Many Problems With Sony 16D1 Media

[Diolacles]

I bought a spindle of 50 of the above DVD-Rs and have had a lot of bad ones. I've had CRC errors after verify, "error writing to media" at 98% of the burn, and that weird "servo error" every once in a while. These blanks show up on the DigitalFAQ website as being in the top quality media (although it does say "some outsourcing")

Up until I bought these, I had absolutely 100% success rate burning Maxell - even Memorex and some cheap-o dollar store blanks! (believe it or not) all with absolutely no errors or problems whatsoever.

My burner is a standard LG GSA4081 that I bought about 4 years ago. It's preformed flawlessly until I started using this media. I don't think I'll buy any more of the Sony, and will probably stick with Maxell. Anywbody else had problems with the above media?

[LT. Columbo]

welcome

i use a lot of sony 08d1 media. burned hundreds and never had problems. do you have A106 firmware for your drive?

http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?download_id=1757

[Diolacles]

welcome

Thank you!

i use a lot of sony 08d1 media. burned hundreds and never had problems. do you have A106 firmware for your drive?
http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?download_id=1757

It has been my intention to do so, but I just have to rouse myself to take my computer apart and make the burner the master and the only drive in order to upgrade to the A106 firmware (I'm still with the original A101) Never felt a need to do that until now. Do you think this will make a difference? It's just strange that I never had a single bad burn until this media. Well, I will give it a shot - let you know what happens.

[LT. Columbo]

definetly upgrade the firmware

[Chewy]

I found a version of 101 that I could open with mediacodespeed and the
16D1's were not listed, just a generic sony at 2x burn speed

[Diolacles]

definetly upgrade the firmware

Well, upgraded the firmware to A106 with no problems. So far so good on the burns, however I've only backed up 2 of my movies since the upgrade. Is there any info somewhere on what features are in the A106 firmware compared to the original 101?

[LT. Columbo]

it's basicly an updated library of write strategies to help support a wider range of media (and new media too). maybe chewy can add more.

[Chewy]

maybe chewy can add more.

I wish I could, but when I opened the firmware I didn't see any 16x media at all?????????????

Maybe Dioalcles will let us know what speeds the burner supports those disks at?

what are the choices? for burn speeds?

[LT. Columbo]

maybe they might be better off to use 8x media?

[Diolacles]

Well, on my third burn, I got a "Failed to Verify Sector" error about 50% of the way through. This type of error has been the most prevaillant type in this batch of disks, although I have gotten the others that I mentioned. So, three different kinds of errors, where prevously I had none. I mean, I've burned probably 60-80 disks prior to that (don't forget about 10 cheapie dollar store ones) with 100% success rate, and suddenly I now have only about a 60% success rate. And I have followed "the Golden Rules of Burning" faithfully and to the letter.

The other thing is, that DVD Decrypter doesn't seem to burn these at a faster rate than 2X (at least that's what it says:

I 23:43:08 Source File Implementation Identifier: DVD Shrink
I 23:43:08 Destination Device: [1:1:0] HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-4081B A106 (E: ) (ATA)
I 23:43:08 Destination Media Type: DVD-R (Disc ID: SONY16D1) (Speeds: 2x)
I 23:43:08 Destination Media Sectors: 2,297,888
I 23:43:08 Write Mode: DVD
I 23:43:08 Write Type: SAO
I 23:43:08 Write Speed: 4x

[Chewy]

Looking like it's time for a new drive, do you have any older disks to try?

[Diolacles]

Took the plunge today and picked up a Pioneer DVR-111. Future Shop had them on for $60.00 (after a $30.00 instant rebate) Now the Sony media is showing up in DVD Decrypter as 2x - 16x instead of 2x only. Did one burn and everything seemed to work perfectly. Guess the LG drive doesn't owe me anything - 5 years old and a fair bit of use. I'll keep it for an older computer I've got. Should work on other media ok.....

[Diolacles]

Well, I had backed up about 4 movies after installing the new drive, and was working on a TV Series box set when I again got the "error in verify" while verifying the disk after a successful burn. So the 1 in 3 bad disks average is still happening with this spindle that I had bought. However, I'm now wondering if it is the media (at least this batch) and that there was really nothing wrong with my LG, other than it was a bit dated, and couldn't burn dual layer.....

[Chewy]

post a full burn log