Do CD burners adjust to slower discs?

[Radboy]

Say I have a 52X burner and only 16X discs. Can the burner sense this and automatically adjust? Or do you just get errors? The problem is I don't remember what speed my dics are rated for.

Fortunately, I have only an old 8X burner .. but was thinking of upgrading to a new, Plextor 52X Premium puppy.

 

[blakerwry]

yup, i think it's a combination of your burner and the burning software, but your burner will slow down for slower disks. Alternatively I believe you can use a tool like the nero info tool (free) to read what your disks are rated for.

 

[Mercutio]

Actually, the information about media support is read from the media's ATIP. If the drive recognizes the ATIP, it will set itself appropriately. If it doesn't it normally makes the assumption that the disc is newer than it is, and will burn at full speed.
This is why Nero sometimes gives you a "Media can only burn at 16x" message.

I suppose it's an issue for truly ancient burning software, but since most newish drives don't work with old software, it probably isn't much of one.

 

[Radboy]

So both the software and hardware must support the feature.

 

[sechs]

I know that with Lite-on burners, it will simply refuse to burn at a speed higher than it recognises for the media. How software ignorant of this information will react is beyond me.

 

[blakerwry]

So both the software and hardware must support the feature.

Actually, i think it's an either or... software that supports it or hardware.. or both.