DVD burner speeds
 

Ok...so I bought a USB DVD burner not too long ago (a Sony) since my in-tower burner is a little long in the tooth. It's advertised write speed is 16X for regular DVD-5 discs, but I'll be damned if I can't get more than 4.1X (max) out of the thing...same as my old burner which has a max write speed of 4X. I can't figure this out. Is there a hardware limitation here or something I can change in the comp to make it catch up. Even when I manually set the write speed higher than 4X it's like it hits a brick wall. Hell...even my mom's computer burns faster than this thing.

even my NEC 16x dvd burner will never burn faster then 2.4x, at least that what it always says its burning at, maybe theres an update you need??

Could be. I just updated the firmware (from KY01 to KY06) so we'll see if that helps. If your drive has been available for more than 6 months or so, maybe you should check for a firmware upgrade.

Update!

The firmware upgrade didn't do shit. How piss poor is that?

Are you useing fast enough media?

Which program are you burning with?

Spec for yoru computer?

As far as I know the media is up to par. I buy in bulk so it's been forever and a day since I bought it.

I've run it with DVD Decrypter, Nero Burning ROM, and Copy2DVD. All produced the same results. They speed right up to 4X and then it's like hitting a brick wall.

Comp specs are 2.3GHz Pentium 4 w/ 512MB of RAM running Windows XP Home w/ SP2.

You may be right about the media. If I have no clue what speed it's set for, I probably bought it for my 4X burner thinking that getting faster media wouldn't matter anyway. That would suck since I have around 40 blank discs left.

should be on the media if you look on the inner ring of the dvd

Ok...it took a lot of eye strain and (literally) a magnifying glass, but it is, indeed, 4X media. Good thinkin' Rob. Guess I'll just have to wait until this is all gone before I can realize the full capability of my new burner.