David - the wierd thing is, my Bulkpac Orange disks did not burn at 4x at first. The first couple i played with only did 2x speed (even though Nero _said_ they were 4x speed). After changing my ripping software to XCopyXPress and then using Nero to burn the resulting DVD Video image, they then started burning at 4x everytime. I know that sounds wierd (and it is) but that's what happened.... I'm not sure what "triggered" it, but maybe try putting a DVD film in your drive first, play it for a bit, then try burning a disk in Nero at 4x... Cheers, Kev
hi, anybody ever dealt with Princo DVD's? I bought a 50 pack off Ebay, tried with my DWA10 firmware 1.1d, and just made coasters, no matter what speed. Upgraded to DRU500A with 2.0F, turning off DMA etc, still more coasters. I have noname Compusa disks that burn at 1X faithfully, and Sony X2 -R that burn no problem as well. Has anyone been able to burn Princo DVD's on their Sony's? These are supposedly rated 4X. I use Nero and DVDXcopy Express when doing my tests. Thanks, Pin21
Warning. The upgrade seems to have stopped working. I now cannot write to anoything. The old Datawrite Red Classics do not work and the Bigpockets 49p have stopped working for me. I orginally has a few sucesses, then 6 coasters. I am think of trying version 1.0d.
Hi SVP Communications advised me that......... The Sony writers have compatibility problems with the Princo dye media (Bulkpaq and ICE). Well that seems to be that then... they might have said that on their website before I bought 50 of the bloody ICE ones !! Lesson learned methinks David
i have to disagree with that coment fron sony ma friend?i have the original f/w 1.1d that came with the drive and i use princos i have no problems and i have not waisted 1 coaster:strange they would say that?anyway use dvd shrink it could be your dvd files that your burning software software u use to ripp the movies with.heres a grat tool and its free?u find it here...........www.doom9.net,good luck
I can only tell you what they said and from my experience I cannot get the b****y things to burn at 4x. Now either that is a disc problem or it is a hardware problem either way I am getting fed up trying. At your suggestion I will give DVD shrink a go and see what happens - report back later Cheers David
Hi Ronan, just a thought but why should I use DVD Shrink? Does it have a burning engine or is it that it is a good bit of software. Cheers David
I burnt a bigpockets at 2.3 speed and then another at 4x. I nearly fell off my chair when it worked at full speed. The next disk in the spindle doesn't look too good. http://ashbysoft.no-ip.org/html/bigpocketsmedia.JPG Can you see the big blob? (Cover side fortunately but very disconcerting) I haven't tried it yet.
hi there- dvd shrink,let me explain.1st of all its free?its a all in one tool that u can take a dvd 9 movie shrink it to fit all menus and stuff on to a dvd5 without losing much qualty also it reconise the same film so it doesnt have to do the same process all over again.it has a built in decrypterand the files can be used all over again?unlike dvdxcopyexpress?u cant burn the same movie of ya hard drive after it has copied,express maybe quicker but in my opinon it makes alot of bad copys as in data errors write to disc so on.its other half(dvd2one) cant copy protected dvds as in rental or bought from the shops,u have to decrypt it to your hard drive 1st? before it will do the buisness so u can burn it to a blank disc-these two i mentioned mabye quicker in speed but the dvd shrink is a great tool why use anything else for ripping,it analyses the disc-decrypte's it- does the remmapping and the files are ready to burn straight from your hard drive to dvd blank.i use nero 5.5.10.42 enterprise edition with the sony dvd burner 4x speed.i hope i answered your question and maybe some more curious ppl who dont know about it,thanks all.any questions email me-john.stewart23@ntlworld.com
Hey Zafonica, Why don't you try DVDDecrypter. It's the best utility out there and it's free. It will decrypt your movie and you can save it to your hard drive as an iso, then use it to write the iso to a disk. No other software needed! Don't be fooled by its small size (under 1MB). It has lots of options but is very easy to use. I havn't made 1 coster with it yet. If you are going to use DVD Shrink, use Stomp RecordNow to burn with. It's much better than Nero. It has a much better GUI, is easier to use, and people don't seem to have problems with it.
