I went to shopko and bought a spindle of 50 hp 8x's. Nothing came out right and look at these scans.. am I doing something wrong or are these disks junk!! Doesnt matter if I use the Plextor or the Benq I get the same results. Other brands I get 98%??????

First of all, the first image doesn't match with your 2nd one.
The write scan is done on PX-716a while the QS scan shows the burn on BenQ. But I get your point.

I also own cheap CMCMAG by Teon, it burns pretty well tho on 716a and 1620 (see my sig). Maybe your HP CMCMAG is a bad batch? IMO, CMCMAG quality is not consistent.

It doesnt matter which drive I use, both show the same results. Even my sons litey shows crappy scans. I had to scan on the benq cause the plextor doesnt scan with nero.

If three drives burn coaster then return it back and get another type of media. Try to follow Plextor recommendation media list (since you own a plextor): Taiyo Yuden, Mitsubishi/Verbatim, Ricoh and Maxell.

I am. I just thought that HP would have good media. Advertised at 8x and barely writes at 4x.

HP media is one the worst crap you can find. No matter what DVDRW drive you use, the result will be almost the same; coasters. Sorry, but true.

If you cant return media in question, then maybe you should have a look into this thread for some ideas, how to do the best out of it.

Finally, please next time buy better media as suggested by zevia.

yeah i definately have to agree that the 8X HP discs are crap. I thought it was my new BenQ 1620 having problems, but then i tried some Memorex 2.4X DVD+RW and had a quality score of 97. It is definately this media, was getting real high PI Failures at the end of the disc. luckily i have 50 Verbatim 16X +R's on the way.

jake1831,
Try firmware B7P9 on the Benq. It burns the Teon CMC MAG E01 great for me, but same burner fails them when using 47L9 (external firmware).

I went back to B7S9 and the HP disks seem to burn much much better.

Please post a quality scan of one burned with B7S9.

I have a spindle of CMC MAG E01 disks (Teon) that I bought at Staples on Black Friday (only cost $2.94 for a spindle of 40). I get pretty good scans when I burn at 4X with the quality score always in the 90s. I don't use 8X any more with these disks because the scans are much worse. BTW, I am using B7T9 firmware.

I have found the CMC disks to be quite variable in quality. You might get a good spindle or you might get a crappy one. Also, it may be the variable quality of the CMC disks, rather than the B7S9 firmware that caused the scans to look better. I really did not see that much difference when going from B7P9 to B7T9. The CMC disks themselves caused more of a variation than changing the firmware.

Ok...........went back to B7T9, but disabled my nVidia IDE drivers in favor of the stock M$ drivers and low and behold. Check this out!!!! Have to try it on my Plextor next.

Here are results using the Plextor. I guess the nVidia drivers were to blame!

How did that disc scan out with Plextools or in the BenQ CD/DVD Speed? Better or not? It's been known that nForce drivers can cause issues with DVD Burning in general, might be one of those things.

Better without the Nforce drivers.

Heres the HP DVD+R 8X burned @4X. Even worse results for me from the previous I tried at 8X. Can anyone tell me if this is because of a bad firmware flash? Both burns I got the high spikes at the end. I have a retail BenQ1620 from newegg flashed in safe mode to B7P9.

You can try flashing back to B7L9 in safe mode, restart in normal and burn a disc to test with. Once that burn is done then flash to B7P9 or B7T9 - whatever you prefer and try a burn again. Hopefully will clean it up - if that doesn't that either the drive or media is defective. In this case it could just be a bad batch of media.

jake: I thought B7T9 corrected the nvidia IDE problem. After I flashed to T9, I put nvidia IDE back on, and my burns are ok.

@Braxas
Ok I tried what you said, booted into safe mode, flashed to B7L9, reboot, burned a test disc, reboot into safe and flashed to B7T9 this time. Tried reburning the same disc @4X I had gotten the crappy result with from above. Much better this time!! Just wondering though if the spike at the end is normal. It didn't affect the quality score at all this time, but I thought the spike had to do with a bad flash.

Looks like it was a bad flash to me, ctg08. I wouldn't worry about that little spike at the end - that's kinda normalish from what I can see of CMC Magnetic's media and that spike at the end even exists (although not quite to that extent) on my 4x CMC Mag F01's. But otherwise, very passable burn - looks like that drive is good to go.

Editing: Since the spike is there and you most likely had a bad flash before the bad flash just amplified the spike to the point of coastering the disc. So that little spike I'd say is definitely normal.