Burning 2 movies simultaneously on 2 Different Drives, Need Help

ImBAD 2004-12-26 23:22:14 UTC #1

I am posting this thread based on a conversation I had with Zevia on a previous thread.

I am trying to determine if it is practical (or even possible) to burn 2 movies at the same time using two different dvd burners. I recently bought the Benq 1620 in addition to the PX-716A (from PCConnection). I would like to be able to burn 2 copies (of the same movie) simultaneously using both dvd burners.

Zevia mentioned that his drives experienced reading hiccups when he tried to conduct simultaneous reading tests of two of his 16X DVD burners (due to the taxing effect DVD burning has on one's computer resources.) I am wondering if anyone has had any luck doing this sort of thing?

Also, how would you do it? Simply run Nero twice? I was wondering if anyone knows an effective or efficient way to make simultaneous burns using two different dvd burners. I'd appreciate any help you can provide.

Thanks,
ImBAD

engineers 2004-12-26 23:33:00 UTC #2

To perform such action the drives must be each on a seperate controller, and the harddrive where the data is stored must also not be attached to on of the 2 drivers, the software wich supports 2 drives simulane are stomp/veritas/prassi/recordnowmax/deluxe, dont open nero twice nere, you get troubles that wont work, and burnspeed must be the same

Namoh 2004-12-27 05:11:25 UTC #3

Your burners should be connected each to a seperate controller (primary & secondary) and your harrdisks should not be connected to the same controller, but f.e connected to a S-ATA controller. If you've got 2 harddisks in RAID0 it would be great.

Nero has an option that says: burn multiple copies (or something like that) that you can use, so you don't have to open Nero twice.

ImBAD 2004-12-27 06:28:35 UTC #4

Does anyone know if you can select burn multiple copies in Nero and have Nero burn the first copy from your first DVD Burner and the second copy immediately afterward on your other DVD Burner? That would like a nice feature, so you don't have to load the same drive twice.

zevia 2004-12-27 07:12:18 UTC #5

You can change "number of copies" and select "use multiple recorders" in Nero. This means you can only burn one set of data multiple times to multiple burners. Each time it will burn simultaneously. Is this what you mean, imbad?

ImBAD 2004-12-27 07:33:18 UTC #6

Oh wow, Zevia, I've never seen that done before on Nero! That's exactly what I originally wanted to do. That's great. Did you have to set up your burners on seperate IDE cables to get that working?

Also, do your burns take a quality hit when you do that?

ImBAD

zevia 2004-12-27 07:38:19 UTC #7

Right now my burners are in the same IDE channel, as mentioned in another thread I dont intend to do on the fly copy or simultaneous recording, yet. My test above was for audio CD so it was fine. For DVDs, to prevent data transfer rate problems, you need to put the burners in seperate IDE channels (or ATA/SATA controller) as Namoh and Engineers stated also. Don't forget not to use Promise chip for ATA controller since it's not good for Optical drives (very good for HDD though).

ImBAD 2004-12-27 07:47:08 UTC #8

Are there any ATA controllers you recommend buying out there?

Shadowmatrix 2004-12-27 07:55:34 UTC #9

Burning two DVDs or CDs can be accomplished in Nero without having two instances of Nero opened at once. There is an option in Nero that allows the use of multiple burners. Once the option has bee checked you will be to burn using multiple drives. The burn speed will be that of the slowest drive i.e. 8x and 12 x; the burn speed will be set at 8x for both drives. as mentioned in other replies to your question, the two burners have to be on separate channels and the hard drive containing the source files also has to be on a separate channel i.e. SATA 1,2,IDE 1 or 2 or Ultra ATA card. To burn two DVDs simultaneously you should increase the ultra buffer level and cache level in Nero t maximum allowable value.

zevia 2004-12-27 08:11:22 UTC #10

What is your system spec ImBAD? Do you have IDE and SATA onboard (newer system)?

I tried both Promise and Silicon Image 680 but can't get 716a in UDMA4 working properly in my system, so I returned the SiI680 and use Promise for my HDDs.

thanks for the buffer and cache info, Shadow.

ImBAD 2004-12-27 08:48:55 UTC #11

I have an AMD XP 2600+ oc'd to 3200+ with 1-gig of Kingston PC3200 DDR ram on an Asus A7N8X-Deluxe Motherboard. My harddrive I am burning from is a Serial ATA Maxtor 250gig 7200 rpm drive.

My primary IDE controller controls two other harddrives, a Seagate 200 gig 8mb cache and a Western Digital 80 gig Special Edition 8mb cache

My secondary IDE controller currently controls a Liteon 52 speed cd burner and a PX-708A burner. But I am replacing both with the PX-716A and Benq1620. Do you think the Promise will work for me? When I bought my first PX-716A from Bestbuy (which I took back cause it was TLA0001) it was running at UDMA4 automatically.

ImBAD