Burning @ 8x using external enclosure

[pochacco20]

I just recently installed my Plextor PX-708A in a Plumax USB 2.0/Firewire enclosure and I finally got some 4x DVD+R's that can burn at 8x (Fuji, RICOHJPNR01 read from DVDinfo) but I'm having issues getting it to properly burn at 8x and I'm not sure why. DVDinfo says it's capable of 8x CLV burning and Nero 6 recognizes it as such too, and when I start burning it seems to start off just fine (I can tell it's at least trying to burn at 8x cause the light flashes twice as fast than when burning at 4x), but it takes 15 to 30 minutes when I do this. The light flashes orange rapidly, and at few second intervals it flashes green for a split second meaning the internal buffer was depleted... and it keeps happening throughout the burn. I've tried this with two different computers using both the USB 2.0 and Firewire interfaces. The Firewire computer has a 2100+ Athlon XP with nForce2 Ultra400 motherboard and onboard Highpoint RAID with RAID 1.5 feature (I'm using that with two 200gig WD SE drives) so my computer shouldn't be the limiting factor. This is not a DMA issue cause it's an external burner. Any ideas on what I can do to fix this problem? It burns just fine at 4x, but I want to take advantage of the 8x capability of the drive.

[mrbass]

Try ripping with dvddecrypter to an external firewire drive. I've never gotten faster than 4X. Although if I rip to a local hardrive I can get 6X -8X at times. It's the firewire 400Mbps. The best you'll be able to do with 1394a is 4X. I guess whatever they call firewire 2 is it 1394b? that can do 800Mbps then you may be able to do 8X external burning. Question ...does an 8X external burning unit exist?

[kaetamer]

Not sure I understand what you mean.

I can rip from a Firewire DVD to harddisk using DVDDecrypter and sometimes get 4.7, 5.2, 6.1.

Are you sure the limitation is the Firewire?

Thanks.

[gooki]

I think mrbass did his calculations wrong. Firewire should easily support 8x DVD write (should even support 36x speed DVD write). Unless I've done my calcs wrong. (bit rate of dvd at 1x = 11mbits/sec, firewire = 400mbits. 400/11 = 36x speed)

However what is limiting your system is probably the burning software.


mrbass
"Queston ...does an 8X external burning unit exist?"

Yes buy an 8x internal ide unit, and throw it in a external 51/4 inch firewire enclosure.

[gooki]

pochacco20
You sure the discs are good for 8x speed write (have you tested them with the drive in an internal bay)?

[pochacco20]

No, I haven't tried burning at 8x when I had the drive in an internal bay cause I didn't have the proper DVD's at the time. Now I have the DVD's and I know they should be able to burn at 8x. The Fuji's and the Memorex are both 4x, DVDInfo Pro shows that they're Ricoh's and are capable of up to 8x CLV, every program I've tried senses that they can burn at 8x and adjusts the recording speeds accordingly, and at times during the burn (like somewhere in the last half region) it does actually burn at 8x consistantly (like maybe for 2 minutes straight or so). Anyway, I'll installing it internally and trying it again.

You're right that mrbass did the calculations wrong, but 8x DVD burn equates to just a little over 11 MBytes per second (bit rate read of DVD's isn't the same as 1x burn speed, that's why burning at 1x will only take about an hour for a full DVD). Firewire is about 400mbits per second which equals about 50 MBytes, however you have to consider overhead and that typical harddrives cannot sustain a throughput rate of that high (though they can easily maintain greater than 11MBps).

Also for mrbass, the external version of the Plextor 8x drive does exist... the model number is PX-708UF (the internal one is PX-708A). So why would they release an external drive that burns at 8x if there are serious issues with burning at 8x externally? I'm pretty sure the problem is on my end, not the drive. I just need to figure out what the problem is.

[pochacco20]

gooki, if you do want to help me out here are more details of my system.

Athlon XP 2100+
DFI nForce2 LAN Party
two 200gig Western Digital SE in RAID 1.5 config on the Highpoint controller
two sticks of 256MB PC3500 Kingston HyperZ at 333MHz and relaxed timings
ATI Radeon 9800 (which shouldn't matter)
Lite-On LTR-166 16x DVD-ROM on secondary IDE as Master
Lite-On 52x32x52 on primary IDE as Master
neither of those should matter
Windows XP with SP1, NTFS
Latest Nero and Latest CloneDVD. I've also tried CopyToDVD.

The other computer is similar but with KT400 chipset and smaller harddrive. Please help.

-poch

[gooki]

Just for the hell of it I'd give DVDDecrypter a got at burning an image to DVDR.

Why do i recomend DVDDecrypter.
1) It's not a mainstream writing app.
2) It reports the exact burn speed as it's operating. So if you drive is infact writing at 8x speed then slowing down you'll be able to know for sure.