Burning on 'fake' TYG02

gary172 2005-08-03 12:14:03 UTC #1

Some time back I purchased a 50 pack of Fry's Brand GQ DVD-R 8x media. The MID is TYG02. I use DVD Decrypter to burn the ISO image using the default burning engine. 3 out of 4 of these media would end up as coasters (not readable or heavily pixilated) even at 4x. I tried about 30 of the dics total so far. The concensus at various forums was that this stuff was fake. Branded media (Verbatim 16x -R and TY 8x +R) burn fine even at rated speeds. (burner is Plex 716A, F.W. 1.06)

Recently I burned several images using the latest Nero Recode, first at 4x, then at 8x. No problems at all!!

Yesterday I burned 5 new ISO images on the fake media using Nero, but by accident the burn speed was MAX (16x) at the burn time was ~5 mins. To my amazment, the all the discs played fine on all my players.

Could anyone explain this? I don't know what burning engine Nero uses. Could the difference be the burning engines?

Best Regards

Lord_Voldemort 2005-08-03 17:23:48 UTC #2

Are you sure that the images were ok?

chas0039 2005-08-03 18:38:53 UTC #3

Even bad media will burn correctly once in a while. As I understand it, the burn is controlled by the firmware and the drive. The software just sends the data.

simongabry 2005-08-04 03:03:58 UTC #4

I can confirm, I have a DVD-R media certified for 8x writing speed, if I write at 4x and 6x with 716a I get coaster, if I write at 8x I get a good one (ok, not really good but at least well readable) !
I don't think the burning engine is involved but the "write strategy" in the firmware, the strategy is specific for a single writing speed, so in my case the 8x strategy works better than the 4x and 6x strategy for that specific media.

gary172 2005-08-04 06:41:36 UTC #5

@Lord Voldemort: yes, images were fine because when I burned them on branded media using DVDD they played no issues.

@chas0039: Yes even bad media will burn 'correctly' once in awhile. Out of the first 30 I burned with DVDD, only about 8 turned out good. On the other hand, 8 out of 8 burned fine using Nero.

I forgot to look at DVDD last nite, but as I recall, there are 4 or 5 burning engine options to choose from.
There is another forum wherein certain burners are having issue with one of the later versions of the VSO engine, so I am not sure that it is just up to the firmware.

Anyway, I just thought this was interesting, I am going to continue experimenting over the weekend.

Kindest Regards