Teh new DVD Burnin thread

[enderzero]

Although the old thread was fun to go back an re-read, it was so horrendously out of date I decided to start anew. And since I have spent all day foolin around with this stuff it seemed like a good time. I hope this is of some interest to some of you.

I just got my hands on the NEC 3500A burner. This thing is sweeeet (reviewed here, for sale here for $76). It is spec'd at 16X +/-R, 4X +/-RW, 48X CDR, and 4X DVD+R9 (dual layer). The main difference between its competitor, the Pioneer DVR-108, is the 48X CDR, a nice addition.

If you read the review you'll learn that 16X burning is actually a bit overrated. Buffer problems and limits to the technology actually make 12X discs burn a bit quicker. But 12X is fine with me. At 12X a full DVD burns at under 8 mins. So then that brings up media. All media has a code that's called a "unique disc identifier." The drives firmware has to specifically id the media and compare the speed to its table before any software will allow a disc to be burned at higher than minimum (usually 2.4X). That is why it is important to update your burner's firmware regularly, and also why there is such a thriving hack-firmware scene.

The xbox-scene.com of firmware is rpc1.org (or its easier to remember redirect from firmware-flash.com). The page contains a pretty good db of official and hacked firmware. Apparently it is a pretty legal scene so it isn't too hard to find what you want. With firmware hacks one can make their dvd-rom region free, turn off the stupid piracy deterrent speed caps, and even give +R only drives the ability to write to -R discs. And of course there are plenty of disc speed fixes (although that seems to go on more at the also cool but a bit messier cdfreaks.com). The forums at rdb1 are fantastic as well. I had some questions addressed pretty much right away.

What brought this research all about was that this morning I noticed that my 250GB primary hdd had 4GBs of free space left. I also noticed that my incoming xbox iso folder has swelled to nearly 40GBs. So I figured it was as good a time as any to do a lil dvd burnin. Since all I have are 4X media and I hadn't put in the 3500 yet, I decided to just use my old NEC 1100A 4X burner. However, when I went to burn the nice TDK 4X disc it wouldn't go higher than 2.4X. That is what sent me on the firmware search. The drive errored out while flashing (don't use the windows flash tool on an NEC, trust me) leaving me with a drive that wouldn't stop blinking (and didn't work), but I was able to hook up a floppy drive (been a while) and fixed it right up. Anyway, I ended up putting the 3500A in because it was cooler and I wanted to flash it too, but I never got around to actually burning anything.

Some useful tools and links I came across today in my unexpected journey to becoming teh dvd-arr firmware mastar:

DVDInfo Pro is a util that will give you in-depth info on your drive and your media and DVD-Identifier is a lighter tool that tells you about your media only. Be aware, that in order to read media codes you need to have a DVD that has already been written to.

videohelp.com has an extremely cool db of all the media out there, what burners it works with, at what speed, and with which players.

There are some other sites out there I thought were cool but I don't remember them now. I am sure I linked to them off that forum anyway, which has more info than you could handle.

BTW, unfortunately DVD+R9 media is still over $10 a disc. Until that comes down I'll be burning my 12X discs for less than $.65 each.

[McNevin]

http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/1061182150/1

Code: Select all

DVD Identifier 3.5Publisher's Description:
DVD Identifier retrieves and interprets the pre-recorded information that is present on all DVD+R/+RW and DVD-R/-RW media. This information contains a variety of parameters such as disc manufacturing information and supported write speeds. Even though this information is usually printed on the packaging, the brand name may differ from the actual manufacturer or there may even be no label at all. It offers a reliable method to identify the disc, regardless of the label information.

Latest Changes:
The disc's book type is now also displayed 
New manufacturer database format for improved accuracy 
Huge amount of all sorts of changes, fixes and improvements

[enderzero]

Having trouble getting past the copy protection on a film backup?

Try running AnyDVD while you use DVDShrink. It worked for me on the new ARccOS encoded House of Flying Daggers.

There is a good thread about DVDs that won't copy in DVDShrink at DVForums (which I found my way to via this afterdawn thread).

[R3C]

I'll have to try that.