Thanks tyo Ronan and Mynutts for their advice. I have used DVD decrypter and now DVD shrink and both seem like excellent products but my problem is not about getting the data on tot he hard drive or to an iso but getting any data to burn at 4x on 4x media using my sony 4x burner !! Thanks again David
Hi, I have a sony dw-u10a (1.1d) which i usually burn with zero defex at 4x with no problems... bigpockets.co.uk offered some own branded 4x (datasafe) discs at a stupidly low price.. problem. 1st disc burned at 2x, second disc error (see below) I hope it's the software and not the hardware (advice please ?) Versions: Operating System: Windows XP 5.01 (Build 2600: Service Pack 1) InstantCopy: 7.0.0.102 (28/02/2003 08:41:52) InstantDisc: 7.0.0.042 (28/02/2003 08:18:44) CD-R Drivers: 6.4.3.098 (21/02/2003 12:46:30) ISO/UDF Creator: 1.0.2.035 (19/02/2003 13:09:54) ASAPI Interface: 5.0.0.002 (27/04/2000 12:31:18) Write speed: High Write method: Automatic(0) Closing method: Automatic Simulation: No Simulation [ ] Write to hard disk first [ ] Verify destination media after write Destination Device: Sony DVD RW DW-U10A (H 1.1d MMC-Driver Disc Contents: Nr Length Pre Post Sectormode 1 2,252,562 150 0 Mode 1 ISO Project contents: Datatrack File systems: ISO9660 Level 1; Joliet; UDF 1.02 Reading destination disc information ... Creating table of contents... Writing track 1 of 1 track(s) Starting track 1... Resetting destination device... --------------------------------------------------------- An error occured while writing track 1 at position 2235. --------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------- Extended information:#1Device: Sony DVD RW DW-U10A (H NO SENSE: NO ADDITIONAL SENSE INFORMATION 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 2A 00 00 00 08 BB 00 00 20 00 --------------------------------------------------------- I use dvd decrypter or smartripper followed by dvd one2one (superb tool) and use pinnacle's instant cd/dvd to round things up.. everything was soooo good on the zero defex but these so called datasafe !!! or is it the drive !!! as i've heard so many problems with them... I almost flashed to the 500a... suggestions anyone ? Cheers
That grubby DVD+r whose picture I posted earlier burnt and verified at 4x. I bought some riteks as well and the fisrt one burnt without a hitch.
Papaflump,If anything, you should hope its the cheap media you bought. Try Memorex. They burn at 4X for me consistantly without ANY problems.
Hi there - don't know about your discs but I was sent this the other day and hope it helps some if not all of you experiencing problems. I also went into my local store yesterday and was reliably informed that the Ritek G03 discs are hit and miss but the G04 with the deep purple dye work very well with Sony - I will just have to wait and see Cheers David Sony Drives Overview This information was originally posted by red321 on disQworld. Thanks to that fine forum for permission to reproduce here. Sony Drives I though it worth bringing together a lot of information on the Sony drive, which is scattered through a number of threads, and is often requested. It is really hard work to piece together the whole story, and seperate Fact from Fantasy. I have read this forum for the last 6 months, and tried all of this myself, so this is how it is: The U10A, U12A,500a and 500ax are all basically the same drive, and the Firmware is interchangeable. The only restriction is introduced by the Flasher software, which checks that the identity of the drive matches the upgrade. This means that flashing between a U10A/U12A and a 500a/ax firmwares requires hacked firmware flashers. For some odd reason the same is required to flash from 1.1c to 1.1e of the U10A firmware. The 1.1e upgrade will only upgrade the 1.1a U10A firmware without "tweaking" Before you start changing Firmware, make sure you need to. I see a lot of people desperately flashing their drives, without even bothering to find out what the advantages of the new firmware might be. Remember that you could lose your waranty if you flash from one series of drive to another and the drive dies. Also 1.1a, 1.1d and 2.0c appear to be only available on new drives, no flasher to these versions is available. So if you move away from these firmwares, there is no way back. The new 510 drives apear to be