I have a new OEM Pioneer DVR-108. I am not getting the burnspeeds promised by my burner and media. I would like to know what things I should do to my burner to make it as useful and fast as possible. I've already upgraded to the latest official firmware from Pioneer. I'm interested in things like:

1. Bitsetting
2. Hardware config (IDE, master/slave, etc)
3. IDE cable type
4. Anything I might be forgetting

I would appreciate and suggestions regarding these topics.

Yo-

You need to give us more information about your system and the media that you are using in order for us to help you-

Mike

Depends on what your doing, simple data burns will always run at max. Games and Movies will not.

Hey

How do you know that your not up to snuff? What speed test are you using? Media? Drive Speed?

I'm burning movies but if the image is already on my harddrive, then wouldn't that be exactly the same as burning data?

I know I'm not burning at full potential because I'm can't burn faster than 4X. I've been using Ritek DVD+R's which are supposedly rated for 8X although they are media code R03 not G05 and I'm told that these will not burn faster than 4X with non-hacked firmware. I just set my IDE channel to DMA last night but it didn't make any difference.

I'm thinking I should just buy DVD-R's instead because I've heard that they burn faster with Pioneer burners and that the 108 bitsets -R's to DVD-ROM although I'm not sure if that stuff's true. I wish I had known this before buying the +R's.

Once they're burned, they're burned. If you can burn cleanly at 4x you didn't waste your money on the media. Just exercise the required patience and use them up.

Check your DMA channels again. Did they stay on DMA?

Try different media, -R and +R. Remember that +R with the bitsetting is more compatible with DVD players than -R. Greater compatibility is more advantageous than burn speed.

Make Sure You Have a 80 wire 40 pin ide ribbon cable/an old 40 wire will cut your speed in half!

How much does one of those 80 wire cables cost? I would need one with two connectors on it for both of my DVD drives.

Also, why would I need this cable to burn at higher speeds. I already get ripping speads of like 10x on my DVD-ROM so why would I need more bandwidth in the cable for burning at that speed?

Yo-

80 connector IDE cable for two drives should be < $5-

Good idea to use-

Remember - media is only going to burn as fast as the drive firmware is set to run it at - for that particular media - not what the manufacturer of the media says-

Mike

So what if a company comes out with new media that the firmware doesn't specify what speed to burn at? Then what happens? I can't imagine that ALL media codes can be accounted for within a drive's firware.

Yo-

This is getting pretty deep - but all media has a MID code built into it that tells the firmware what the minimums and maximums are (you can see this in Neros speed settings and disc info) - the firmware developers then set limits on what they believe the particular dye will give a good burn at-

This explains why different drives give different quality performance on any given media-

Mike

I looked on NewEgg for one and the cheapest were like $15.

Yo-

Oh Well-and here I thought that Newegg had the best prices.....when I typed in "IDE cable" at Newegg it came up with pages of cables both round and flat for under $5 -

Wonder what I am doing wrong?

Mike

Hey J...

You may want to look at http://microcenter.com/ They have a pretty good selection of just about everything for decent prices.

Mark

If a cable is designated as ATA/133 does that mean it's an 80 conductor cable? I'm looking at microcenter.com but the descriptions don't specify 80 conductor and I'm wondering is there's another way to designate that.

Yo-

You are good to go for 80 conductor with the ATA/133 - just don't pay $15 for it-

Mike

Okay, thanks Mike. Yeah, I've seen much cheaper ones that are labelled as ATA/133 but not "80-conductor." I just didn't realize it was the same.