CD-DVD Speed - A user guide

4 - Menu - Extra - Erase Disc


This menu item is aimed to erase rewritable media.

Selecting this item will be open a window containing an horizontal progression bar and erasing options:




In fact, rewritable media can be erased in two ways, so CD-DVD Speed asks the user which method must be used.

Quick Erase: Selecting this option, disc content will not be actually deleted, but it erases only the TOC (Table of Content), i.e. that part of the disc containing all informations on what is the content of the disc. If this section of the disc is erased, the drive "see" an empty disc. This method requires a very short time (usually less than a minute).

Full Erase: Selecting this option, the disc will actually be erased completely. All files will be deleted from the disc. Obviously, this method requires more time because all of the disc surface must be written. The time required is related to the media. As a rule of thumb, the time required to do a full erase is the same as required to do a complete writing of that media. For example, to do a full erase of a 4x RW DVD it occur about 15 minutes at 4x speed.

4 - Menu - Extra - Bitsetting






This item allows the user to modify bitsetting options of DVD burners that support this function. in other words, some DVD burners are able to modify the so-called "Book Type".

Book Type is an information located at the start of all DVDs. Based on this information, an optical drive is able to know what type of media is inserted. This information is physically written on the disc.

Book Type is not important only for burners, but also for readers (mostly for standalones) because it's necessary to correctly identify the inserted media.

Many standalone players, mostly the older ones, have many difficulties to identify burned media because they aren't able to identify them or, more frequently, because manufacturers purposely blocked their recognition in firmwares. By changing book type it's possible to "cheat" the player making it "believe" that the inserted disc is not a burned one but a "pressed" one.

A very important consideration: book type can be changed only in "plus" media (+R/RW e +R-DL), because in all other media types book type is already written on the disc. On "plus" media, instead, booktype can be changed during a burn, if the burner supports this function.

In fact, not all burners are able to change book type. Moreover, each burner has a different behaviour regarding this setting.

For example, on Lite-On burners selected setting of book type is stored in drive eeprom and it remains the same even after a computer reboot. On LG burners, instead, this setting is restored to the default setting after a computer reboot, and must be changed any time by the user.

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Selecting this menu item will open a window that allows the user to change booktype settings of the currently selected burner.




What appears in this window changes slightly accordig to the selected burner, but basically what will be described here will be usable with any burner.

Drive Settings: Here there are all settings that can be modified by the user on that specific drive. In our example, the burner is able to change booktype on +R media and on +R-DL media, but not in +RW media (these options are greyed out).




Here it's possible to see the current booktype selected and the changes that can be done.

Disc Type: The type of disc

Book Type: The book type currently selected.

New Setting: The new setting that user can select. To change it, simply select a new one from the combo box (see red arrow).

Set: After selecting the desired setting, press the "Set" button to apply changes.

Set as default: If the burner supports this function, the change can be made "permanent", i.e. the just set option will be maintained also after a computer reboot. In our example, the burner won't allows this to be done, so the option is grayed out.

Disc Settings: Here are shown the current settings for the media inserted in the drive.




In our example, in the drive there is a +R media and currently selected booktype is +R.

The "Refresh" button allows to do a refresh of the window content.

The "Close" button closes this window.

5 - Menu - Help


Help menu contains only two items: Manual and About.




Manual: This item opens the CD-DVD Speed manual. This is not included in CD-DVD Speed zip file downloaded from website, so selecting this item will show the following error:




It's possible to download a user manual from website but it's available only for an old version of it.

About: This item gives information on CD-DVD Speed. Here we can see the author, Erik Deppe, program version (that now it's visible also in the main window bar), and links for CD-DVD Speed and for Nero website.

6 - Acknowledgements


Some acknowledgements to all people that helped me to realise this guide.

CDFreaks staff, to have published this guide and because they gave me some space on their servers to store all images contained in this guide.

Erik Deppe, author of CD-DVD Speed, who helped me to understand some technical aspects too difficult for me. A big thanks to Erik for all corrections made to this guide.

Eltranquil and Dee-27, moderators on CDFreaks, that helped me to solve some technical problems and gave me some test results that I couldn't execute because I don't have the necessary hardware.

DrageMester for his help in publishing and maintaining of this guide on Blank Media forum.

James4Eva, that read all this guide helping me to eliminate all translation errors contanined in my writings (English is not my primary language).



A big thanks to all

A big Thanks to geno888 for creating and sharing this guide with us.

You can post your comments, questions and opinions about this guide in the following discussion thread:

Discussion thread for: CD-DVD Speed - A user guide

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For discussing the Nero CD-DVD Speed software itself please use the following thread instead:

CD-DVD Speed Disc Quality (PI/PIF) Test