Cheap DVD media failing to burn

In my dv6000z, I have this DVD drive:

Model=HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T10N
FwRev=PC05

And it seems to not want to burn my cheap Officemax DVD+R's. But it burns my SONY DVD-R's fine. I have 2 other computers which have no problems with the cheap media.

Has anyone else experienced errors like these?

Sorry for the amount of questions I've been asking lately; just trying to get everything about my new laptop sorted out.

 

I have heard all kinds of stories about cheapo media not working, fully defective spindles, etc. I have never personally had a problem with the low end (free after rebate) media, but maybe I have been lucky. Apparently, there are defective spindles are a high ratio out there.

On the other hand, some drives are notoriously bad for buring to +R. I have always found -R to be more compatible, cheaper, and easier to burn on multi-burners.

 

Cheap media is cheap for a reason: not always guaranteed to work!

 

The problem is that the cheap media works on my other computers but doesn't work on my laptop's burner. So I guess the media's not "defective"..

Or I guess I could find some cheap -R's instead and see how that works out.

 

well if get some good quality media and it stll doesnt work then u know its the drive but right now it just indicates that the drive might be picky about what kinda media it works with.

 

Different burners have their diferent favourite media.

You can use DVD identifier to find out the media ID (it could be something like Ritek G05). Then you can try to find out whether LG (or any other site) has a list of compatible media , or email support with the ID of your media and ask if it should be compatible. The burner's firmware includes a table of media ID codes and the optimum burning settings. Firmware updates are sometimes issued to improve media compatibilty, so check if anything is available.

You can also try burning at a lower speed. There is not so much difference in overall time between 8x and 4x.

John

 

Thanks everyone.

I had no idea that media compatibility lists exist. I'll do more research on this when I have time.

 

You should also note laptop drives are not as good as desktop burners.

 

Yeah, my dv9000t with the litescribe drive consistently burns movies to high quality DVD+R that play on my home DVD player just fine until the last 15 mins of the movie (located on the outside margins of the disc), at which point it becomes unreadable/unwatchable. Makes for a disappointing movie viewing experience! The media is good, and my desktop does a perfect job on it, making playable discs.

Is there a higher quality replacement drive available?

 

You will have to buy a third party one. I have the HD version of that drive on my dv9000t. No LS but it seems to burn discs fine but the catch is, its max burn is 4x!

 

Why buy cheap media?

I never understood that myself.

All burnable media is, is simply ink. When you buy cheap media, you get cheap ink. After a couple years, your media goes blank again. You can go online to places like sumpermediastore.com, and rima.com, and get high quality media fairly cheap. I never buy anything but Taiyo Yuden... I pay a bit extra, but I have no coasters (I have burned over 300 TY discs for myself, and likely another 100 for others), and my films last forever (99 year guarantee). For the money people "save" buying cheap discs, they waste them in movies that don't burn completely, discs that become coasters, or discs that last a year or less.

I used many other media in my time, but eventually I realized it isn't worth the headache, or the time.

 

In addition to DVD identifier, you can also use the database at videohelp.com to see the experience of others users with the media you are using or plan on buying.

When I see those fire sales for 100 discs @ $10, I check the DB to see if someone has already identified it and the user experience score/reliability/issues with certain writers.

 

IMGBurn and Nero also both have ink identifiers.

 

If you burn a lot an external desktop drives is probably a better solution.