undesireable copies

[Joyceejons]

I'm trying to back up my karaoke discs with a plextor writer PX-W4824TU and certified cd discs from Mtu but I keep getting poor copies with lots of spots on them and slow to read tracks. Seems to work good on the first few tracks but on the higher tracks such as 10 through 15 the problem begins. I have wasted several expensive discs trying to record them. Could some one please help me with simple step by step instructions. I'm not the best at understanding computer language so the instructions have to pretty simple.

[flipper]

Joyce -

Refer to your microstudio manual for help on this problem. It is titled
"Making Good Copies" it has a wealth of information there on this subject. In fact they refer to bad copies on tracks #7 and higher several times.

Is your plextor driver MTU certified?

Even though it is the same drive number that MTU sells it does not mean that it will produce clean burns. They reject a fair number of drives when bench tested right out of the box from plextor.

I have found that most problems I have encountered with microstudio have been hardware related. Sometimes it is the condition of the source disc that I'm copying from.

Flipper
Flipside Karaoke

[Joyceejons]

I purchased my plexwriter from MTU and have been using it all along to make copies. Although I have purchased a new Voco Pro Twister which doesn't read copied material on cheaper cd's. But I am using certified cd's and also the plexwriter from MTU. I'll check the manual to see if it will help.

[MTUSUPPORT]

Have you tried these discs on another Karaoke Machine? I know we have had clients post in the forums in the Past, that had problems with the VocoPro systems reading the discs correctly.

Also, you might slow down the Read Speed to 1x to try to get the best copy. Also if the discs have alot of scratches, then they would give these type of errors.

Another thing to try is to clean your drive. You can do this by getting a can of compressed Air from Radio Shack, or somewhere else, and blowing out the drive. Dust can sometimes cause these errors.

[admin]

Buy a CD cleaning disc from anywhere (Office Max, Radio Shack probably, etc.) and spin it in your drive to help clean things that can dirty the laser led lens like fingerprints, peanut butter, you name it...

All CDR and DVDR drives have a finite lifetime. The fact the upper tracks are showing the damage could also indicate the drive may be wearing out. The Plextor drives we certify and ship have the BEST lifetime of any on the market. I see you have purchased 200 discs from MTU. I wouldn't think that would cause this problem. However, if you have also used other discs in the drive since you bought it in September 2003, say over 800, then you might expect this problem. Each drive is different. There is no absolute warranty for the number of discs that can be burnt.

This also depends on the environment the drive operates in. If your drive is exposed to dust or grit (we have seen some very dusty gritty drives returned to us), then this can reduce the lifetime of the drive much faster than expected. Could that be a problem with your installation and use of the drive?

[Joyceejons]

I wouldn't think that my plextor is exposed to a lot of dust. Although I have made several copies with other cd's. I did the self test on the unit and it failed to open automatically.