It is safest to burn at 2x, although I always burn at 6x. This depends on
the buffer underrun size of the CD recorder (why Plextors are especially
reliable).
Taken from
"The CD recording process can't be interrupted in mid-session. Once the
laser starts writing, any interruption would create a physical gap on the
disc that could confuse CD readers. The recorder must always have data to
write, from the moment the recording starts until the session ends. To avoid
a situation where a temporary slowdown in the computer causes the write
process to fail, the makers of CD recorders put a write buffer in the drive,
usually between 512K and 4MB in size. Data read from the hard drive, tape,
or another CD is stored in the buffer, and pulled out as needed by the
recorder.
If the recorder requests data from the write buffer, but there's none there,
it's called a buffer underrun. The disc is still spinning, but there's no
data to write, so the recording process aborts.
You can still use the disc with multisession CD-ROM drives by closing the
session and starting another, assuming there's enough space left on the CD,
and assuming your pre-mastering software didn't choose to finalize the disc
for you. If you were using disc-at-once recording, you're probably out of
luck.
Advice for preventing buffer underruns is scattered throughout this FAQ. A
brief summary:
Use a fast, AV-friendly hard drive (i.e. one that doesn't do slow thermal
recalibrations). Pretty much all drives sold in the last couple of years
fall into this category. You don't need a screaming AV-optimized drive.
Record at a slow speed - it takes longer to empty the buffer when recording
at 1x.
Don't do anything else with the computer while recording. Don't record from
a file server.
Defragment your HD, especially if you're doing on-the-fly recording.
Record from a disc image file rather than on-the-fly.
Depending on your setup, putting the recorder and your hard drive on
separate SCSI controllers may be necessary.
Keep your CD-R cool. Sometimes the drives fail when they overheat.
Also watch out for things like anti-virus programs that wake up, virtual
memory settings that cause swapping, screen savers that activate during the
CD creation process, unusual network activity, and background downloads of
data or faxes. One way to check is to run the HD defragmenter in Win95. If
it restarts every few seconds, it's because something is hitting the drive."
HTH
Julie
>In regard tp speed of the burn, it is my understanding that it is best to
>use a
>slow burn speed (2x) as opposed to the higher speeds if one wants to
minimize
>potential read errors on client's computers...any comments?
>Mike Moore
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Larry Berman
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