8x media on 4x burner?

[gm2015]

I emailed Fujifilm tech support and here is what they have to say about whether their new 8x dvds will record in a 4x:

"Thank you for contacting Fujifilm USA. We appreciate the
opportunity to be of assistance.

"Please be advised that 8X speed DVD media is not compatible with 4X
DVD burners. Contact the manufacturer of the DVD burner in question
to determine if there is a firmware upgrade available that will
allow 8X speed discs to be used."

[fluppi99]

Hi,

I use 8x Fuji Taiyo Yuoden discs with a NEC 1100a (4x), burn quality ist superb.

F.

[gm2015]

Your maximum recording speed is 4x and you can copy to Fuji 8x TYs with no problem at 4x?

Are these their DVD-Rs or their DVD+Rs? Where I live, I used to be able to get Fuji TY (Japan) DVD-Rs, but I can only get the DVD+Rs now. I have never used the DVD+Rs before, but I was thinking of doing so until I got that email from their Tech Support.

When did you get your NEC 1100a?

[RJW]

NEC has released additional firmwares for the N1100 in a much better way as gateway. So that it works on N1100 with one of the newer firmwares is no guarantee for the Gateway version.

[gm2015]

I have tried the firmware update posted on NECs site and it doesn't work.

RJW, here's what a Gateway tech rep said about the 8/3/04 update that you found:

"The 4X is the maximum burning speed for this optical drive, but based on my judgement, you can still use 8X cds on your burner. The burner will only give 4X speed. Try one and see if my observation is correct. For the firmware update, I cannot find a suitable firmware update for this drive under your Windows XP operating system. I would not recommend one."

Of course, what he said about the compatibility of 8x discs isn't accurate, so maybe he's wrong about the firmware update that Gateway did post last year. I'm going to keep it, but not use it until I know for sure that it will address the burning speed.

I do have Herrie's firmware upadte now, but I know that there's a risk in using it. There are a number of CVS pharmacies where I live that still have a few Fuji (TY) 3-packs and I've bought some of those. When I'm done with them, I'll have to use Maxell's 8x discs because I know that they work.

Gateway's response to my questions about a firmware update amounts to: "Sorry, we don't have one, but if you'd like to buy another DVD recorder from us, we'll be happy to sell it to you."

I am not going to reward their unbelievable indifference by giving them more of my money. How insulting...

One tech rep said that they can't do a firmware update because of the drive's limitations. So then how come NEC can do it for versions that aren't OEMs?

[Jim]

I've burnt Sony 8X DVD-R (Made in Japan) discs in my Pioneer DVR-106D without any problems before. Obviously they are limited to 4X since that is the max for the burner.

Jim

[fluppi99]

With herrie´s firmware (linked before), you could flash your drive to a real NEC drive. This NEC firmware supports high quality 8x media at 4x speed. Which media is listed above.

you have 3 options:

1)
If you flash your gateway drive to a NEC, you´ll loose warranty and if anything works, you can burn 8x high quality media (Taiyo Yuden, Ricoh, MCC, maxell, sony with coressponding MID, not labeled crap) at 4x speed (and good quality) and you can continue using your burner.

2)
If you flash your drive and something goes wrong, your drive may not be usable any more.

3)
If you don´t flash your drive, you will have problems finding supported 4x media and you´ll have to burn on not supported media and burn quality will be a matter.

So, I think you have nothing to loose...

You have the links, there´s a step by step flashing manual on many web sites, you have a list of supported media, it´s now up to you.

F.

[fluppi99]

I got my nec1100a in june 2003.

I flashed it to hp 300, because I needed booktype setting (picky dvd player). Then I went from HP firmware to Fujitsu/ Siemens, because that firmware supported the riteks G0?, I had 20 discs and burn quality with the hp firmware was crap and this firmware supoorted also booktype setting.

Well, I tried herries firmware as well, but I had no use for additional (crap) media supoort, so I flashed the latest (official) NEC firmware last year.
I crossflashed the nec1100 to nec1300a (also herries firmware) but it made no sense to me (why burn with medicore results on DVD-R, if you can burn with good results on DVD+R), so I flashed back to latest official last autumn.

I´m proud owner of a 1640 Benq now, but I still use my 1100a. I put my NEC in an external case (firewire/ usb2) und it burns DVD+R 8x Media (see recommended list I posted before) with good burn quality @4x speed. (regarding the BENQ quality scan, latest Fuji discs made in Japan 8x speed had all a quality score of 96 to 99 /100.)

F.

[fluppi99]

One tech rep said that they can't do a firmware update because of the drive's limitations. So then how come NEC can do it for versions that aren't OEMs?

