Is it possible to override the reported write speed in Nero 6, 7, or 8? like a registry tweak?

Seems to be a lot of DVD+R DL media rated at 2.4x but only report 4x as the sole write speed. I simply want Nero to burn them 2.4x.

CDBurnerXP and ImgBurn allows you select other speeds than what the firmware reports for that MID.

Burning speed are stated in the firmware, not in the burning software.

To override these settings you must manually change the firmware. This is actually possible with come tools, like MCSE

Isn't that only the reported speed? In my case the 4x is may be because it's the default speed for unsupported MIDs. The burner should be able to at least attempt the user-specified speed... because other apps like ImgBurn certainly does burn at 2.4x (and yes, it's the actual speed because ImgBurn shows the realtime speed and it does take that much longer).

I want to avoid tampering with firmware for now so I don't want to use MCSE yet. Another downside is that you can't just adjust the burn speed with MCSE .. you need to replace the entire writing strategy with another.

Sorry, to clarify what I mean by "only the reported speed": I thought that the actual write speed you tell the burner to use was just a parameter you send in a command to the burner. .. didn't think that was anything inherently limiting the software itself to only use a certain value. Seems like software can disregard the supported speeds reported by firmware when it comes time to actual burn.

Drives will ignore any request to burn at a speed it doesn't report as 'supported'.

Well ok, not 'ignore' but it'll only go to the nearest supported speed.

So if 4, 6 and 8 are supported and you pick 2.4 it'll burn at 4. Likewise, if you pick 10 it'll burn at 8.

So I take that back. I tried again and you're both right -- I didn't monitor the write speed long enough during the burn the first time because it does ramp up to 4x.

It's just that the speed fluctuates on some MIDs and so does the device buffer (as shown in ImgBurn.. a little bit worrisome but the system buffer remains full so dunno if that means anything), which is probably causing the longer burn times on average for "4x" I'm seeing compared to a sustained 4x

Anyways, thanks for the responses. I think I'll be returning this drive (ext Pioneer, DVR-113NP) because my older int Pioneer DVR-112D detects the speed correctly and gives me consistently better burn quality overall.