Sony DRU500A media problems

[Debaser]

Currently using:
XP Pro
Sony DRU500A - firmware 1.0f
Nero 5.5.10.0

Media tried:
Sony DVD+RW 4.7Gb
Princo DVD-R 4.7Gb
Infiniti DVD-R 4.7Gb WhiteTops

Since purchasing the Sony burner the only disc which has burnt successfully is the RW which came with the burner.

When using the Princo disks the burn reaches 100% but hangs, and the only thing i can do is end the program which of course stuffs up the lead in/lead out and produces another coaster!!.

The burner fails to recognise the Infiniti disks, period. after opening the write dialog Nero shows a progression bar showing the following "Waiting for the drive to become ready", followed by "The drive is not initialized! - perhaps due to defective medium"

I have been in touch with Sony, Medea International, and Misco but no-one has come up with an answer to solve my problems.


Questions:

1. Can you recommend any media which DEFINATELY works with this burner?

2. Is Nero a good choice for burning DVDs?

3. What other software packages would you recommend trying?

Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated

[benf2]

i use memorex and primedisc with no problem...better picture(personally) with the memorex. I tried with -r, +r, and +rw


i too use nero 5510 as well as imgtool for making dvd videos

[famawizard]

I had same problems with easycd (and one of my friend with nero)but now, with recordnow dx 4.6 and dla 3.58 all works with the same DVD brands.

Lucio

[waldok]

For what it's worth, I never had any coaster with the Sony until now, except once a third party software crashed on me while I was burning, so the SOny was not to blame.

I 've been using :

- BulkPaq gen 3.2
- Sony DVD-R
- Verbatim DVD-RW (not as reliable for standalone playback, sometimes the DVD will not be accepted and you need to retry)
- Imation DVD-R
- Imation DVD+R
- Sony DVD+RW

The main difference with you is that I have firmware 1.0d. I know there is a more recent firmware (1.0g) available (see yesterday news on Doom9 site). Maybe you should try this?
O my side, I would always recommend to use ImgTools 0.89 for making a DVD image of the files you want to burn, and then use DVDDecrypter to burn the DVD. Always worked for me. Apparently there have been numerous issues with Nero for some users. Some users recommend Prassi PrimoDVD, others REcordNow Max.

I would recommend the following steps (in the mentioned order) :
1. Use known reliable support (SOny DVD-R for the moment)
2. USe ImgTools 0.89 and DVDDecrypter (known as reliable)
4a. If it works, experiment with BulkPaq or other low budget media.
4b. If not, try to upgrade sony firmware to 1.0g
5. If it still doesn't work, try to downgrade to 1.0d (if it is possible)

Hope this helps.

Waldok:cool:

[waldok]

I'm interested on you saying you get a better picture with Memorex. How better ? Would you please explain how the media would influence picture quality, cause I really can't see how (not being ironic here, I'm serious, maybe I'll learn something here).
I though media quality would affect things like "number of read retries" in case of defect so maybe picture freezes or blocks appear, but do you mean you can really see an improvement in picture quality with Memorex ? That sounds strange.
To me data are what they are from the moment you have your files ready to burn. If the standalone can read them, they are the same whatever media you use. Reminds me of the old discussion about sound being poorer on CD-R than on original Audio CDs after copy...

Can you elaborate on what you meant ?

Waldok:cool:

[benf2]

on some of the cheaper disk i have encountered "artifacts" where as the same movie on the memorex showed none. Not saying this is true with all cheap media nor saying this is true with all memorex, just what i have encounterd... simply i might have a few bad disk in the batch.

[waldok]

OK I got your point. These were artefacts, I imagine like a few bad blocks. I thought you were speaking about general image quality improvement (like more sharp or something like this).

thanks for your answer.

Waldok:cool:

[Debaser]

Thanks Waldok, i'll have a go with IMGtools and DVD Decryptor, and see if i have more success.