor 708 8x burner (firewired) and Verbatim discs do the burning for anything going to someone else. The Plextor decides the burn speed for the media.

The information I have seen regarding incompatibilites pointed towards the players & media quality as the key reasons that any DVD compliant disc does/doesn't work in any particular player. Thankfully, the older players (the most problematic) are continually becoming a smaller percentage of the total out there.

Disc quality remains an important, elusive issue. Verbatim has provided stable results on a variety of players for me - so I stick with it for client discs.

There are lots of websites that really go deeply into the burn error thing. Here's an example. But again, if you are using a quality media, it will burn beautifully at the rated speed, meaning that the error rate will fall well within the official limits.

I've used Ritek G05 (8x DVD-R) almost exclusively, and have NEVER had issues related to burn speed, even though every disk has been burned at 8x on a Pioneer 107. This is based on a set comprised of many hundreds of disks.

My Ritek G05 disks glitch out on my Sony dual DVD-VHS player. I have about a hundred of them and am only using them for data backup.

I guess I feel, "glitch on one player, glitch on others."

Switched to Sony and Memorex disks.

Kirk

Interesting...Kirk
well after trying the discs in 3 of my players I gave out copies to a few people to try.
I gave out 3 disc's:

1 memorex +R did not change the booktype yet, and only one chapter approx 30 mins long.

2 ridata G05 -R, ( full video 3 chapters 30 min each) approx 90 mins.

3 memorex +R with booktype set to DVD-ROM (full video)
All 8x media burned at 4x

So far the report from 1 person:
all 3 play fine in Dennon DVD player
all 3 play fine in his computer
#1 plays fine in samsung combo DVD VHS but #2will not play at all and #3 plays but locks and stutters.

Again I burned my master with DVDA to -R but all the others I burned with Nero from an image file.

Just out of curousity? Does burning with say a Bravo II insure any better mass compatiblity?
It may be that more of my jobs will entail qty's of 50 or more, and wondering if this might help improve the compatblity issue.

Currently the burner Im using is a sony DVD RW DW-22A
OEM in the Viao Desktop, wonder if that might have anything to do with it?

Riredale, what software and version are you using to reliably burn Ritek G05 on the Pioneer 107? This is my likely future combination now that G04's have run out.

Would you know about it if they weren't playing in some people's players? I mean are your DVDs sold by yourself or are they promos, giveaways etc. where the customer would likely not bother complaining?

Nick

for Sidecar re. how long DVDs will last:

someone else posted this link, I think -

http://www.clir.org/pubs/reports/pub121/contents.html

It is titled "Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs: A Guide for Librarians and Archivists"

It indicates that burned DVDs are likely outlast commercially pressed DVDs. It also contains useful guides on storage and handling, disc structures and so on.

Nick Hope:

Burner is a Pioneer DVR-107D, running firmware 1.18. The firmware is hacked for faster ripping speed.

Ritek G05 blanks are burned by Nero Express 6.6.0.8, and the MPEG2 encoding is done with CinemaCraft 2.62. I always burn at 8x, averaging about 8:30 for a full-disk burn.

The DVDs are sold to choir families, so I'm pretty sure I'd hear about it if the disk wouldn't play. In all the experiments done so far, only one factor causes problem disks--full-face labels. About 5% of DVD players just refuse to play them, and for those customers I provide a disk with just two stick-on address labels, which plays fine.

I continue to use the adhesive labels, however, because I enjoy the high-gloss printed look, and because the labels are smear-proof, fade-proof, and waterproof.