the dodgy world of cd burners

[dobro]

They're not very reliable, are they? First burn okay, second has noise. I bought a 7500 series Hewlett Packard a couple of years ago for about $200, and it seems to work beautifully for CDRWs and seems to be very dodgy when burning CDRs. I'm not the only person having this kind of QC problem apparently.

Okay, I know you get what you pay for usually. So what's the price point for a reliable CD burner? Name names if you like.

[Krakit]

I'm recommending this as an internal PC burner (as opposed to external, stand-alone or MAC burner)

Price: around $200+
Speed: 16/10/40x
Reliability: Used everyday since purchase, never failed to get the job done.

Of course, and internal PC drive might not be what you're looking for, but if it is, this is the one.

[dobro]

Internal, external - I don't care. I like the words 'never failed to get the job done'. Are external burners more expensive and more reliable?

[Krakit]

More expensive? Yes
More reliable? No

[Krakit]

BTW, this unit was bought by the company I work for, not by me.

I had the daunting task of creating 700 copies of a CD for clients that had to FedEx out the next morning.

This was all that was used to do the job.

Of all the CDs that went out, only one appeared not to work and that was due to a gouge in the disk.

[JerryD]

I was looking at the bayviewproaudio.com site and they have built DAWs and they have PLEXTor. These are suppose to be the thang.....

Yamahas and Sonys are suppose to be good.

The new thing is this burn proof technology. What happens is now that they are getting faster they have more errors.

hence forth came "BURN PROOF Technology". Suppose to fix all the problems of burning too fast.... whatever.

Lite on has good reviews.

If I had the money I would buy the PLEXOR Internal. Internal is cheaper. I guess Plexor is the best.

[Krakit]

The aforementioned TDK VeloCD has "burn-proof" options, but I thought that was more to do with the Nero software than it had to do with the drive itself.

Isn't that right????

[MISTERQCUE]

dobro, I own a Tascam CDRW700, a Phillip's 775 and 790, and internal Plextor AND a Onkyo CDR 513.
Ya' know sumthin'? The Onkyo ROCKS!!!! Very,very few block-error rates, near perfect digital reproduction (20 bit-44.1khx sampling rate) records on ANY TYPE of cdr-cdrw (I mean I've used Maxell's all the way down to cheap-@ss Nashua's) and can be had for as little as $275! Check it out if you get a chance!

[dobro]

Good thread, good ideas. Thanks every won.

[drstawl]

>I had the daunting task of creating 700 copies of a CD for clients that had to FedEx out the next morning.

Hmmmmm.

Was this a multiple burners in an enclosure deal? And what was the total size of the stuff written on each disc? Audio or data?

Even at 5 mins/ CDR (which is pretty damn optimistic) in a single
TDK burner at 16x (I don't know anybody recommending this speed for audio CDs) that would be >58 hours for 700 CDs.
Hardly the next morning on this planet. With a four CD stack and extending the time to 6 minutes/ burn for the extra load/unload time per cycle this still would take 17.5 hours.

A daunting task in any case.

I've found that no matter what burners I've tried, they work great for about 18 months and then go spotty.

[Krakit]

Originally posted by drstawl
>I had the daunting task of creating 700 copies of a CD for clients that had to FedEx out the next morning.

Hmmmmm.

Was this a multiple burners in an enclosure deal? And what was the total size of the stuff written on each disc? Audio or data?

Even at 5 mins/ CDR (which is pretty damn optimistic) in a single
TDK burner at 16x (I don't know anybody recommending this speed for audio CDs) that would be >58 hours for 700 CDs.
Hardly the next morning on this planet. With a four CD stack and extending the time to 6 minutes/ burn for the extra load/unload time per cycle this still would take 17.5 hours.

A daunting task in any case.

I've found that no matter what burners I've tried, they work great for about 18 months and then go spotty.

I was wondering if anyone was going to doubt this. The data (for that was what was being burned in) was about 3MB. The TDK was setup for multiple copies (wouldn't let me set it up for more than 100 at a time, but that's the software's fault) and there were two burners on two PCs going at all times.

I started at about 2:00PM and kept at it until 9AM just in time for FEDEX to pick up.
Yes, it was mind numbing.
No only one in every 10 was tested in house.
I don't remember how long it took to burn each one, but this did happen, I was successful and only one was bad.

