DVD burner hell (currently Lite-On 160P6S)

Okay... this is a long one!


I was using a Lite-On dvd writer (not sure of the model) and it was fine for a couple of years. Then I started getting a lot of skipping with things burned onto my fave media (Purple Ritek DVD-R).

Software at this point was Nero 6 and DVD decrypter.

I upgraded the firmware and still had the problem. So I upgraded to Nero 7.

at this point I noticed my minimum speed on my burner was 4x (previously was able to burn at 1x and 2x). I prefer a lower speed (I'd burn at 1x given the chance).

since then I've had a horrible coaster rate.

I switched media (cheap and nasty Asda Mr Data and not cheap Packard ones). still no joy.

so I figured the burner had gone to pot. So I bought a new Lite-On Dual Layer one and bought some expensive (16 quid for 25) Phillips media and uninstalled Nero 7 and installed the Nero 6 that came with the burner.

media wasnt compatible so upgraded the firmware to SHW-160P6S.

Still getting the problems.

So, I installed new ASPI drivers from http://radified.com/ASPI/forceaspi.htm

still getting problems.

so I swapped over my IDE cable for a new one.

still getting problems.

to recap:

2 burners (2 firmwares each)
3 brands of media (including previously favourite brand)
3 dvd players (to test the discs out on)
0 error messages
nero 6,7 and dvd decrypter
2 IDE cables
new ASPI drivers (previously was none according to ASPIcheck)

help!

System is Athlon 3200XP Barton
1gb DDR memory
windows XP (fully upgraded)

thanks!

further info:

i tried compiling a few episodes of a tv prog using nero 6 to convert and burn them as a DVD.

upon reinserting the disk afterwards into the burner it took the burner ages to be able to read it (like a minute). I inserted it into my DVD player and it wouldnt detect.

i reburnt it and it did detect (look a while in both pc and player) but was skipping to an unwatchable level.

1)Newer burners don't support slower speeds such as 1x.

2) Burning higher speed media at slower speeds for better quality is a complete myth. For example, burning most 4-16x media at 2x will result in poor burn quality.

While there are no hard rules, the general procedure to follow for best burn quality is to burn media at its rated speed, except 16x which will typically burn best at 12x, sometimes 8x.

3) Your favorite media, Ritek -R, has been known to give people many problems in the past 12-18 months or more. They were once considered pretty good media, but later batches of 4x and especially their 8x media has been riddled with problems. Many people have had their 8x -R media burn fine initially, only to deteriorate to unreadable levels in a matter of months.

Without getting further into details about media brands, media codes (who actually manufactures the media, as brand in itself means nothing in terms of who actually makes the media), Verbatim media is some of the best media out there and is almost always a safe bet for burning well, I suggest buying that. If it is 8x, burn at 8x. If it is 16x, burn at 12x.

P.S. - I also have that burner and, while it's not my best burner, it does a respectable job. I would suggest using the latest 'test' firmware in the Liteon forum here and using the test version of the Smartburn utility, then enabling HyperTuning, Online HyperTuning, and Smartburn. All are designed to improve burn quality. Here's the link to Smartburn - http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=177331

Here's the link to getting the latest test firmware for your drive (try either PV8P or the later PV8Q for your drive). http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=172018

thanks for the reply!

prior to receiving it changed to PS7U firmware (which gave me back 2x speed) tried that. same results as usual.

players struggle to detect the disc. disc skips horribly.

oddly enough i just tried DVD Shrink (latest version) to compress a commercial DVD and it freezes and crashes out when I click 'backup'.

I suspect that a firmware upgrade isnt the problem here (ive been through enough of them). my riteks went wrong before any kind of firmware upgrade so I'm thinking the prob is somehow operating system related (it cant be hardware if I've changed the burner and IDE cable).

ah.. dvd shrink was having a nero related issue. sorted now.

okay, have updated the firmware. will see how this film copies.

will deffo get some Verbatim.

but that said I surely shouldnt be getting this kind of bad luck! in my last test the nasty Mr Data dvds were performing better (in terms of skippage) than these Phillips ones. in fact, I think my burner just hates them. They weren't even compatible before I upgraded the firmware.

so if a disc is labelled as 1-8x i should deffo burn at 8?

datawrite discs are my personal worst. they burn fine. they play fine once. and then they seem to degrade right away. a month later they are skippage. thats yellows, reds and the grey ones. very annoying!

okay i just burned this film at 8x using Nero (from VIDEO_TS). it detected the disk right away (which is something I guess) but the playback was pretty bad. the picture was freezing up for a second here and there very often.

I just dont know what else I can do now. short of reformatting, there really isnt anything else I can think of (and I doubt that'll help).

The first rule is to use reliable dvd media.

unfortunately my reliable media (the riteks which never had a problem), the cheap media, the expensive Phillips media and the also expensive Packard Bell media are all coastering right now.

films are unwatchable.

so I dont think its the media (i mean that would be outlandishly bad luck if I just happened to pick 4 types that all gave the same bad performance).

