Hi all,
I am about to buy Verbatim DVD-R 16x dvd’s. But before I do that I want to know if I have to burn them at 16x or can I burn them with 8x or 4x? I am using a NEC 3540 recorder.
The reason I am asking is that burning my 8x certified low budget dvd’s at 2x give me much crappier result than burning them at 8x.
/marcus
The answer to your question is yes, you can burn 16X media at slower speeds. But, why are you paying extra for 16X media if you don’t plan on burning at 16X?
My experience is that the newer 16X burners do not record at slow speeds (i.e. 2X) as well as the older 4X and 8X burners. Your experience bears that out. I think if you buy 16X media and plan to burn at 2X you will still have less quality than if you burn at 8X. Bottom line is that if you have good results with an 8X burn, keep your current media and burn at that speed; going to 16X media won’t solve the inability of recording at a slower speed.
The price for 8x and 16x Verbatim media is the same from where I’m buying. I didn’t know if the failure burning 8x media at 2x was due to the media or the recorder and since I haven’t tried 16x I didn’t know if the data flow will be enough for 16x burning. It should be since Nero indicate a transfer rate at about 55000kb/s but better safe than sorry. 
Ok here’s the deal.
It’s dependent on both the media AND the burner.
I own a Liteon 851S->832S. I burn everything at 4x onto 16x media because that’s what my burner is happy doing. Actually now that it is 16x media I probably COULD burn at 8x, I haven’t tested in a while.
But I do it this way because that’s the media I have and the way that works. I used to use some media that I had to burn at 8x or else it wouldn’t come out properly.
And yes, modern burners with modern media burn like ASS at 2x, so much so that many new burners don’t let you select anything under 4x with 16x media. 
Just to add one more variable to the mix, as new coatings and media are manufactured the firmware on your recorder can become outdated. There is no reason to update firmware if you don’t have a problem, but new firmare will allow your burner to work with the newer media if it could not do so previously. Check the firmware forum for more info regarding your specific burner.
In most cases dvd media burns best at the speed it is rated at, and may actually burn worse slower. Thats the speed the disk was designed for. It’s not universally true though. It is most commonly cheap poor quality media that burns beter slower because it has a hard time doing what it claims it can do (burn at the rated speed). Burning slower as a regular practice with all disks to get beter quality is wrong. Overall, you will get the best quality with the rates speed. The best thing to do is try diffrent speeds and scan though. you may find some medias work best at thier rated speed (I think you will find most fall into this catagory), some will burn beter slower, and some might actually burn beter faster. It is not just dependant on the disk though. One burner may burn disk x that is rated at 8x best at 12x, and another burner may burn it best a 4x. Even the same dirve with the same firmware can show such diffrences. My liteon 851s@832s burns ricohjpnr01 best at 6x (though it is 4x meida) and burns just as well as at 8x as 4x (but 6x beats both). I am guessing that the firmware just supports 6x the best.
The only way to know, is to try burning at diffrent speeds and scan the media. Your drive may very well behave diffrently than someone elses, even with the same drive, media, and firmware.
In my opinion & experience Ripit has got it spot on.
With quality media my burners (lg4163 & benq 1620) burn very well at the media’s rated speed. In the case of the Benq it burns Taiyo Yuden T02 8x media at 16x without any lose of quality.
Always first let the burner burn the media at the speed the software selects. If you’re then unhappy with the results then maybe start reducing the burn speed.
The golden rule is always buy quality media. Crap media will always give crap results at any speed.