1) If I burn a DVD at 1X or 2X will I get more or less errors than a high speed?

2) What speed gives better audio/video quality?

3) Does the laser's life last longer burning at high speed?

1) DVD support includes an error correction protocol whatever the DVD format used (Data or Video). Thus you can burn at the maximum speed with no problem.
Things are different on CD where VCD are burn in Mode2, where no error protection is embed. Then the faster you burn, the more reading errors you can have.

2) idem 1)

3) it seems logical to say yes.

Thanks Phil

Actually no
The faster the write speed, the faster the ON/OFF "duty cycle" (more on/off power cycles per time) of the laser, and this shortens the life of the laser semiconductor.

-kwag

I'm afraid that’s not totally true . DVD does include an error correction protocol, but if your DVD player has too many errors to correct (caused by not ideal burning speed, or anything else), it will lead to a performance drop. If your player’s laser is not very well tuned, this performance drop can get so high that it can cause read errors and skips.

Also Data/Audio CDs that are burn in Mode1 (with error correction embed) will suffer with the same problem that I described above; and the ideal record speed is almost never the slowest or the fastest your recorder can get.

Well, it will not affect the video quality directly, but the playback quality. I mean, a media with fewer errors to be corrected will be more “light” to the player play, and less suggested to errors. It is a bit hard to find the best/ideal “burn speed”, because it will vary from recorder to recorder, and even worst, it will vary from media brand too. With audio CDs there are some tools that will identify and count C2 errors (correctable errors), so you can make tests and choose the speed that will produce fewer errors. I don't know if there is such a tool for DVD media. But as I already said, this ideal speed will be very unlikely the slowest or the fastest your recorder can get.

There are also some media that doesn't like to be burned at too low speeds. I've had lots of experiences with Ritek G04, rated at 4x. Burned at 2x it gives a huge amount of PI/PIF errors but at 4x works like a charm.

DVD+R discs often do not like speeds lower than what they are certified for. Some even burn better at higher speeds, for example, I have a 50-disc spindle of Verbatim +R's which are rated at 4x but produce much less PI/PIF errors when burnt at 8x! My guess is that they are actually the same discs as in 8x spindles but just labeled differently. And cheaper

EDIT: Nero includes a tool for scanning the DVDs for PI/PIF errors. If you have a LiteOn burner, you should use KProbe.

Hi Muaddib ,
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't C2 error correction just for reading errors?
Because we were mostly talking about burning errors, right?
Anyway DVD error correction would definitly be welcome
Cheers

__________________
Rui

A burn error will be detected at reading time There is no way to correct a "burn error" so you have to use protocol to restore from the consequence.

And DVD support DO HAVE internal correction. It's impossible to have a such data density with 0 errors.

Thanks for that tip
I hadn't seen that one

-kwag

Ans which one it is ? I do not see it in the Nero program group.

It's the Nero "CD-DVD Speed"

-kwag

Just take the results with a grain of salt, they are most likely not directly comparable between different DVD drives. PI/PIF scanning is useful for comparing burns on your own system, at least that's what the big boys at cdfreaks.com say. Nevertheless, after some scanning, it's easy to see when the disc can be declared faulty. On crappy media the errors are usually huge in the last gigabyte or so.