Nero sucks

[Tea]

Mitsubishi 24X CD burner, Nero 5.5.something or other, Win98. Works fine at 16X. Utterly refused to give me any option higher than 16X burn.

Read help files, visit Nero web site, endure their incredibly crappy Javascript that doesn't even work properly with IE 5.0, let alone a real browser (Moz or Opera).

Nothing.

Download Nero 5.5.9.9, upgrade my OEM install: result: still can't burn faster than 16X.

Remove drive, instal brand new Mitsubishi 52 x 40 x 12. Remove Nero, reboot, install latest hard copy of Nero that ships with the drive. Still offers me 2X, 4X, 8X, and 16X. Nothing higher than 16X.

Nero sucks.

 

[flagreen]

Is it the same regardless of the media you use?

 

[Tea]

Good question. I'm using the same 32X certified media we buy by the box-load and use for everything. It burns at higher speeds in other machines. I'll try a different brand though.

 

[Groltz]

Quoted from http://www.mitsubishi-electric.com.au/customer/faq/cdrwfaq3.htm#2-4

4. My recording software will not allow me to select the higher speeds supported by my CD-RW drive. Why is this?


Whilst your CD-RW drive will have a maximum speed for writing to both CD-R and CD-RW media, the media itself also has a maximum speed. The writing software (Easy CD Creator or Nero) will recognise this maximum speed once the media (CD-R or CD-RW) is inserted and will limit burning to that maximum.

Good media will state the range of supported recording speeds on the packaging. Media that makes no statement will still have a maximum speed but you will not be able to ascertain this until you write to it. If your media does not allow the speed you require you must purchase higher speed media (Mitsubishi Electric supplies media compatible with the speeds of all the writers it manufacturers).

 

[Tea]

Thanks Steve. I checked what my blanks are, and they are marked "Ricoh type 80 700MB 1X - 32X speed". I just installed NTI CD Maker but it doesn't recognise the drive, and I don't want to have to change drives in this machine yet again. (The NTI is bundled with BTC drives that we got to cover a shortage of the Mitsubishis.)

There is something weird going on here. Every time I install Nero, it magically unticks the DMA access to my burner. So I have to tick DMA and reboot again. Without DMA it offers 4X!

 

[e_dawg]

Not fun. I don't know... I've had the odd problem with Nero, but I was able to get it working well recently with the audio filters -- I have come to love the equalization and normalization features when creating audio mix CD's for the car. Before (used EZCD Creamator), I'd scare the living crap out of myself every time if I forgot to turn down the volume when going from a particularly loud song to a particularly soft one. Similarly, since all the songs are mixed differently, I would always have to adjust the treble and bass settings for every song (not conducive to safe driving). Now, I equalize everything so that every song sounds "just right".

 

[Tea]

There is some weirdness going on here! I frigged around for ages last night, trying to get DMA back. It was there before, as I've had the 24X Mitsi in for quite a while, and burned just fine on it (at 16X though). Nero has done something to break my IDE drivers.

So after numerous attempts, even installing (shock! horror!) the latest VIA IDE drivers instead of the M$ ones, switching drives twice more, and playing (in desperation) with master-slave and primary-secondary cabling, and replacing the cable too, I'm back at 16X. (The burner is the only IDE device in the system. The hard drives are SCSI.) At one stage I installed the old VIA drivers, the ones that you are only really suposed to use with Win95A. Nothing worked.

Then I fired up REGEDIT and removed everything even faintly related to the IDE hardware, rebooted (using real mode drivers in config.sys) and let Windows redetect the hardware. Big blue screen!

Rebooted again, and it works now. But still at 16X!

 

[Tea]

By the way, the only thing that this drive is ever asked to do is backup files data off my network. Network speed is not an issue: I'm getting 12MB/sec over the network and a 16X burn is only 2.4MB/sec.

 

[Mercutio]

... all that work to save maybe 45 seconds vs. making a disc at plain ol' 16x.

 

[Buck]

... all that work to save maybe 45 seconds vs. making a disc at plain ol' 16x.

Time is money.

 

[Tea]

Yup. And right now Nero owes me approximately AU$307.94

 

[Buck]

Yup. And right now Nero owes me approximately AU$307.94

I love it how you can even get the cents correct.

 

[time]

A longshot, Tea, but have you tried replacing the ASPI drivers?

I didn't have much fun with my last Nero install either. It was the latest version bar one, and bundled with a Lite-On drive, so one would expect it to recognize the drive successfully. It insisted it was a 32-spin drive (it's actually a 40x), and I never did get around that.

I also had grief with the read speed limited to 12x! I assumed this was thanks to Ahead's Drive Speed utility, but given the recurring problems I had, I'm not certain.

I found that Nero was also affecting any other CD mastering software I had installed. When I uninstalled it, it corrupted ASPI (don't know how), so that other software couldn't even see the drive.

In the end, I installed the latest version of NTI and all was fine. BTW, one of the things I hate about Nero is the need to download a new release of the software just to support a new drive. At least with NTI you only download a drive database update.

But you're right, I can't see that new Mitsubishi (Diamond Data) listed in their drive database. I'd guess that's because they're only available in Australia, and so are somewhat lower priority.

For all those existing Lite-On fans out there, I have joined the club! Best CD-RW drives I've ever seen. 100% Clone CD support (unlike almost everything else), remarkably quiet in all modes, and of course, fast.

A bit pricier than the Mitsubishi and Benq (Acer) units that proliferate here, though.

 

[time]

The penny may have just dropped.

I just installed NTI CD Maker but it doesn't recognise the drive

Do you mean it said there were no drives present?

 

[Clocker]

Have you tried burning from a HDD just to see if there is an issue there?

C

 

[Tea]

I probably have, Clocker. But customers have had the same issues from time to time, with several different brands of drive too. But I'll triple-check.

 

[e_dawg]

Just wondering how you have your IDE drives configured. As we discussed previously, devices on the same channel are not capable of concurrent access. Thus, if the reader and writer (or HD and writer) share the same channel, the data stream from the reader must be stopped while it is sent back down the same IDE channel to the writer, etc. This discontinuous and inefficient process would tend to limit maximum throughput, no?

 

[Tea]

I have my IDE drives configured to run off the Buslogic UW SCSI controller, E_Dawg. The system has three drives:

Quantum Atlas IV UW SCSI 9.1GB
Quantum Viking II UW SCSI 2.2GB
Mitsubishi 40X IDE burner, was on primary slave, now on secondary master.

No other IDE drives at all.

Sigh

 

[Onomatopoeic]

Nero sucks.

Wasn't Nero corrupt and didn't Nero basically let Rome burn???