Try updating the firmware to what I suggested above and use HyperTuning, Online HyperTuning, and Smartburn. Burn the discs at their rated speed, or, if having problems, try ONE speed slower (8x at 4x, etc. - NOT 2x). Download Nero CD-DVD Speed and tell us the media codes of your discs. In the future, look for Verbatim on sale. This isn't to say that there aren't plenty of other discs that should work well on your drive, there are. It's just that I'm not going to cover every possible brand, media code, etc. here and now. You'll have to do some research on that to find out what brands use what media codes, etc. If you order online, you can buy TY (Taiyo Yuden), it is also excellent media.

Regarding bad luck with media, you have tried cheap generic brands, Packard Bell which is mostly very poor media, and Philips, which can be anywhere from good to poor depending on the media code they used and the burner and firmware you are using. Also, when you download Nero CD-DVD Speed, you can test your burned discs for their quality. Run a 'transfer rate' test and post a picture (you can click on the little floppy disc button on the top of the program to save as a .PNG file). Then you can also run a PI/PIF 'Quality Scan' test on your discs, run it at 8x post a scan. We can help you make sense of what the test results tell you so you can have a better understanding of things.

And like I said, try the latest test firmware and HT/OHT/SB with your next burn.

thanks again for the help!

okay, firstly one mistake. It wasnt Packard Bell it was Maxell (sorry!). But anyway, heres the tests from my last burned disk (prior to using Smart Burn etc).

and they dont make for happy viewing!





will try again now with smartburn.

That is horrific, I admit FUJIFILM03 is the media code, it's average media, but you should not have problems such as yours. You should always leave on Smartburn, Hypertuning and Online Hypertuning are more dependant on your results, but I would certainly use them with your results to see if they help. BTW, if you run another test on a disc, run the 'disc quality test' rather than a Scandisc - the scandisc tells the story in this case, but PI/PIF quality tests will give a more clear idea of the error levels.

BTW, what burn speed did you use for that last disc? 8x should yield the best results, using slow speeds may result in bad burns.

that was 4x. am currently writing 8x with Smartburn and Hypertuning on. have you got a link for Online Hypertuning? Google isnt finding it (short of spotting a few cdfreaks tests).

8x w/ smartburn and hyper tuning on.

surprisingly awful!

Ok, I give up. Either your burner is phooked or something is going on with your computer. Highly unlikely to be your computer, I think your burner is defective. If you can though, try it on another system just to be sure.

well i recently changed my burner prior to getting the same level of burn quality from my last burner. this burner is literally a week old.

here's the latest test:

8x on the 'Mr Data' disks.

much better than the Phillips (although still bad i guess!). I think my burner just hates these Phillips disks.

There's still something wrong, I have UME01 discs of another brand and they burn ok on my 160P6S. That is a horrible burn past about 3.5GB (unreadable errors towards the edge of the disc, not good). Tell me the media codes of all of your blank discs, you don't need to post the screenshot, just the media code, FUJIFILM03, UME01, etc. I have heard of some cases of FUJIFILM03 burning bad for unknown reasons, but that's horrible and the UME01 burn is still awful.

BTW, you asked about Online Hypertuning. You need to download Smartburn 3.16t in the link I gave you, you can then turn it on in that program. Try using SB/HT/OHT all on, although you clearly have issues that they won't solve.

the Maxell ones are RITEKG05.

i notice that there is always a bad bit towards the beginning. is that normal?

well, given the fact that I've had probs on two burners, multiple firmwares, 3 burning progs and 2 IDE cables I guess it has to be some sort of driver/operating system problem. Is annoying as HELL!

The computer itself rarely causes burn issues such as this, although it's possible. I'm not really sure what to suggest in terms of your computer, hopefully someone else will have some ideas. If you can try the drive on any other computer, that would make it easy to decide if the drive itself is at fault or not. None of the three media codes you've mentioned are great media, but then only the Ritek G05 have any real track record for giving horrible results, and even those discs usually burn ok initially. So even though you aren't using great discs, I'd still basically look past the media.

well this is interesting.

i just reinstalled my IDE drivers and got this...

8x (no smartburn - smartburn wouldnt detect any of my drives after I reinstalled the IDE drivers).


this seems better, although still some yellow/red.

Please post PI/PIF quality scans, not scandiscs (easier to judge burn quality). It looks like it's probably the drivers at fault though. Why it didn't work after you reinstalled it before though, I don't know. I have never had issues with my drivers so I don't have much experience in that. Someone that has more experience may have a suggestion as to what would be best to use.

ah sorry, yes... i'll sort out a proper scan. currently burning an 8x one with the fujifilm disc. will post the results in a sec.

here's the proper scan pic from the last one i posted. I dont know what's normal for this media. how's this look?

Average burn, not as good as my results with this media but within reason. Your burner is working, congrats!

phew!

very odd! well thanks for your help anyway Scoob, much appreciated!

smartburn isn't detecting my drives now unfortunately. a search on google indicates that is an ASPI issue. I've used forceASPI but thats not helped. they stopped showing up in smartburn after I changed the IDE drivers.

I'm going to reformat this PC soon I guess, and then start over.

Or just give it a good kicking.

whatever comes first...