"Hi" to all from new (48hr sleepless burning/copy protection crash course ) A120% user.

While burning WCraft III (securom *new) I noticed that A120% wont let me burn slower than 8x (offers 8x, 12x, 16x or maximim).
Tried changing options (data type settings/recording options) to no effect.
Also noticed that if I burn at "maximum" speed, the status window tells me i'm burning at 16x when my Lite-On is capable of 24x. The write speed information tab also puts the maximum of this device at only 16x.

The questions are:
1) how can i get A120% to allow me to burn slow (say 4x or 2x)?

2) why doesn't A120% allow me to write at 24x? (it recognises my Lite-On model perfectly).

3) A large number of posts recommend reading/writing as slowly as possible. Why? (having the capability of burning in 4 minutes and not using it seems a pity).
And more importantly: When should you read slowly? & when should you write slowly? Does it depend on the copy protection in question? the burner? the cd-r quality?

Thanks in advance, FE

PS WCraft III burnt at 16x w securom*new profile plays perfectly...

1) Alcohol only allows writing speeds supported by your burner. The reason why you can't burn at 2x or 4x, it's because your burner's firmware was not programmed to allow those speeds.

2) It allows your burner to burn at 24x because that speeds is allowed by your burner's firmware.

3) You shouldn't burn to slow nor too fast. Too fast will likely create errors, too slow will take longer and more heating.
Some protections requires to be burned at low speeds (8x) and you shouldn't burn at high speeds (40x, 48x and 52x) with poor quality media.

Obrigado again VM, (and - as the saying goes - just what's a nice A120% forum translator doing in a cdfreaky place like this? )

En fin... (i hate to do this to you)

1) Umm... yup, u must be right - cloneCD allows me to set the write speed to 2x but it still actually writes at 8x) - would updating my firmware solve the no-slow problem? (I've got revision 4DS2 if that means anything to anyone)

2) The problem is that A120% WON'T allow me to write at 24x even though my model has that capability (and I'm using media certified up to 32x). What is strange is that other programs (easyCD, Direct CD, Win XP) confirm 24x write capability. Is this an A120% problem? (i have the latest version 1.4 build 114)

3) Vital: Any idea which protections in particular need slow reads and which need slow writes?

Cheers, EF

Hopefully, OPC is not disabled by the software and can do it's job; and I don't think heat is a problem at low speed

Which protections need to be burned at low speed? Slower burning for LibCrypt on PSX is more a function of the difference in step heights comparing a PSX to a PSXThe 2x thing in CloneCD is listed under bugs on the Elby homepage; it's more a cosmetic glitch than a bug. If your burner is not coded to burn at a set speed, it won't.

Audio and Full Motion Video are read at lower speeds, one because of the reduced EDC/ECC for Red Book audio and to reduce any chop in the FMV. So it's not really the protection per se rather the contents. Some might say that SecuROM 4.8x should be read slowly but you can do a .BWA in Blindwrite at max with a Lite-On.

I'm sure vio_man can elaborate further if necesary