Pio 111d and 160P6S Getting Sweet Spot

[Roadhog32901]

Question about what system you guys use to find the right media, right firmware, and right speed for a given New DVD Burner?? If there is in fact a tried and true system?

I am working with a Pio 111d and Lighty 160p6s.

160P6s

1. Using T02 media I got acceptable burns with the 160P6s but not great, I will post burns later. I tried various firmware (and 6x and 8x burns) with no luck at great burns with a couple different spindles of T02. I was ready to give up thinking I got an OK drive–but not a good one.

2. The last thing I tried (last night) was a spindle of Verb at 12x I got on sale last week (Old package Bold Sans Serrf open//lock> This turns out to be a sweet media for the Lighty as well as a sweet burning speed.

Pio 111d

1. This drive burns both the T02 media and Verb media at pretty decent quality. Not so picky.

Now is there some sort of method you guys use that I have not thought of? I went through quite a bit of media that were just so-so burns to figure this one drive out??

[Roadhog32901]

This T02 Media was burned at 6x on the Lighty, but 8x was just about the same–OK–not a coaster—but not a real good burn.

[Roadhog32901]

To me this looks like the better burn on the Verb media, and it was burned at 12x.

*You will note different firmware on the Lightly but the firmware did not seem to make a difference on burn quality (I tried).

[Roadhog32901]

Here is a burn on the Pio 111D with the same T02 Media.

[Roadhog32901]

Now I will be waiting for the next sale on Verb media for the Lighty it seems.

The different firmware for the Lightly just seemed to make no difference in burn quality nor in the quality of the scan.

From this I “guess” that media type/brand makes the most difference in any one drive??? I am still in shock that the Lighty does not like the T02 media better then the Verb media–I thought the T02 was "The Best for ALL drives?

Another question I have to wonder. With all these drives mass produced as they are, why would a certain drive/model not all burn better on a certain media. For example–why would’t all 160p6S lighty’s burn better on this Verb media–they all have the same opticals and electronics?

PS How often does the verbs go on sale at BB, OD, OM?? I know the big sale was last week, wish I had picked up more then one spindle now?

[Roadhog32901]

I guess no comments on this

[Arachne]

Are you using the test version of the SmartBurn utility with your Litey? If not, you may want to download it - link in this thread.

It’ll let you tweak various settings to improve burn quality. What you choose to enable/disable is personal preference.

Also, how many burns of the T02 did you do on the Litey?

[DrageMester]

Question about what system you guys use to find the right media, right firmware, and right speed for a given New DVD Burner?? If there is in fact a tried and true system?

That’s a very broad question and probably a big part of the reason you didn’t get any comments before.

Here’s a simple system.

1. Start with good media. There’s really no substitute for this.

2. Upgrade your burner to the latest firmware; this is almost always the best firmware with fixed bugs and widest range of supported media.

3. Burn your DVD±R media at 8x for desktop drives and 4x for laptop drives, test the burn quality, and then work your way upwards and downwards from there to find the best burning speed.

4. Adjust HyperTuning, Online-HyperTuning, SolidBurn, AutoStrategy or whatever advanced settings are present in your drive to see which settings are best for your drive/media.

[Roadhog32901]

Are you using the test version of the SmartBurn utility with your Litey? If not, you may want to download it - link in this thread.

It’ll let you tweak various settings to improve burn quality. What you choose to enable/disable is personal preference.

Also, how many burns of the T02 did you do on the Litey?

1. Yes, I am using the test version of smartburn. It did not seem “ANY” option helped (I do not have the OHT setting available with the lighton model/firmware–I am not sure why–I suppose it is not available with this drive model though).

2. I did about 3-4 burns with the T02 in the lightly–a couple from each of the two spindles.

The drive just seems to like the verb media better for some reason. I do not think the T02 scans were bad (TRT tests looked perfect), just that the Verb burns/scans were better.

The Pio 111d seemed to like both the T02 media and Verb media–like a guy looking at women at a bar on last call—they all look good lol

[Roadhog32901]

That’s a very broad question and probably a big part of the reason you didn’t get any comments before.

Here’s a simple system.

1. Start with good media. There’s really no substitute for this.

2. Upgrade your burner to the latest firmware; this is almost always the best firmware with fixed bugs and widest range of supported media.

3. Burn your DVD±R media at 8x for desktop drives and 4x for laptop drives, test the burn quality, and then work your way upwards and downwards from there to find the best burning speed.

4. Adjust HyperTuning, Online-HyperTuning, SolidBurn, AutoStrategy or whatever advanced settings are present in your drive to see which settings are best for your drive/media.

As far as item 4 above–you guys see a real difference in burn quality using any of these options?? I could not tell any difference at all??

Yea it is a broad question, but probably a question any newbe (to cdfealks looking for a great burn) would want to know.

Too bad there is not a "if you have this make/model drive, go here, use this media, burn at this speed, and use this firmware to get best results section.

Thanks for input guys