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-   -   Sony DRU-500A vs. 8x media (https://www.dvinfo.net/forum/distribution-center/35796-sony-dru-500a-vs-8x-media.html)

Jeremy Davidson December 2nd, 2004 10:13 AM

Sony DRU-500A vs. 8x media
 
I've got a Sony DVD burner (model DRU-500A I believe) which supports burning speeds up to 4x. Lately I switched to a new type of media (inkjet-printable Taiyo Yuden DVD-R), but my supplier has discontinued all but the 8x discs. Warning labels aside, I tried burning one in my drive, thinking I should be able to get it to work at 4x anyway.

Well, not really. Most of the time the drive spits it back out with a "Power Calibration Error" (I'm using Veritas RecordIt Now! software on Win98SE). So far I've been able to get them all to work at 1x, with two out of the six or so discs actually working at 4x. Still, even at 1x, the power calibration stage (Veritas says "Initializing Disc...") takes longer than usual.

Since all the warnings plastered all over the new discs said I could damage the drive, I chose to go to Sony's website and download the newest firmware. I don't know if this actually helped or not (since I did not try an 8x disc until after the update). Of course, there's no going back to the old version to find out. A 2.4x DVD+RW still works fine, as do all my 4x CD-RWs. I ran out of slower DVD-Rs, so I don't know if anything has changed with them or not.

Does anybody have any suggestions? I can live with 1x speed I guess, but 4x would sure be a lot nicer. I'd rather not buy a new burner just yet, but I'm not real happy with the idea that it may be unusable just because they don't make "slower" discs anymore.

Thanks!

Jeremy

Robert Mann Z. December 2nd, 2004 11:38 AM

pretty soon you won't be able to burn anything, we have 4 sony dru burners here after some time Power Calibration Error started popping its head, then the drives just went dead..

we sent them back to sony and they sent us new drives each time...

my advice is stick with pioneer...

Dan Euritt December 2nd, 2004 12:09 PM

i just went thru a big hassle with my new sony dru-700a.

i was able to burn taiyo yuden 8x on my 2x laptop toshiba dvd burner, but my panasonic rv32 would not correctly play the discs burned by the new sony drive in another pc... lots of blocky display.

updating the sony firmware fixed the problem, however... in your case, i would suggest trying out other dvd burning software, and ultimately, bailing out on win98 completely... it's too old to be supported by the new software... the relevant part to your problem is that i couldn't burn the 8x disc on the 2x drive with the reeldvd software, but it did work with nero.

one other thing to look at is if your taiyo yudens are real or fake... here is a thread with links to a japanese website that has pics comparing a taiyo yuden to a fake taiyo yuden:

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread....3&page=3&pp=25

Jeremy Davidson December 2nd, 2004 01:50 PM

So far I haven't seen any problems with any discs except for those Taiyo Yuden ones. The software has always worked fine, and the drive still erases and burns my older RW discs (both DVD+RW and CD-RW) without any problems.

Dan, I couldn't really make much sense of the link in your post. It looked like it was mostly applicable to some European supplier that might have problems. I'll check the label on my cakebox to see if it looks similar to anything on the forum.

My discs came from Polyline in Illinois:
http://www.polylinecorp.com/productl...51500200000500
model TYDVD8PW-50: 50 pack of 4.7GB 8x inkjet DVD-R

I did send a customer support email to Sony, but I never got a response. Their website doesn't say anything about 8x discs in regard to the 500 model, and the dvdhs.com site mentioned on the cakebox label doesn't seem to have much info either.

I'll see if I can find a trial version of Nero, or I may pick up a pack of 4x Imation DVD-R's (my previous brand of choice) just to see if they have any issues.

Otherwise, I'll just try 4x each time I burn, and if that doesn't work I'll drop to 1x. So far I've not had a disc that flat-out refused to burn. A new burner may be somewhere in the future, but I'm saving my pennies for a processor upgrade first.

As a side note, rebooting occasionally seems to help. 'Not sure why -- I keep my Windows installation as clean as possible (i.e. very few programs in the system tray, etc.).

Also, would you recommend printing the label onto the disc before or after burning it?

Jeremy Davidson December 2nd, 2004 02:54 PM

Dan, 'found the images you mentioned. My apologies -- I didn't look closely enough before my last reply. I will check one of my DVD-R's tonight to see what it has printed on the hub.

Dan Euritt December 3rd, 2004 05:42 PM

i like dealing with polyline, but rima.com has 8x injet printable taiyo yudens for $.68 each.

i do not recommend ever using stick-on labels on dvd discs, but i can understand how you gotta start somewhere... fry's had the epson 300 inkjet printer on sale for $119 a couple of weeks ago.

i lied about my problems being fixed with that panasonic dvd player, lol... i burned another project dvd, and it gagged in the player... but changing the burn speed had no affect on the end results, i tried several different speeds.

Jeremy Davidson December 9th, 2004 10:12 AM

Dan, thanks for the update. Yes, I started out with the labels. I never had anyone say they couldn't play the disc (or at least not due to the label), but I'd like to get away from that trick anyway. Right now I'm using an EZ/CD4200 printer (it's a rebranded Epson Stylus that's been modified for CD printing). It's not the greatest, but I'll use it for now.

I checked by blank discs, and they are the real Taiyo Yuden media. Thanks for the heads-up on this; I'll be on the lookout for those others in the future.

'Just burned another disc. This one worked at 4x no problem. Go figure.

Robert, with the drives you had, did it matter if the disc was + or -? 'Just curious.

Anyway, thanks for all your help. Maybe next time I'll order from rima (why are they so much cheaper?).

Robert Mann Z. December 9th, 2004 10:58 AM

never used a + disc only ...ridata g4 - discs


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