Does slower DVD burning ensure better reliablity

[racketboy]

I have an 8X DVD burner.

I'm backing up a lot of my large data like MP3s, disc images and xvid videos to DVD.

I use mostly 4X media (primarily Riteks). I've been only burning them at 2X because I thought it would make it more reliable. But I'm having second thoughts.

Can anybody give me a second opinion?

 

[Dyne]

depends on the burner as well. ive heard some people are using the 4x riteks at 6x with no problems.

as for the reliable thing. well burn one higher and see if the info is there. its not like the disc will degrade any faster because it was burned faster. and if it doesnt work you wasted a disc. do it.....you know you want to.

 

[racketboy]

Oh I burn them at 4X with no noticable problems -- I'm just thinking about the how long it will last.

So you don't think it will make a difference with that?

 

[ExCyber]

In principle slower should be better - the burner has more time for adjustment and transient power or mechanical problems should affect less of the medium, so the produced signal should be clearer. However, if development and QA were heavily focused on the highest write speeds, there may be problems that only occur at lower write speeds. ISTR that an older Yamaha burner was notorious for producing extremely high error rates at its middle speed, for example. You might want to grab CDSpeed 2000 and try several burn speeds to see if it affects the results; all other things being equal, a more readable signal now means a more readable signal in the future.

 

[racketboy]

does CDspeed work for DVDs?

 

[ExCyber]

As of version 2.11, when they changed the name to "Nero CD-DVD Speed".