Trouble Reading/Writing on 712A

[rczucche]

I just purchased a Plextor 712A and the Microstudio 2.609 software. I am trying to create backup copies of my karaoke disks. When I use "Duplicate Disk" the process appears to work fine but the copies have some random dots and graphics appearing. When the original disk is played on the computer through Microstudio I have the same random dots appearing. When I play the original disk in the Karaoke machine it works fine. So the original disk appears to be in good shape. It appears that the 712A drive is not reading the disk properly. I tried to slow the read speed to 32X but this did not help. Any Ideas on how I can correct this problem ???

Thanks
Rob

[Wallymeister]

Try slowing the read speed even more. I generally use 16x and it seems to work fine. It just seems that some manufacturer media is cheap and cannot be clearly read at such fast speeds. You might also try slowing your write speed if this doesn't do the trick. The CD-R's you are using could be a part of the problem too, which is why write speed might factor in.

Hope this helps!
Wally

[George]

Don't think it's a cae of write speed. I checked with Plextor a few months ago and was told the newer high speed burners are optimized to write at the higher speeds. I do most of my burning at max speeds in both the Plextor 52X and the 712A, all trouble free.

Agree with Wally regarding the media. That's not the place to economize. The best around is the silver brand marketed by MTU, or the Silver Mitsui.

It pays to be a bit paranoid with the media to the extent of taking the time to clean brand new discs before burning. I haven't had a coaster in over three years.


George

[Wallymeister]

George,
Write speed is a function of how good the media you are writing to is. In other words I believe that just because a disc says it is capable of 52x, doesn't mean that it really can. There may be flaws in a certain batch that prevents it and will work much better if slowed down. I choose to write at slower speeds because I'm not just copying discs all day and it doesn't take that much more time to just write slower anyway.


That's just me.
Wally

[George]

Conversley, there have been many instances where the faster speeds have cleaned up commercial discs that had glitches in them.

All I know is what I see, and I have not had a bad burn in three years using top grade media and wide open speeds.

George

[Wallymeister]

That's interesting, George

I and many others are probably not using top grade media. A few years back when I first started burning copies of my discs, I used Mitsui Gold discs and I noticed a big decrease in coaster production. But, I was paying alot more money for them and they couldn't be found anywhere in my area. I had to order them on the internet.

Maybe I'll order some more of the Gold discs and give it a try again and see.
Thanks for the info.
Wally