DVD DL Burner

[LunarMist]

I received reports that some of the DVDs burned a few years ago are no longer playable. I plan to burn new DVDs, but this time with DL discs to reduce the quantity and enhance the viewing sequence. (There were 27 old ones at ~1 hour each in XP mode.)

What is a good model of DL burner and media now? Thanks.

 

[Mercutio]

I buy Optiarc drives about 95% pf the time. In the last two years, other than a few LG BD drives and maybe a half-dozen Samsungs, it's all been Optiarc.

I'm not sure about media. Does Taiyo Yuden make DVD-DLs?

As far as I can tell, bit rot is a valid issue for all writable optical media. I don't think you can get away from it, which is one of the reasons I gave up on DVDs in the first place.

 

[ddrueding]

I'm not sure about media. Does Taiyo Yuden make DVD-DLs?

As far as I can tell, bit rot is a valid issue for all writable optical media. I don't think you can get away from it, which is one of the reasons I gave up on DVDs in the first place.

I have a cake box of TY DVD-DLs, but I don't remember where I got them.

I've dropped optical media as well (actually, everything but HDD/SSD).

 

[Stereodude]

Made in Singapore Verbatim DVD+R DL media or bust. Make sure you have a drive that supports book type adjustments so you can set them to DVD-ROM (most do now days).

 

[LunarMist]

How does one ensure the Singapore style?

 

[LunarMist]

I have the Verboten DL. What does the data indicate? I have another burner on the way.

 

[LunarMist]

Ugh, the dreaded 19.5 kB limit strikes again. How is this? :king:

 

[LunarMist]

Flying fork. The verify is stuck at 46% forever. :spiderman:

 

[Stereodude]

I have the Verboten DL. What does the data indicate? I have another burner on the way.

Well, I think it says MKM.....003. Those are Verbatim 8x blanks.

Check the spindle to see where they're made before you buy them. Unfortunately Verbatim uses the same media code for Singapore and India made discs. This is why I like to buy my blank Verbatim discs in person at Microcenter. They're usually pretty competitively priced when the discs are on sale (which is pretty frequently).

 

[LunarMist]

They were the locally obtained 30-pack of 8x, but I trashed the the wrapper. Maybe the old Optriarc is not so good?

 

[Handruin]

Ugh, the dreaded 19.5 kB limit strikes again. How is this? :king:

I didn't realize PNG files were limited that small. I've bumped the limit to 1MB for all supported file types. Hopefully that will make it easier in the future.

 

[LunarMist]

I didn't realize PNG files were limited that small. I've bumped the limit to 1MB for all supported file types. Hopefully that will make it easier in the future.

:salut:

 

[LunarMist]

Is this a good drive? Does it really write discs that fast?

 

[Stereodude]

Probably, but who knows how good the burns are at 24x.

 

[LunarMist]

Never mind. There are no 24x discs, so what is the point?

 

[Stereodude]

It can burn selective brands of media at 24x and you can probably force it to burn faster on probably any 16x discs with mixed results.

 

[LunarMist]

Thanks. I'll probably avoid the illegal burning speeds. :nono:

 

[Handruin]

I have this Optiarc drive and have been happy with it so far. I've not done much with DL burning though. I paid about $20 + tax when I bought it at microcenter a while back.

 

[LunarMist]

The Toshiba/Samsung is writing to the 8x discs at 10x. :batman:

 

[LunarMist]

I tried four types of normal-layered discs and they are all 16-18x. 24x is BS. :smurf:

 

[LunarMist]

I have this Optiarc drive and have been happy with it so far. I've not done much with DL burning though. I paid about $20 + tax when I bought it at microcenter a while back.

Thanks. I did drive to the Microcenter and they had a bunch of OEM components in boxes, but not even bags. Many of them looked rather beaten up in shipping. irate: Of course I was not looking for a DVD writer at that time.

 

[LunarMist]

The new drive has a lightscribinator or something like that. Does anyone use that function and is it worth buying the special discs?

 

[ddrueding]

No. It is nearly useless.

 

[LunarMist]

Thanks. Tell us how you really feel. :mrgrn:

 

[sdbardwick]

Nearly useless, but sometimes useful. The problem I have with Lightscribe is the obnoxious amount of time it takes to burn a label and that you have to burn them twice for decent contrast.

However, they do work well labeling discs that are used in slot loading drives; no paper to get jammed. But Sharpies work well for that too...

 

[LunarMist]

Nearly useless, but sometimes useful. The problem I have with Lightscribe is the obnoxious amount of time it takes to burn a label and that you have to burn them twice for decent contrast.

How do the images stay in register if burned twice?

Another question is where is the laser for burning the label side of the disc? I don't see anything different from other optical writers.

 

[ddrueding]

Same laser. You have to take the disk out and flip it.

 

[LunarMist]

Ah, so. That is lame indeed, but logical and cheap. :rabbit:

 

[sdbardwick]

How do the images stay in register if burned twice?

Lightscribe discs have laser readable registration marks on the label side near the center (which also means the hub area cannot have a label).

 

[LunarMist]

I broke down and purchased a small spindle of DVDs. However I'm not sure which software to use. Are there any free ones worth trying? Google searches end in a morass. :errr:

 

[Stereodude]

To do what? IMGburn works great for .ISO and similar files. It's free.

 

[LunarMist]

I wanted to print the disc name on the lightscriber side. However, I burned a disc and it completed as per usual without any dialog box for the lightscriber.

 

[LunarMist]

Do I need to print the lightscriber side first? How are they correlated?

 

[Stereodude]

I don't think there is any connection. You need to flip the disc over, put it back in the drive and use some lightscribe aware software to label it.

 

[ddrueding]

The only lightscribe software I've used was with the software that came with the drive. This was when it first came out 5+ years ago, and it wasn't anything special.

 

[sdbardwick]

There are a few free programs listed here.
Note that you also need to install the LightScribe software to enable LightScribe access.

 

[LunarMist]

Aha! I downloaded the generic lightscriber driver and now Nero has an option for the labels. However, the text is pixelated and the color is grey regardless of the font color (blue). :bleh:

 

[LunarMist]

The only lightscribe software I've used was with the software that came with the drive. This was when it first came out 5+ years ago, and it wasn't anything special.

The burner was supplied with a Nero 9 essentials. Installation was over 1GB. WTF? If that is the essentials, what is the full package?

 

[sdbardwick]

I didn't know Nero had become THAT bloated. My Nero 7 folder is 232MB, which is still crazy.

LightScribe is monochromatic, so any colors will be pixelated. I tended to only use black text; with photos it did make barely acceptable images.

Be sure that you set the LightScribe software to highest quality unless you really don't care about anything except essential legibility.

The lack of contrast is why I always ended up burning the label more than once.

 

[LunarMist]

I returned to v.6 and that works too with the LS base app.

So David was right about the Lightscriber, as is often the case.