tsstcorp TS-H653L @18x using anything?

[MilesAhead]

I'm just curious if anyone has seen a TSSTcorp TS-H653L drive report write speeds greater than 16x on any DVD+R media? I purchased an HP Pavilion with this drive and I've tried 4 different brands of DVD+R and have yet to see anything > 16x.

So far Verbatim, Tayo Yuden, and Ricoh will burn at 16x.. Prodisc only up to 8x. Makes me wonder what media they used when they set up the write strategy for this drive

My firmware rev. shows 0514

[Dan]

The Verbatim DVD+R is the only media that will let me burn at 18x so far.
But I still wouldn't want to personally.
Must be the firmware holding it to 16x?

TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182D SB05 (ATA)
Current Profile: DVD+R

Disc Information:
Status: Empty
Erasable: No
Free Sectors: 2,295,104
Free Space: 4,700,372,992 bytes
Free Time: 510:03:29 (MM:SS:FF)
Supported Write Speeds: 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x, 18x

Physical Format Information (ADIP):
Disc ID: MCC-004-00
Book Type: DVD+R
Part Version: 1
Disc Size: 120mm
Maximum Read Rate: Not Specified
Number of Layers: 1

[soup]

Very important.

Supported Write Speeds: 4x, 8x, 12x, 16x, 18x

[Art Vandelay]

I had that drive/PC

I think I had the same HP media center. That drive has SATA conections (not the problem) and I kept having burns fail even at 4X or 8X. I think the first 5 DVD's I burn with -R Verbatim or +RW Sony Japan DVD's 4 failed badly. I tried to update firmware since there was a avaliable update at HP that was newer that the one I had but it wouldn't allow me to update it (0614). My other media center has the TS-652L drive and I had no problems updating it.

I asked Chewy about the drive you are talking about and my 652L and he said they were rebranded Samsung drives so if you go to Samsung the 653L # won't be found if you search. Chewy said firmware must come from HP since they rebranded it and are responsible for the updates, so don't use the Samsung firmware from their site. I had other problems with the TV tuner so I just took the PC back.

[Chewy]

what support write speeds does your drive show with imgburn??

you have the new firmware

the 18x is mostly a marketing gimmick and way faster than most drives and media can handle

what's a few minutes compared to a coaster or crappy burn?

[Dan]

the 18x is mostly a marketing gimmick and way faster than most drives and media can handle

what's a few minutes compared to a coaster or crappy burn?

Chewy, I couldn't agree more.

My Samsung will usually burn @8x in 6-6 1/2 minutes. I have tried 18x and it took nearly as long. Also it never did actually reach 18x in burn speed.

[MilesAhead]

The Verbatim DVD+R is the only media that will let me burn at 18x so far.
But I still wouldn't want to personally.
Must be the firmware holding it to 16x?

TSSTcorp CD/DVDW SH-S182D SB05 (ATA)

Yeah, there's something strange going on. My previous HP Pavilion
had an LG drive so I made the mistake of assuming this would be
the same with the upgrade that it would burn DVD+RW @ 8x instead
of 4.

I'm not so much worried about 18x as in good steady burns.
I was getting a big trough in the middle of all my 16x burns.
Then messing around with optimizing Vista I found some
stuff about the 'fsutil' command. For some weird reason
the "memoryusage" was totally disabled. After
changing this value from 0 to 2 I still get a trough but
it's much less severe. Average burn speeds for a full
DVD5 are only slightly slower than the LG drive and the
DVDs seem to play fine in my stand-alones.


At this point the 18x is just a matter of curiosity.

[MilesAhead]

what support write speeds does your drive show with imgburn??

you have the new firmware

the 18x is mostly a marketing gimmick and way faster than most drives and media can handle

what's a few minutes compared to a coaster or crappy burn?

Imgburn shows me 4x 8x 12x 16x with the 16x Verbatim and TY DVD+R.

AFA the speed goes I guess I was spoiled having a drive that would consistently produce good burns at full speed with relatively cheap media. One gets hooked into the idea that the hardware keeps getting better and cheaper.

But once you get over 12x it's a point of diminishing returns. I agree there.

[Chewy]

my lg only burns 16x fuji dvd+r's at 4x, the mid is supported by the firmware,
lg just figured that mid(prodisc) was crap and they tried to make sure it would burn

my other drives burn it at 16x but they are close to being coasters

[MilesAhead]

I think I had the same HP media center. That drive has SATA conections (not the problem) and I kept having burns fail even at 4X or 8X.

I don't know if this is what happened in your case but I found the first few burns with Imgburn the Finalize Disc would fail and I had to retry. Then the disc would freeze up in my stand-alone player. I turned off auto insert notification and set all the AutoPlay settings to Do Nothing. That seemed to cure the finalization failures. I'm using Imgburn 2.3.2.0 for everything and the machine seems happy as long as I feed it Verbatim or TY blanks.

[MilesAhead]

my lg only burns 16x fuji dvd+r's at 4x, the mid is supported by the firmware,
lg just figured that mid(prodisc) was crap and they tried to make sure it would burn

my other drives burn it at 16x but they are close to being coasters

I can't seem to get any burn testing software to show any meaningful results on either machine so I can't say technically how good the burns are. All I know is how they give steady burns and play fine in my stand-alones. The
Prodisc seems to burn ok at 8x in the tsstcorp and it's cheap so... for
watch once throw away stuff it's fine.

[dunderal]

Firmware for TS-H653L

does anyone know where I can find firmware for my TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H653L ? Please let me know, I've already tried http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_all.php but I couldn't find it. Help would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks

[Dan]

If you read back to Art's post in this thread he mentions the H653L and the problems/possible solutions for it.

[Art Vandelay]

It was frustrating that 653 drive, it was in a core 2 duo E6400 HP machine. I was using the newest version of ImgBurn all the time and XP Media center 2005, not Vista. I had big problems with Sony +RW's (Taiwan ones) the Japan Sony RW's worked fine. Yes verification was the big problem, often it would ccycle the tray and then the drive wouldn't recognise that a DVD was in the drive so I would press the eject button and cycle the tray afew times then it would recognise and ImgBurn would take over. Often ImgBurn would say the verification was OK but when i would put it in my Panasonic DVD player it would be pixalated in many places. What really annoyed me was when I bought this system I checked the devise manager of the display model and it showed 2 LG drives so I thought I got rid of the rebranded Samsung problem. I took one off the shelf, took it home and set it up, checked the dev. manager and saw 2 Samsung drives!!!!!

I took the PC back and continued to use my other one HP AMD X2 64 +46000 that has the H652L drive in it. Rebraned Samsung also. Even the 652 has verification problems with the Taiwan Sony RW's and Verbatim +RDL will only burn at 2.4X and +RW will only burn at 4X max. Verbatim -R, Sony -R all worked well and I never burnt faster than 8X.

The key as Chewy told me is to get the firmware from the HP suport site and not the Samsung site.

[MilesAhead]

It was frustrating that 653 drive,
it was in a core 2 duo E6400 HP machine.

On the plus side, I'm really enjoying this Pavilion Media Center
with AMD duo core 5200+. It's the first machine I purchased with
AMD processor and also the first that runs fast, cool and quiet. So
far I haven't seen the CPU temp peak past 56 C even at 100% CPU
utilization.

Also I just got the Memorex 8x DVD+RW I ordered today. Imgburn shows the
ID as RITEK-008-00 and it will in fact burn @8x in this drive!! Average
burn speed on a full disc is > 6.0x and my stand-alone seems to like it.
So they should be great for test burns.