back half of CD blank

The sony 'audio' disks are only meant to be written at 1x speed.

The whole issue is based on a series of compromises. Partly it's down to the dye formulation, and partly it's down to the laser power. To a degree, the power can be controlled, but that's really not so easy to do with a semiconductor laser in a CD writer because the control mechanism requires the laser to be pulse width modulated, but in order to write the CD it has to be pulse width modulated anyway - which rather limits the scope. What does get checked when you put the CD in the drive is the maximum speed that can be used with the particular CD you just inserted - there's a test burn area just before the start that's used for this.

But mainly, the control mechanism is the dye that's used, and how easy it is to vapourise. Vapourising in itself isn't a problem, but the dye gets spluttered around, and that is a problem - generally this is what gives rise to all the errors you get. We know that some dyes generally outperform others - which is why Taiyo Yuden discs get good mentions - the manufacturers who use their discs are listed as Fujifilm, Fusion, Maxell, Miflop, Panasonic, Plextor, Sony, TDK and Verbatim. Personally I've never come across Miflop - anybody know anything about them?

Anyway, the other thing to bear in mind is that the speed that's quoted is only the average speed across the disc - the actual write speed varies quite a bit. So you don't exactly want to believe what the software tells you either. If you want to know rather more about all of this, you'd have to look up the threads in the archive that cover this - I put it all in there. Anyway, what it generally means with present dye formulations and newer, more powerful lasers is that by and large, the optimum speed for writing audio to a 'normal' CR-R blank is about 8x - above and below this speed, the Block Error Rates (BLER) tend to increase significantly. But because of the extreme variability in all these factors, I'd say that 10x was probably near enough.

The only other warning is that CD-writers do wear out - the semiconductor laser diodes fail after an all too finite lifespan. And when they start to fail then this (from Jean's first post):

...I get a few bits of static here and there on any copies I burn. Worse though, the back half of any CD I try to burn comes out blank. It starts anywhere from about 35 to 40 minutes into the CD when played on any other player. Just pure silence. [/list:u][/color]
...is a pretty good rundown of the symptoms.

It must be set to ultra dma 2 in bios if you are sharing it with another cd device that uses ultra dma 2 on the same channel. (40 pin cable)
Or you can set it at ultra dma ata66 on a 80 pin cable by itself or with another device that uses the same speed.
The pioneer 110D has a maximum of ata66 speed.
Make sure you have the latest firmware aswell.

The restrictions about different speeds on the same IDE channel were important for old IDE chips and motherboards, but should not be an issue with modern machines.  That said, there is evidence that the Plextor 716 (to make a point - I know it's not involved here) negotiates UDMA2 in some systems instead of the UDMA4 it is designed to use, and this can cause problems - my point being that even now things sometimes don't work as intended.

Paul

I looked under hardware IDE controllers and advanced. It says Ultra DMA mode 5 for the primary and mode 4 for the secondary. Is that what I am looking for? It does give me a choice and says Transfer Mode: DMA if available, and the next box says Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA Mode 5

About the cable, I have no clue how to check that out.

Don't worry - that looks OK, and the cable is likely to be OK as well in that case (if it wasn't, then Windows would have changed the mode after detecting six errors).

The lowest speed I can record at is 10x from what I can see. Does the burner dictate that or does Nero?

The burner, probably - my Plextors won't go below 4x.  And that (your 10x) is still too fast really for the Sony audio CDs, even if you're getting away with it for now.  Were your TDK disks also audio ones, as you had the same problem with them?  For use in computer burners, even for audio, get disks that are described as "52x" or "48x" or "data" disks and burn at about 16x (the last study I saw showed the minimum errors at 16-24x, with more at 8x and 32x).  Stick to branded names - Verbatim is probably the most reliable that's easy to get (though even their disks vary - disks labelled the same may come from different factories and have different dyes).

It looks to me rather as though your first burner was actually still OK - so now you've got a spare.  Although Steve said the symptoms could match a failing laser, that doesn't fit the fact that in this case the new drive behaved the same.

Paul

This will add nothing to this discussion, but I'm interested in SteveG's description of how CD wirters fail. My experience around here is with my Ricoh one, and three of various unremembered makes owned by acquaintances. All failures have been down to bits of plastic failing - mainly one tooth on a cog wheel, and they were all working fine until the fateful day of grinding and juddering. Perhaps it's the sea air?

Of course all were different internally and so all are in the local landfill except mine which I'm too lazy to remove from the machine as yet.

Perhaps this is the ideal situation. A bang, a crunching noise and a cheap replacement unit before you ever have to worry about a dying laser? The only hard part is getting the vital CD out (and it always happens with a vital CD inside) which usually means a big dismantling operation after the straightened paper clip fails to work.

Does anyone know why they make stand-alone DVD recorders with no paper-clip hole? Dismantling them is a nightmare.

