The Importance Of Using Quality Media With Your CD/DVD Recorders
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Whether you are using your PC's built-in DVD burner or a commercial record-and-print solution with a robotic arm, the quality of the media is of primary importance. If you are replicating, duplicating or just making a mix CD, you want your disc to last, stand up to normal use and play the music and/or movies as clearly and well as ones you buy in the store. Bottom line, you cannot expect great results if you are using the cheapest optical media available, unless you caught a great sale on first-rate discs.
If you have a high failure rate when burning discs, it could be one of five things (usually):
1. Your burner does not support the media format you are using.
2. The media is not compatible with your disc burner.
3. You are not using the right combination of software, hardware and firmware.
4. There may be a problem with your PC.
5. You have a bad batch of media.
DVD-R versus DVD+R
There is some confusion still lingering about the difference in recordable formats of DVDs. Luckily, CD burning does not share this problem (there are only CD-R discs, not CD+R ones). The story goes like this: Pioneer developed DVD-R to be compatible with both DVD video players, like in your living room system, as well as the DVD-ROM (DVD-Read Only Memory) readers in PCs. After approval by the DVD Forum, an industry consortium, DVD-R was adopted by a slew of hardware manufacturers.
For companies that did not want to pay the big royalties to use that solution, it was actually cheaper to develop a competing format. This is just what another large group of manufacturers did when creating the DVD+R format. This group dubbed itself the DVD+RW Alliance. It is difficult to conclude if one format is better than the other, as neither has any significant advantages (or disadvantages). Both are able to burn discs that will normally play in standalone DVD players, but not always. It is best to read reviews and choose a device that fits your requirements, and then buy the proper media for it. Some burners now accommodate both -R and +R, as well as -RW and +RW, discs.
Brand name questions
Most blank CDs and DVDs are made by a handful of factories located in Taiwan, China, Japan, Korea and other countries. Therefore, it is not the brand so much as the manufacturer that will tell you if the media is high quality or not. Fuji, Imation, Memorex and other brand names outsource their disc manufacturing, so the way to tell if you have a quality disc is to check what is called the Media ID.
DVD burners are made to read the Media ID and Write Strategy information from blank media, but they do not capture or display this information for you. You can download freeware and shareware programs that will check the Media ID, as well as the Write Strategy (maximum burn speed and other details) of the disc. For instance, DVDINFOPRO is available free of charge at www.dvdinfopro.com. If you were to run a test on a Ritek disk, the test would show the Media ID as RITEKG04 (see list below). The test also ensures that the Media ID is not forged, since the Write Strategy speed of 4X would match the Media ID speed data.
These are the Media IDs of several high-quality DVD media brands:
RITEKGx = RITEK
OPTODISC = Optodisc
RICOHJPN = Ritek or Ricoh
PRODISCS03 = PRODISC
MCC = Mitsubishi Chemicals
PVC = Pioneer
Media ID, Write Strategy and burning speeds
The Media ID is information about the disc and its source. Write Strategy is information that reveals the maximum speed at which the disc was made to work properly. Burning faster than recommended is a common cause of disc-write errors. Just about every modern DVD burner will read the Media ID to determine the appropriate write speed for the burning software. There are several ways to check the Write Strategy to make sure that the Media ID is not forged to allow the statement of a higher, incorrect speed. You should never burn at a faster speed than the Write Strategy states. Search online for "Write Strategy evaluation tools" to get a utility that will help you do this, if you so desire.
Remember to keep your DVD burner's firmware up to date. It may be that your DVD burner cannot clearly read the Media ID (in other words, the discs are fine but your PC cannot tell) and this will result in burning at the lowest supported speed, not the highest. For all kinds of answers to CD- and DVD-burning questions, check the Web sites of the DVD Forum, disc manufacturers and DVD burner makers.
Article Source: Articlelogy.com
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