Thats bs, every drive has a table with discs mids and a write strategy for that discs. Developing those write strategies is (time) expensive, because you have to burn a discs with a strategy and test the discs, make some changes to the strategy and start over again.

You have to develope this strategies for every drive modell and for every (new) media.

Ok, there may be limiting hardware factors, p.e. you have a 16x speed discs and the 2.4 writer cannot supply the necessary laser power, but that´s no problem for 4x drives and 8x media.
It´s just more interessting to sell new drives and earn money than to spend money to support old drives.

F.

[fluppi99]

Your maximum recording speed is 4x and you can copy to Fuji 8x TYs with no problem at 4x?

Right, I burn Fuji 8x TY DVD+R at 4x speed with great quality.


F.

[Jim]

I picked up a 25 spindle of Memorex DVD+R that CompUSA has on sale this week. They are actually packaged as 4X media as they were advertised. I needed some cheap media fast for a project. The MID is PRODISC.R03 which is a 8X MID, but the disc itself is labeled as 4X media. I guess they are selling 8X media labeled as 4X media that didn't pass quality control standards for 8X burning.

The reason I bring this up is because of owners of older drives in this thread looking for 4X media so they can use optimal writing strategies. These owners may start finding 8X media that didn't pass 8X standards packaged as 4X. Unfortunately this media will still have the 8X media code and the older 4X burners will not have an optimal write strategy for them.

Jim

[gm2015]

"With herrie´s firmware (linked before), you could flash your drive to a real NEC drive. This NEC firmware supports high quality 8x media at 4x speed...

"So, I think you have nothing to loose..."

Fluppi99:

If I use Herrie's update, and something goes wrong, would I also lose my ability to copy CDRs? I at least have that now, and it's more important to me than copying DVDs.

I took the link to Herrie's update, and I have the update, but I am going to hold off for now (although I won't rule out using it later).

I am thinking of going to the consumer protection division of the AG's office in South Dakota (where Gateway is based) and New York (where I live). I did this once before (because of a couple of lies that Gateway made to me) and I was successful in holding them accountable. I might try it again and see what happens.

[gm2015]

I have one more question: If I am able to upgrade my firmware to 8x, will I still be able to burn to the 4x media that still I haven't used yet? I was able to find some Fuji 4x DVD-Rs in the last week. Would I be able to copy to them with 8x capability?

[RJW]

Incase of the NEC firmware they only added the 8x extra codes.
So 4x should be the same quality.
Incase of Herry additional 4x and 8x media was probally added and some codes might have been reasigned which can give mixed results (good and bad.) I think you should ask the man himself.

[gm2015]

Thanks.

[gm2015]

Even though Fuji told me that their 8x discs were incompaitbile with my 4x NEC, I decided to see buy a few of them and see for myself. As it turns out, I can copy to their 8x discs (at 4x and 2.4x). I tried one at 2.4x and got very low P1 errors (lower than on any DVD-R disc, either 8x Maxell's or 4x Fujis). I had one single spike of 7 P1 failures for a Nero DVD PSeed grade of 70, which is not bad.

[frank1]

I think that in the near future the question might switch to:
Can tou burn properly 16x certified medias in a 8x single layer burner ?

Notice that by the change from the Pioneer 107 8x SL to the Pioneer 108 16x DL, this manufacturer increased the "nominal" laser power by 50% !!
How do you control properly such an increase of the laser beam power in order to get a good "write strategy" while using lower wtriting speed such as 2,4x or 4x ??

[unclebud]

bump for info. wish i had read this before i bought memorex 16x
completely unrecognizable in nd-1100a and nd-1300a

[RJW]

I think that in the near future the question might switch to:
Can tou burn properly 16x certified medias in a 8x single layer burner ?

Notice that by the change from the Pioneer 107 8x SL to the Pioneer 108 16x DL, this manufacturer increased the "nominal" laser power by 50% !!
How do you control properly such an increase of the laser beam power in order to get a good "write strategy" while using lower wtriting speed such as 2,4x or 4x ??

you are forgetting something here. The speed is also faster.
The higher laser power is there for a shorter time (disc's rotates faster) so the older burner can burn these with a lower laserpower because speed is lower !.

(Great example is Pioneer 106D with Verbatim 16x DVD-R don't be fooled what the drive itself says about this combination if your only looking at pi-8. (yes it reports arround 280 ! with hardly PIF's is my experience.)
Other drives see these burned disc's as disc's with really low error levels.
Also the Pioneer 106D plays these verbatim 16x DVD-R's back fine.

The question is
Is media supported well or can the drive get the correct info from the disc and create a good strategy of it's own ?