OT: what speed to choose for DVD disks

[Tim]

On Tue, 2005-12-27 at 12:03 +0000, Paul Smith wrote:
> There are in the market several DVD+R disks, with different speeds.
> What should it be the criterion to choose the DVD disks? Of course,
> the fastest one should be the elected, but does not it pose a problem
> of compatibility with the players? For instance, with 8x disks, my
> computer DVD player gets very noisy (although working fine). Can it
> damage the player?

The drives (recorders and readers) will only spin discs as fast as the
drive is able to, and only as fast as the disc allows during burning
(burners read the information on the blanks, and work with them
accordingly).

Going back to CDs, tests by manufacturers showed that they started to
deform around 50x speeds, and break at higher speeds.  Yet they produce
drives running up to those rates (50x).

Burning discs at higher speeds often means that they're less readable in
some drives.  That may not be a problem for you, but for some people
they find that 4x burnt discs play okay, 8x burnt discs don't (in other
players).  Such problem discs are hard for players to focus on, they'll
hunt the focus servos around trying to see the disc, and slow the disc
spin rate down to try and help.

It's been a long time since I've heard of players having problems
because they've slewed the focus mechanism around a lot.  Very early
audio CD players were known to blow their fuses doing that.  But that's
going back something like twenty years.

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