Posted by Neil Maxwell on 11/15/06 11:57

On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 11:28:00 +0100, Sam Cotton
<Sam@invalid-domain.co.uk> wrote:

>Several DVDs that I have copied recently with Nero 7 have, on playback,
>turned out to be faulty.
>
>Is there any software around that can test the validity of a DVD before
>transferring it to my DVD player?

I have good luck with Nero 6 on many, many burns, but Nero 7 caused me
a lot of headaches and I pulled it off. It was very buggy for me.

So, here are the keys to getting decent burns that will last longer
than the junk burns (but no burns can be guaranteed to last more than
a few years, if that):

- Use good quality media. Don't use the cheapest stuff you can find.
I've had best luck with Taiyo Yuden from www.rima.com, but others have
good luck with other media. Note that brand names don't mean much -
Memorex (or whomever) will use one manufacturer today, and another one
last month.

- Always burn at half you max speed of your media or burner, whichever
is slower; that is, if the burner's 8x, burn at 4x, but if the media's
4x, burn at 2.7x. Yes, it will take longer, but it will pay off in
the long run, unless you don't care about long-term life.

- Always do a post-burn verify. With Nero, this is a checkbox you can
tick off on the screen while it's burning, and it will remember for
future burns. Even with TY media, I still get failed compares now and
again, but usually because of damage to the media, like the scratch
that caused a failure this weekend. Better to find it now than later.

These last two steps make your burns take longer. This is just a fact
of life. Once you understand why you do each of them, you can decide
if it's worth the additional risk not to in order to save the time.


--
Neil Maxwell - I don't speak for my employer

[Back to original message]