This will add nothing to this discussion, but I'm interested in SteveG's description of how CD wirters fail.

It's all based on some experience with earlier ones where the mechanism clearly didn't fail. The first time I came across this was when I was given several  CDs from a batch that had all been written on the same machine, and the power deterioration was quite evident across the batch. The reason for the batch arriving was, in fact, to give me a clue as to why, the further you went through the batch, more of them started to error badly after about halfway through. As far as I could make out, a lot of the errors were simply down to servo mis-reads - and the mechanisms for this vary somewhat. But if you write a disc with insufficient power, these errors seem to get worse as you go through the disc, although I can't at present give you an absolute answer as to why this is, because on the face of it, it's shouldn't behave any differently. But it invariably does...

CD-readers with failing lasers also have trouble with the ends of discs - my original Philips machine did this, and so does one portable. I managed to 'fix' the Philips a couple of times by readjusting the laser operating current, but this is inevitably going to hasten the diode's demise - and it did.

I remember hearing a shop salesperson telling a customer that if he was wanting to burn CDs with audio content, "audio" CDs would give a much better sound!  Took all my self control not to say "cobblers" as I passed.

It's been a while since I saw them in the shops here.  For my x1 audio CD recorder  I use good quality x52 rated CDs and don't have problems.  But indeed, a x1 CD written at higher speeds would be expected to cause severe problems.

We have a Tascam real-time CD recorder at my church.  I use 52X TY blanks in that and have not had issues.  Have not done an error check until tonight  Plextools Pro reports a C1 error count of 605 on a 52 minute recording - certainly nothing to be worried about - that's in line with what I see on my Plextor drives running 8x or 16x.

FWIW, my experience is different from Steve's - The only laser failures I have seen have been sudden and complete.

Paul

FWIW, my experience is different from Steve's - The only laser failures I have seen have been sudden and complete.

That is exactly how I wish they would fail! But, I haven't experienced a single one do this though.

First up, try a different lot of blank CDs - some of the cheap ones can be astoundingly bad.

So I am doing the right thing by always using TDK or Sony blank CDs and DVDs while the whole world swears blind that the cheaps ones are just as good?

The problem is that you no longer know what you are getting when you buy a TDK or Sony disc. TDK no longer make any of their own CD-R's while the recent Sony discs that I've tried are nowhere near as widely compatible as the better brands. Non Japanese Fuji's give similar problems.

Taiyo Yuden seem to remain the most reliable make of CD-R, followed by Verbatim Datalife PLUS (the Plus is important). Many of my master CD's go to one particular broker who tests every master and rejects them if there is the slightest hint of a problem (they are all well within the Red Book specification for errors). My recipe for keeping this broker happy is to only send him Taiyo Yuden discs burned at a slow speed.

Cheers

James.

The burner, probably - my Plextors won't go below 4x.  And that (your 10x) is still too fast really for the Sony audio CDs, even if you're getting away with it for now.  Were your TDK disks also audio ones, as you had the same problem with them?  

Paul,
The TDKs were data disks. So what we are all saying here is, use data disks and burn faster than the 1x, more like at 8, or 16 and that will work better than burning an audio diask at the 8, or 16 speed? And audio should only be burned at 1x?
Thanks again all you guys. You have been a tremendous help to me.
Jean

And audio should only be burned at 1x?

Audio-only discs, yes - but you won't get a choice about this, because it's coded into the disc when the blank is made.

I've still not been totally convinced that CD's that are unreadable beyond half way might not be revealing wear, sloppiness or dirt in the mechanical bits of the CD writer or reader.

I'm just extrapolating from my position that most failures I've seen on recent drives have been the result of bits of broken plastic.

I've still not been totally convinced that CD's that are unreadable beyond half way might not be revealing wear, sloppiness or dirt in the mechanical bits of the CD writer or reader.

But remember, the same was happening on an old and a new writer.

Paul

I'm just extrapolating from my position that most failures I've seen on recent drives have been the result of bits of broken plastic.

It may well be that drives aren't as well built as they used to be. The goal of all manufacture is, after all, to get everything to wear out at the same time - so that somebody keeps selling new ones.

Of course the chances are that you will be buying a badge engineered version of a very similar deck from the same OEM anyway, even though you think you're trying something completely different...

My Philips CD850MkII had a problem with a strange plastic shroud around the laser assembly that fouled regularly on the second half of discs. I couldn't think for the life of me what its purpose was, so I removed it. The whole thing's worked perfectly ever since. Although the symptoms were slightly different - for one thing, they started suddenly - no increasing level of dropouts or anything like that. And, this didn't occur in the same place on pressed CDs and CD-Rs, and that was weird, considering what turned out to be the cause of it.

The other thing that often gets overlooked is the need to clean the focus assembly lens on a regular basis, since it's in an ideal place to gather dust. This has fixed similar problems with a lot of machines!