diffrent hardware and not interchangeable What should my firmware do: U10A firmware: 1.1a 4x DVD-R:2.4x DVD+R (1x on Ritek G03) 1.1c 4x DVD-R:2.4x DVD+R (2x on Ritek G03) 1.1e 4x DVD-R:2.4x DVD+R (2x on Ritek G03) 500a/ax firmware: 1.0d 4x DVD-R:2.4x DVD+R (1x on Ritek G03 BUT sometimes helps with writing at 4x on Ritek G04 disks) 1.0f to 2.0f ->1.1e 4x DVD-R: 4x DVD+R (2x on Ritek G03) DVD-R at 4x The U10a and 500a, with all firmwares, should write 4x DVD-R disks at 4x. All burning software will report 4x DVD-R media as 4x and allow you to choose 4x. Unfortunately lots of drives have trouble with burning "unapproved" (i.e. affordable disks like princo) at 4x (15 mins for a full disk), even though the burning software allows 4x to be selected. These disks will burn at 2x, and take 30 mins. The ability to write at 4x is critically dependant on the individual drive, and varies from batch to batch of certain media. This variability has lead to a lot of confusion and Legend, with people reporting that the 1 disk they burnt "while standing on their head" burned at 4x whilst the one they burned "while it was raining burned at 2x." You often follow threads that state that the 4x problem can be solved by..... followed by a later retraction when the disks later in the batch start to burn at 2x again. In summary, the Sony does not burn reliably with Princo media at 4x. If your drive does, it is not the phase of the moon, just you have a good drive, or a good batch of disks. "My drive starts at 4x but slows down later on" Further confusion is caused by the fact that some software, like Record now max, will initially indicate that it is burning at 4x, despite the drive really burning at 2x. This has lead to a lot of people suspecting buffer under runs or DMA problems. DVDDecryptor is a good check as it will always show the true burning speed, and show you the state of the buffers. If they keep emptying, then you have a data transfer to the drive problem. Get a faster computer, reduce activity on that IDE channel, or generally fiddle about with IDE stuff . If the buffers are always full but it writes at 2x, then the drive has calibrated on the disk, and decided it is not going to try and burn it at 4x, but dropped back to 2x. Most people have real problems with Princo Media., and all you can do in this case is burn at 2x or buy diffrent media. None of the firmware versions are likely to help you. Ritek disks are more likely to write at 4x, but not guaranteed. My drive was happy on all firmwares with most RITEK G04, but wrote at 2x to a batch of Traxdata RITEK G04 disks. You may find that the 1.0d firmware helps you with these marginal disks. I could burn those Traxdata RITEK disks at 4x with 1.0d. DVD+R I previously (in this thread) said that I thought that the 1.1c and 1.1e versions of the U10A software would write to DVD+R at 4x. This is not the case (at least with the ARITA disks I tried.) This is a firmware thing. All burning software reports these as 2.4x disks with this firmware. If you upgrade to 1.0f and above of the 500A/AX software, then you should see the media reported as 4x, and expect to see it burn at 4x. I have just burned a couple of the ARITA 4x on 1.0g, and I must say that the CDspeed results compare favourably with the best DVD-R results (Pioneer) on Flash's test page. If you want 4x writing, at a reasonable price, and your DVD player accepts DVD+R disks, these seem to be the best bet on the SONY at the moment. You can get firmware for the Sony drives in our downloads section.
Zafonica... wow ! Thanks for the info a great read... given the fact my problem seems to be the media... (still waiting for bigpockets to reply) would you still recommend holding off flashing a dw-u10a (1.1d) to the dru-500a ? Cheers
Well I wouldn't recommend anyone to do anything - as they say if it ain't broke......however, if you are having erratic burning problems then it might be worth going up the DW-U10A firmware upgrade path first if ytou can. I flashed my firmware to DRU-500a ver 2f and it doesn't seem to have made much of a difference but then I have only tried a few (Bulkpaq Orange and Ice 4x DVD's which onbly write at 2x) I have just got a sample pack from SVP Communications which has a Datawrite (G03 !) Memorex and Ritek unbranded selection. I will try each and report back. Cheers David
