Is my Blu-Ray burner too slow?

[JT101]

Hi

I've already done a fair amount of research on this, but no much luck so far.

My LG BT10N (Panasonic UJ-240 in an enclosure) is rated to burn at 4X for BD-R DL and 2X for BD-RE according to http://www.lgsolutions.com/products/digital-storage/optical-disc-drives/blu-ray-drives-slim.

Whether I use Nero (verify disc is unchecked) or Windows drag and drop it takes around 5 hours to burn one disc. My calculations support http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blu-ray_Disc_recordable, which says 48mins for 4X!

The disks I bought are TDK BD-R 50GB DL Ver 1.3 1-6X, and TDK BD-RE 50GB DL Ver 1.3 1-2X.

I've loaded up ImgBurn, and it reports:
Disc Information:
Status: Empty
State of Last Session: Empty
Erasable: No
Free Sectors: 24,438,784
Free Space: 50,050,629,632 bytes
Free Time: 5430:52:34 (MM:SS:FF)
Next Writable Address: 0
Supported Write Speeds: 1x, 2x

So clearly,I'm not going to get anything fast out of that programme either.

I am burning from external 1.5TB Seagate SATA drive to the burner, both of which are USB 2.0. However, the bottleneck remains with the Blu-Ray spec at 144Mbps.

I ran Nero Info Tool: http://www.thebreadcrumbtrail.org/ga...2_itemId=24095, but came up with same result

The only thing I can think to do now is buy some different discs, incase this was the issue. And if not, then I'll know it's the drive. Or update the firmware

Any suggestions welcome

Thanks

[Ian]

A firmware update may get the drive to write to those 50GB BD-R DL discs at 4x. Knowing LG though, there probably isn't one available.

More than likely, the slow speeds are being caused by BD's defect management. This will more than double the amount of time it takes to burn a disc. Here's someone else that had a similar problem caused by it:

buring-slow-ggw-h20l-t24627.html

[JT101]

Thanks Ian

Problem is, even if the defect management is unchecked, it states in Nero that the maximum I'll get is 2X. As you say a firmware update may be necessary. And I agree, highly unlikely I'll get one from LG.

I may have got the information about it being Panansonic incorrect. But I do know the drive model is HL-DT-ST BD-RE _GBW-T10N. From what I've read online, HL-DT-ST means LG i.e. the company.

It seems PHPBB has something on what I want: http://forum.rpc1.org/viewforum.php?f=3 ... 0057450149

However, it won't let me register (keeps saying my e-mail address is invalid), and I can't seem to find a firmware for my drive. They seem to be using DevilsClaw Flasher, though I have no idea how to get or use Terminal, nor the Flasher programme.

Any help on finding this firmware would be gladly appreciated

Thanks

[Ian]

Yep, the maximum writing speed is definitely a firmware thing.

Even if you have devilsclaw's flasher, its not going to do you much good without a newer firmware you can update to.

LG does have an auto update utility that comes with their drives. I've never gotten it to work right but it might be worth a try.

[Ian]

LG auto updater:

http://www.lg.com/de/products/documents/Autoupdater.zip

[JT101]

Well I'm half way there now!

I managed to burn my 6X BD-R DL disc at 2X in only 90mins!! That's still not where I want to be at, but a vast improvement.

The problem was the software. Nero 8. Clearly it was doing something behind the scenes that I couldn't change because the settings were so basic. I changed to Nero 11, and was as smooth as silk.

However, to put the icing on the cake, I think I need to upgrade the firmware as you suggest. I've been trying to register with rpc1.org the firmware portal to post a request, but I just cannot seem to register. I can't find any contact details for the moderators either. I think they can create the firmware I need.

Thanks for the auto updater. I'll give it a try

Any help appreciated. Thanks

[redk9258]

I wonder how ImgBurn would perform for you.

[JT101]

ImgBurn has same limitation.

I just called LG solutions tech support and they say it has to be a software issue, not firmware.

I can see their point in that why would you ship a drive with a firmware that won't achieve the rated speeds. I tried what they recommended: Power2Go by Cyberdrive. Same issue. Max 2 speed for my 4 speed discs.

So assuming the firmware is fine, the software is fine, then either it's the discs or the drive is faulty.

I'm gonna try some Verbatim 4X this time. If that doesn't work the drive's going back.