Firmware Update

[breadandbubbles]

I have an internal Benq dual layer, lightscribe supporting 16X DVD burner, as well as Windows XP Pro. i recently used up my 8X spindle, and figured for the same price, why not go with 16X instead?

but Nero wont let me burn ny faster han 8X! 16X simply doesnt show up in the small drop down menu when you choose the burning speed.

what do i do! id love to burn twice as fast!

i went to the BenQ website and they dont mention anything about updates. what do i do!

[Gouki]

You could try downloading a new firmware from here, but as you can see, BenQ is not listed there.

[John Bigboote]

I have an internal Benq dual layer, lightscribe supporting 16X DVD burner, as well as Windows XP Pro. i recently used up my 8X spindle, and figured for the same price, why not go with 16X instead?

but Nero wont let me burn ny faster han 8X! 16X simply doesnt show up in the small drop down menu when you choose the burning speed.

It's possible you may need to update your copy of Nero, but the more likely explanation is that your DVD media isn't good enough to burn at 16X. Yes, you can download firmware patches that let you override the media write power table profiles, but I STRONGLY DON'T RECOMMEND this, no matter how many times you hear a "friend" having done it. DVD-/+R is pretty fragile stuff, really.

I've done media surface scans on marginal brands of media as well as high quality Taiyo Yuden stuff, and doing a proper burn is essential if you wish to actually read data from your DVDs a few months or a year from now. You'd be amazed at how high the error rates are with marginal brands of DVD media, especially when burned at maximum speed. The higher the error rate, the slower the media will readback, and the shorter its expected lifespan.

You may wish to avoid burning faster than the rate at which the burner switches to a zoned/multi-speed strategy, as there are glitch points at each speed-step. (You can find this demonstrated in error-rate scans for yourself, and on most testing sites.) The format's error correction strategy "conceals" these glitch-points from the user, though they often cause speed reductions around those areas. Why burn slightly damaged media at the start just to shave a couple of minutes? You only burn once, but you (hope to) read many, many times. Glitched reads can lead to skipping/stuttering movie playback, slower than necessary program load times, or even premature media readback failures.

Pioneer DVR-108-109s can burn at 6X without using zoned speed switching, I don't know about the newer models. Non-Pioneer drives tend to lag in the maximum "safe" speeds by a tick, though I'm sure most are up to 6X at least by now. I think some manufacturers call this Zoned CAV (Z-CAV).

Yours in Red Lectroid Domination,

John Bigbooté

[breadandbubbles]

I did know that poor DVDs influence burning, but Maxell is a good brand. very reasonable. surely iot can handle 16X? if it says it?

i often burn at slower speeds than the maximum, but there are times when i need those minutes. theres no way to get them?

you talked about letting Nero or your dvd burner scan for the best speed?

[Jose Sigafus]

My new Pioneer DVR-111 woundn't burn at 16X until I replaced the ribbon with a good quality 80wire/40pin Ultra IDE cable. Now it does with Ritek 16X media. This is with Nero 7, Roxio 8, or CloneDVD2.

Edited April 21, 2006 by Jose Sigafus

[Andromeda43]

16x for a DVD is really "haulin' the mail".

That pushes the hardware, including the CPU just about as far as it will go.

Most new CD/DVD burners require an 80 conductor data cable.

Keep the data cable as short as possible and don't share it with other devices.

Then shut down all redundant Services in Services.msc and all unneeded TSR's in Msconfig.

Then use a program like "End It All 2" to shut down everything else before you even open up Nero.

Success is all in the preparation.

Then remember what I allus say, "a slow burn is a better burn".

If you want your disks to be readable in a wide range of readers, "Burn SLOW".

DVD's are still too expensive to just be making coasters out of them.

Cheers!

Andromeda43 B)