[Krakit]

Well, I've just been asigned to burn 145 CDs at 25.5MB each. This includes Media Face labels (whoopee).

Anyway, I'm going to start the process as soon as I finish this post, and I'm going to publish a follow up when I've finished and tested the last CD.

Times like this I wish I drank coffee.

Wish me luck.

[Krakit]

I forgot how chewed up the tips of my index fingers get from juggling CDs all night

Anyway, I ran off 161 CDs to be safe. All were tested and only 1 was fouled (that's why it wasn't 160).

I got off to a rough start because the master CD had corrupt files on it and it took a while to replace it.

Anyway I'm done now. The TDK burner (only used one because the other was unavailble this evening) is a good reliable machine in my book.

Carl

[dobro]

Krakit - I like the report about the TDK's reliability. One thing, though - since I started this thread Sjoko's been talking about standalones being superior in terms of being jitter-free. I believe him, but I don't know how much difference it makes to the sound ordinary mortals hear.

[Krakit]

I wish I could afford a stand alone. I would definately go that route.

[Krystof01]

I have a Yamaha 8824 internal (but externally mounted). I bought it new (off e-bay) with 12 month warranty (about 3 months in). All's fine at the moment but I hear mixed views about these units. I want to use it a lot more than I currently do but I can't get it hooked up to the computer, so the only use is for my digital multitrack.

My advice. If you buy one, try and get your moneys worth out of it, and sooner rather than later. I sort of know that problems lie ahead for mine and the bad thing is I'll not likely justified the cost of purchasing it.

[drstawl]

My standalone has been more reliable than any internal I've owned, but then it only burns at 1x, not 2x or 4x like the internals I've owned. Other factors leading to greater longevity and reliability of the standalone are the fact that there is no fan drawing dust into the mechanism like in my PC tower (nice job- DELL) and it is kept in a waterproof rackmount case when on the road.

Why can't the Yamaha plug into the computer?
SCSI burner with no SCSI interface on the PC?

[twist]

Krakit,

"Burnproof technology" has to do with the buffer size of the burner. The buffer needs to remain full so that if the drive finishes writing before more data is available, it will write data from the buffer, and you wont get pops and clicks.

What I don't understand, is that buffer size on units advertising "Burn Proof" is usually 2MB, occasionally 4MB, and the buffer size before the burnproof buzz was also 2 MB.

Maybe "Burn Proof" is nothing more than a buzz word - I don't know. I do know that the Plextor and TDK Velo cd are both highly touted.

Twist

[kfm82]

Originally posted by twist
"Burnproof technology" has to do with the buffer size of the burner. The buffer needs to remain full so that if the drive finishes writing before more data is available, it will write data from the buffer, and you wont get pops and clicks.

Actually, it does WAY more than that... it effectively eliminates the chance of buffer-underruns, thus putting an end to the dreaded mass production of faulty and incomplete CD-Rs which we've had to suffer from for years

What I don't understand, is that buffer size on units advertising "Burn Proof" is usually 2MB, occasionally 4MB, and the buffer size before the burnproof buzz was also 2 MB.

In this case, buffer size only determines the ammount of time that recording can keep on after the source data supply has been cut... once it has emptied both read and write buffers, the cd writer pauses writing and waits for the read buffer to refill.
That makes it possible to do on-the-fly copying of audio and data material at high speeds.

Keep in mind though that when you're recording audio material for mastering purposes, you should if possible use single speed operation.

Maybe "Burn Proof" is nothing more than a buzz word - I don't know. I do know that the Plextor and TDK Velo cd are both highly touted.

Some manufacturers such as NEC refer to it as "JustLink" which is in fact the same technology.
I've been using the NEC NR 7700 12x/4x/32x ATAPI recorder in my pc setup for some months and out of about 200 discs, barely 3 came out faulty and incomplete due to system crashes or defect source media. Unless you're bound to SCSI based solutions, very fast and reliable recorders can be had for way below $150.

[twist]

kfm,

Thanks for explaining that. I did notice in the Tiger Direct catalog that I just received, that many of the buffer sizes on the models they carry have been listed at 4 to 8 meg- apparently to accomodate the new faster RIP speeds.

Twist