Newbie here. I don't know whether to ask here or in the media forum. I have a sony dru-500A and a toshiba sd-r5112, both 4X machines. Both burners have an approved media list built into them. Sony is running 2.1 firmware and toshiba is running 1033 firmware (both the latest I believe). Nero 6 as burning software. I am having trouble buying media that is on the approved media list. If its not on the list, both burners default to 1X burning. How do I know whats on the list? So far by trial and error, I've found Beall and Ritek will burn at 4X on the Toshiba. And nothing will burn at 4X on the SOny. I bought some Taiyo yudens expecting to be blown away but they burned at 1X also on both machines. I suspect because they are rebadged 8X disks (TYG02 vs TYG01). IS there anyway to take control of the burn speed away from the burner? I can see my burners becoming obsolete as more manufactures start rebadging 8X disks as 4X and hence not being on the approved media list. I would like to know what I should buy in terms of media to get full advantage of my burner speed.
I have had a Sony DRU500AX for about 6 months now and have not had a problem burning 4X media at 4x speed. I use Nero 6 to copy and it takes me about 16 minutes. Could your problem be your pc. I have a P4 2.2 ghz with 512 mb ram. One thing I found out was going to a 16x burner doesn't help me out. I tried both the Lite-on 1673 and the Sony DRU720A and different 8x and 16x media and still took me 16 minutes to copy a dvd. As far as the media,all 4x media I've tried burned at 4x speed, Ridata, Sony, Memorex, Taiyo Yuden. They were all -R media.
