DVD burning speed question

This question sounds like recording on a VCR. There is only so much magnetic particle density, so slower tape speed allowed more tape use but would result in slightly lower quality. Analog recording. DVD's, being digital, don't have this problem, the speed rating refers to maximum data transfer rates and the speed of burning the data to the disk. The speed rating of the disk comes into play here as well. The amount of data on the medium doesn't change. Toast might be able to go 4x, but what about your burner?

Yes, I've heard nothing about burn speeds affecting quality.

As long as the media you are using supports 4x burning, there should be no problems buring at that speed.

The only time you have to be cautious is when you try to burn at a faster speed than the media recommends (this is sometimes possible by hacking the drive's firmware).

Burning at faster speeds on slow machines can pose a problem. Its called Buffer Underrun. If the Mac cannot pump out data fast enough to the drive, then the buffer runs 'dry' and the disk becomes a shiny coaster (with a hole).
So, if you multitask or have a less than 1 gig Mac, then its often wise to burn at 1X.

Now, you can try 4X and see how the burn goes. It will NOT alter quality, but it may waste a disk.

You should also consider updating to Toast 6. In my experience, it handles under run errors better, although I hate the interface.

knobtwiddler said:

Hi,

I use a G4 (1 Ghz processor, OS 10.3.5) with a Sony DVD RW DW-U10A and I was wondering what the quickest safe speed to burn dvd movies with toast (version 5) is? Toast can go up to 4x, but I've heard that 1x ensures the best quality. Is this true? I'd really like to use the 4x speed, but I don't want to waste dvd-r's.

Click to expand...

It writes the exact same sequence of 0s and 1s (micro divets and valleys) no matter what speed. It just depends on if your drive and media are reliable.

i dont remember if Toast 5 has this or not, but I leave my speed setting on "Best"... if you're worried about quality, see if you have that setting and use that.