DVD Recording speed - myths and facts?

[jfcarbel]

I have always wondered about 2 things and have heard mixed opinions. So I want to hear from the experts.

1) Does it make a difference in reliability, longevity of media, and video errors to record at a lower speed. For example, is it a good idea with 4X media to record at 2X. Or if you are using good quality media like Ritek or Tayo Yuidan, does it not matter at all? Should I just always use the highest recording speed and not give it a second thought if the media I use is good quality? Even with the new 8X media?

2) I have heard of people recording at 8X with good quality 4X media with the new 8X burners. How should one do this. Does the drive have a safety built in where it will downgrade your speed if it senses the media can not handle the high speed write? Do any DVD burning software have this built in software to choose a Maximum record speed and let the drive detect it? Or do you just take a chance and choose 8X with certain high quality media and either it works or you get write errors?

[jfcarbel]

Found this thread, but would like others comments

http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=67725

[SomeJoe]

I produce our DVDs at work using a Pioneer A05 drive, and I record at 4x on Verbatim DVD-Rs.

I've used the KProbe utility on a Lite-On DVD-ROM drive to get a quantitative measure of the quality that I'm recording. The KProbe results show that I'm getting wonderful burns at 4x. I've tried 2x and 1x burns, and there is no appreciable difference.

In my opinion, reducing burn speed to get a higher quality burn is just a crutch for sub-standard media. If you use quality media in the first place, the burn speed can be as high as the media is rated for with no compromise in error rates.

At home, I have a Plextor PX-708A 8x drive. I'm using Memorex 4x DVD+R media there, and the Plextor drive is burning them at 8x. The burn quality is very good, although it is edged out by the Verbatim DVD-R media I use at work (good stuff, that MCC media.) The 8x burned +Rs work fine on my Sony DVD player at home.

As far as I know, the 8x drives maintain a list in firmware of the media that they will allow you to burn at 8x. If the media you use isn't on the firmware's built-in list, it will only burn at the media's rated speed (4x, 2.4x, 2x, or 1x).

I generally burn with DVD decrypter at home. I haven't tried selecting a lower burn speed to see what it would do, but then again, I have never had a need to.

[jfcarbel]

So your software just detects the 4X as 8X? I assume this is because Plextor did testing on certain brands and found those 4X to burn reliable at 8X.

I only hope my new Pioneer 107D can burn some 4X at 8X.

[alexnoe]

Your software can't read the speed directly from the media. It rather asks the burner what speed it can do on the inserted media.

The Plextor 708 will, for example, report "2.4x, 4x, 8x", if you insert Verbatim 4x +R.
The Nec 2500, for example, allows 8x also on Mitsubishi and Taiyo Yuden 4x DVD-R.

The Pioneer A07 cannot write any 4x media at 8x with the offical firmware, but there is a hacked one which allows 8x writing to 4x dvd-r (not yet dvd+r!) media. It seems to work well with quality media, like the abmovementioned