I am burning Verbatim 8x DVD-R and getting a circular line or space left on the burned side of the disc. It usually happens about 700-900MB into the burn, but the job always completes successfully. Then, if I try to play back the disc in a DVD player it usually freezes about 20 minutes in but sometimes I can fast forward past the part with the glitch. Does anyone know what this line could be, or what could cause it?
I am burning at 4x speed the max of my Pioneer DVR-106D drives and they are 8x discs. If I burn at 1x the line seems to not show up and everything plays fine. But as soon as I bump it up to 2x, I start to slightly see the line and the disc usually only plays 50-75% of the time. At 4x the line is clearly visible and each disc usually has an error at that point during playback.
I have a link to a picture below, which might show it more clearly. I'd appreciate any help in resolving this issue since burning discs at 1x speed is incredibly slow especially when I may need dozens of copies for staff and students at our university.
DVD photo of burning problem
I don't know if it helps, but the line is probably at the point where the burn speed is being ramped up.
There doesn't seem to be any new firmware for that drive - although you say you have multiple drives and it's curious that they both act up at the same time.
You might try the latest release of ImgBurn to see if that has any effect - but AFAIK it's the firmware on the burner that controls the burn.
If it was my burner, I would test it in another PC.
Yes, I have a ComposerPro duplicator from Primera that has two of these Pioneer drives and I have a Mac G5 that also has this same DVR-106D drive. They all seem to burn the discs with this curious line in it. I don't remember them doing this before, it seems to have gradually gotten worse over the past year or so. I first noticed this burn pattern on the disc as we started having more and more playback problems with the discs we burned.
On the G5 I use DVD Studio Pro 4 and had to stop burning directly from the software since I cannot control the burn speed. I now have to create an image of my project and use Disk Utility to drop the speed to 1x and burn the disc. On my PC where I have the Primera duplicator I am using PrimoDVD 2.1 to do my duplication.
What I think I did eliminate is the possiblilty of having a bad batch of blank discs. My PC also has a Optiarc AD-7200S burner and I tried a burn at max speed using the same blank discs and the burned side of the disc looks great! The entire actual burn is actually a lot more defined and visible with no defects. Comparing discs side-by-side from the Pioneer and Optiarc you can really tell a difference. Maybe the Pioneer drive laser just loses strength after awhile too?? I'm just guessing here...not an expert in this area.
Yes, definitely working with old equipment. I have a new Mac Pro on the way, but I don't think I can get my department at the university to swing for a new duplicator too. Especially with the economy and their financial cutbacks. Maybe next year's budget we can get a new one.
