ISO - Image Burning Software Recommendations

[Gadgetman]

Wow, I had 18 DVD's made for a Banquet and my wife decided to watch one. It didn't play. She took another one and it didn't play. She called me and told me about this and my heart sank. The banquet was three hours away. I headed home and 9 of the 18 were bad and would only play halfway through or just hang at the menu screen. This is the first time I've had this many bad DVD's. I use Producer and burn my shows to an ISO and then use the ISO to burn my DVD's. I haven't had muh luck with Producer burning my DVD's directly from the show. I have another banquet coming up on Saturday and have to burn another 55 DVD's. I'm going to work on the assumption that the DVD Burner is acting up. It is a Plextor 16X and has worked flawlessly in the past. I've been burning these at 16x with no problems in the past. The disks I am using are Sony DVD-R's that can be printed on. My question is that maybe it might be the ISO burning software and I'm wondering what ISO burning software you use. I noticed that the disks that didn't play had different color streaks in them and looked like the ink was splotchy also. So maybe there are some bad disks. I hate it when something like this happens 2 days out from a presentation. 8-(. For now I am going to use a different PC to burn the images and test more DVD's than I usually do. Currently I burn a DVD and watch it through and then burn the number I need to burn and then watch the last one burnt thinking that if the first one and the last one play, then the others will be fine. This has worked in the past, until yesterday. Thanks

[cherub Profile Private messageWebsite]

I've been burning these at 16x with no problems in the past.

This is much too high, I think.
Though it might take you significantly more time, try to reduce the speed at half of what's written on the box of your DVDs.

As burning software I only have tried Nero Burning ROM and ImgBurn which is free.
Many people on this forum use ImgBurn. You may wish to give it a try too:
http://www.imgburn.com/

[dnmilikan]

I have used a couple of different programs

http://www.nch.com.au/burn/plus.html

http://www.roxio.com/enu/products/creat ... GgodRT5_OA

NCH has some pretty cool inexpensive software.

I am using Adobe Encore now since it is a better program than others that I have used and it interfaces very well with the other Adobe CS4 suite.

[briancbb Profile Private message]

I noticed that the disks that didn't play had different color streaks in them and looked like the ink was splotchy also.

If this is on the side that the writer writes to (not that your printer has printed to) it probably is bad discs. The disc should have an even coating.

If it is on the printed white side, then it is your printer and should not affect the written disc data.

Are you trying to print discs in the printer while you are writting another disc? Many writers do not like another operation in progress while it is writting, unless you have a powerful PC.

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

I use the free imgburn utility and check the box to "verify" after the burn (I forget the exact wording). Usually, I burn at either 4x or 8x and use only the good quality Taiyo Yuden DVD-R disks. I have yet to have a bad one that was caused by media quality ... "operator error" is a different story though (good burn, bad data). I don't know about the Sony media, but lots of the "name brand" disks out there are actually cheap disks manufactured by some other manufacturer. There are a number of utilities (I think Nero also) that can look at a blank disk and tell you who the manufacturer is. The other thing to watch for is when you are doing a "verify" (imgburn makes a second pass to verify the data if you have checked the verify box) - if the drive seems to move along reading at a constant speed, that is good -- if you hear it start hunting up and down and doing odd things, even if it passes, it means the drive is having trouble reading back the data.

These are the disks I use and have had no problems at all with them:
http://www.meritline.com/taiyo-yuden-8x ... table.html
Those are the 8x white printable disks, but they also have 16x and the "non printable" versions as well (the printable ones are the ones you run through an inkjet printer after burning like the Epson series).

mikey

[Frankie Profile Private message]

Sorry if this is mentioned somewhere else in the posts, but - along these lines - which image burners do you recommend? I see you mention Epson. I have a great one for photographs but not for image burning. Any suggestions?

Thanks,
Frankie

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

No, the Epson was a printer used to print on the printable DVD/CD media not for "burning" the data. As far as the actual burning goes, I have had good luck with the Pioneer ones, but there are a number of good ones out there. Check places like http://www.newegg.com and look at the user ratings for the various burners. A number of them consistently get good comments from people (and a number also seem to be somewhat less than "spectacular" in their performance). You can also check places like http://www.videohelp.com for ratings on various burners as well as media tests.

mikey

[Frankie Profile Private message]

Hi Mikey,
Yes. What I'm interested in is something I can use to burn labels. I have a CD burner that allows me to burn the shows and it works fine. As for labeling my shows, I have to admit I've gone from the sticky labels - which we all know are a poor choice - to writing on the DVD's with a sharpie pen. That's not too good either (especially with my writing). So, what I want to do is to be able to design attractive labels and burn them on the dvd/cd's. Sorry I didn't make it clearer. Thanks

Frankie

[gpsmikey Profile Private message]

Well, actually, you can "burn labels" on a CD/DVD -- Lightscribe basically does that but you need to have the lightscribe compatible disks as well as a burner that supports that feature (I think you turn the disk upside down to burn, but I have not used those). In general, most people use the Epson style printers (I have a R340 that works pretty well) for printing (not burning per se) on the disks that support the inkjet printing style. There are a number of them out there and most people seem fairly happy with them. The next step up from that is to do it the way the pro's do -- you silk screen the image on the disk using multiple colors to make the full image as needed - definitely more work than using an inkjet printer (or sharpie ). I still just use a sharpie on many disks - things like my backup software, Linux install disks etc simply are not worth the time to come up with a fancy label for them.

mikey

[Frankie Profile Private message]

Yeah, it's embarrassing to mention the Sharpie labeling thing. That's why I'm looking for an alternative. I really like Epson. I have an R2400 for photographic printing. It looks like the Epson R280 Photo Printer has replaced the model you mentioned and that it runs about $100. I see there are cheaper brands. I wonder if it's one of those "you get what you pay for" categories. I think the silk screening would be too much for me now, although you never know what the future might bring. Right now, between my new camera, Producer, and Bluff Titler, I think I have my hands full (not to mention my brain).

Thanks again,
Frankie

[heckydog Profile Private message]

I use a sharpie too on occasion. I use pens made specifically for writing on CD/dvd's. Actually I like my BIC Mark-It pens but that's neither here nor there.

I have dual layer discs that I use on occasion and I'm not ready to spend the bucks on printable D/L discs so I just write on them.

Otherwise I have my old reliable Epson R200 for printing dvd's. For a while Epson had a lock on things because of patents. But I think those must have expired because I've seen HP printers that will print on dvd's. BTW, paper labels for CD's are probably okay because CD's don't spin at anywhere near the speed of a dvd so the issues with heat and flying missiles of paper shards are not a problem. I have CD's from 4-5 years ago that still play fine and the paper labels are on there rock solid.

Joe

[Frankie Profile Private message]

Hi Joe,
I think I might spring for one of the cheapies and see how they work. As with the paper labels. I really liked the flexibility of designing them. They looked great. I never had a problem with the way they adhered to the dvd's but I found that they worked in some dvd players and not in others so I don't use them anymore. The small ring labels worked ok in playback but they're pretty limiting as far as what you can put on them.

Frankie