I had always believed whichever was lower, drive or disk speed, determined the burn speed. That is, if you buy disks rated higher than the max burn speed of your drive, all that meant was it was safe to use the disk up to that speed so they could be used on slower drives. But, today a supermediastore.com rep said this; "Speed of the burner has to higher or equal to the discs not lower."

This is the opposite of what I thought. Also, most disks today are rated higher than my drive's burn speed. So, if this advice is correct I must either buy a new drive or be careful to buy disks that are at or below it's speed.

Which is correct? Can the drive burn speed be higher than the disk or the disk burn speed higher than the drive, or must they be exactly the same?

To repeat, I thought whichever was lower controlled.

I'm talking about DVDs

I don't think it really matters myself but I wouldn't burn at the max rated speed of the media though. In the blank media forum there is a thread on this. You have to remember that the reps in these stores are not techs

Yo-

With 22x burners out and only 16x max media - don't think that the theory is holding much water-

Some of the 16x media will actually burn at 22x - but most is best burned at 8x on most burners (YMMV)

Here ya go this may help http://club.cdfreaks.com/f33/slow-wr...o-good-247643/

Thanks. I found that article hard to read. The conclusion was:But, this says nothing about the speed of your drive, so it doesn't seem to answer the question. Is it assuming your drive is equal to or faster than 12X? Mine is not.

It is a blanket statement for all drives of all speeds.

A more in-depth explanation is to do no lower than half the rated speed of your media, and do no higher than 1 speed lower than rated speed.

Or, depending on what speeds your drive offers, try to do no less than half the rated speed of your media. If not possible, do no less than half the speed offered for your media.

So if you have 16x media, stay between 8x and 12x [on most drives rated at 16x or above].

If you have 8x media, stay at 6x or 8x on most drives [assuming that your drive is rated at 8x or above].

If your media is 16x rated, but your drive can only do 8x max [on your media], try to stick with 6x or 8x, depending on what works for you.

If you're using an older drive that has no support for your media whatsoever, or is a slower-speed drive, and leaves you with a low speed like 4x for 16x media, do 4x.

And so on and so forth.

Just don't expect your drive to do as well as a drive that can support a media's maximum speeds.

And for drives that overspeed media: overspeeding is not recommended. So with a 22x drive, you'll still want to try to stay around 12x max for 16x media. And so on and so forth.

So, if you have a burner rated lower than 8x or 12x you should burn at the higher rate anyway?

Apparently, I can't delete this message, but I think you edited your post and I replied to the original.

Yep. It's ok. It's better to have the question there and double check than to not ask.

Well, I thought I had it, and now I don't again.

This:

and this:

seem to be in conflict.

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I'm going to restate your remarks and you tell me if I have it right.

If your drive permits, you should burn at a speed at least half the stated speed of your media, and a speed no greater than one speed-step down from the stated speed of the media.

Try to obtain media that permits meeting the above guidelines. However, if the only media available to you has a stated speed higher than your drive speed, burn at your drive speed.

(The guideline assumes you understand what increments disks step up in to know what one step down is. )

In that case, we assume 4x will be the only option you have, and thus will be the highest option available. [Some software will allow you to try to set a higher speed, but the drive won't write any faster than it offers].That's right.

Thanks.

Thanks Albert, sure glad you saw this and poped in as that sure was a lot of explaining to do