i picked these up from newegg for less than $1/ea and was surprised they show up in imgburn as RICOHJPN-D00-01 media. i was pretty happy until i started to burn. i get an error that states there is a problem with imgburn trying to do the power calibration. Nero also erros out (don't have that one exactly but it was very close). DVD Decrypter also gives me the error about the calibration area as does xbc (xbox backup creator - for 360 backups of my originals).
i have used verbatims that show up as MKM-001-00 and actually thought the Ricoh JPN discs were better but i am not too familiar with dvd dl media as i normally use single layer dvds.
even with the verbatims, i have about a 60% success rate with it just stopping randomly at any given point during the burn.
my computer specs are a x2 3800 (tried from stock up to 2.5GHz), 2GB pc3200, 2x15K u320 scsi hdds, 1x120GB pata hdd, xp pro w/ sp2 and all the updates. the version of Nero is 7.5.7.0, DVD Decrypter is the latest (last version) and imgburn is the newest version, xbc has the same problems with ver 2.3.x and 2.4.x. the drive is a pioneer 111d w/ the newest firmware - 1.29. the machine is prime95 stable, memtest stable, gaming stable and this is honesty the first issue i have had with burning anything with it or burning anything in the 10+ yrs i have been burning.
i am a bit shocked with the amount of failures i have had - i have never had this type of failures, even about 10yrs ago when i was running a parallel port 2x hp cd-rw....
i was under the impression that the pioneer 111d was a decent drive, but also have, but have not tried my other 2 dl drives - 1 being a benq1655 and also a nec 2500A (which i would like to convert a 2510A if somebody could send me in the correct direction for a firmware upgrade...)
the 360 images are from my own originals, so this is not the case of a bad image.
i have tried the playo discs from anywhere in the spindle and they all do the same thing.
i have looked up on the pioneer website and it states my drive (111d) is compatible with the Ricoh DVD+R DL i have.
i have even disabled everything and left the machine alone with the image being on my fastest 15k scsi hdd - a seagate 15k.5 that has over a 100MB/s transfer rate, so i know that is not the problem and i am only trying to burn at 2.4x, so as you can imagine i am rather perplexed at the extremely high failure rate.
any advice you could give me regarding this situation would be greatly appreciated as even the verbatim failure rate is unacceptable to me with the hardware i have. also, all of my m/b drivers are up-to-date and as of this point in time the only drive i have tested is the pioneer due to its good reputation.
Verbatim is the top DL media out there. Lots of people have issues with Ricoh DL media.Ricohs are great when it comes to single layer,just not dual layer.
Pioneer 111D:
What's your current firmware version? Use Nero infotool to find that info.Do the same for the Benq 1655.
Here's the latest firmware version for your pioneer,but there's a couple different ones,so match it up accordingly:
You most likely need a firmware update.Same for the Benq.Firmware Updates are needed for drives to keep up with newer media. It controls the writing strategy.
Calibration error: Usually means your drive doesn't like that media or the drive is dying.
Try this: Hold off on the firmware update for the pioneer.
Rip using dvd decrypter's Mode ISO Read.
Open up ImgBurn,set your Benq 1655 as the destination target,Locate the mds files and burn away. That is my DL backup setup,except for Verbatim DL media, and it has yet to fail me.You may have trouble if they have the newer encryptions-which I bypass with AnyDVD in the background.
Those benqs are very good drives. I've only done about 20 DL backups but not a single problem.They love the plus format. Best thing about the Benqs,are their booktyping capability,also known as bittsetting. Booktyping turns the plus format to dvd-rom,for higher stand alone player,pc drive,and game console compatability. You can set up this booktyping in both DVD Decrypter and imgburn-which is the same process:
Open up ImgBurn/Tools/Drive/Change booktype/click Benq tab/change for-set it for DVD+R DL media/New setting-Set for dvd-rom/OK the success window popup/OK to close out. It will stay there unless you decide to booktype the +R or +RW media.
Another program called qsuite can do the same thing:
qsuite 2.0 and 2.2:
There's some very good tools in there: Solidburn/overburn protection/WOPC/qscan/Booktype/
If you ever encounter any drives that don't recognize your backups-No disc/Dirty disc/wrong region/wrong format/Illegal disc,then the booktyping can help that issue out. It works for dvd movies,not sure about games.
I can't help you out for anything dealing with games.Same goes for xcopy.
with the pioneer my current firmware is 1.29. the pioneer drive is only 2mos old and has burnt maybe a total of 20 discs including cds and sl dvds, so i would hate to think it is on its way out.
i did go ahead and flash my 2500 to a 2510 w/ the 2.05d firmware which is an auto booktype firmware for the dl media and it burned on the the playo disc completely. i need to install Nero on the machine with benq and do a quality test of the mediums and see how bad the playo stuff is. it was cheap, but may be costing me more in time....
i will probably install the demo of Nero tonight on the machine that has the benq, which will probably need a firmware update as it has been some time since i have even used the drive, and before i put it in its current machine, it never gave me an issue with sl stuff i never bothered with a firmware upgrade.
i do appreciate all of the advice and will do them all, and then let you know how it goes :)
V 1.29: Is the latest and I'll bet that pioneer drive doesn't like those ricoh DL's.
I'm not sure about the NEC 2100A,but a buddy of mine had the 2110A and he had no problem with Verbatim DL media. Backing up both Xbox,PS2 games,and movies.
That Benq is a sweet drive and should be very good with DL media. I've been 6 fw versions outdated on my 1620 and she still burned perfectly.
