CD/DVD burning speed question

[Browni]

I see lots of of threads around t'internet that state you should burn at a low speed.

Why?

I always burn at max speed and have had no problems.

The other week I had to dig out a 2 year old DVD to recover a program for my landlord which I had backed up for him. No problems, disc perfectly readable.

I'd be interested to hear of other peoples experiences and opinions.

[Nibiru2008]

Usually when burning video, audio or data files there is no problem which speed you choose to burn the disc at. I usually burn those at just a slightly lower speed that what the disc or burner is rated at. Such as a 16x DVD disc I'll burn at 12x, unless the burner will burn a 16x rated disc at 20x, then I'll burn at 16x.

Now, when burning an ISO or image file, that's a different story. Nearly everyone has a greater success rate when burning an ISO at 4x speed. Such as the Windows 7 x64 ISO image is 3GB (approx.). Burn it at a 4x speed using ImgBurn for the best results. It's because the program must kinda "unwrap" the ISO and then burn it.

I hope this helps.

[jamezb3]

Since the introduction of windows 7, I have only used the default .ISO burner and it has never failed. I never burn cd's or movies so no need for 3rd party apps.

[jovocop]

I use powerISO and always burn at maximum speed. So far, so good for all my DVDs

[OzzYGuY]

Back in the early days of CD burning, burning at high speeds would sometimes result in the buffer becoming empty and having to wait a slight second for it to fill up with more data, to be written to the disk.

Referred to as "Buffer under run"

As a result, you would get a jitter effect on the cd or dvd.

Back then it was highly recommended, espescially when burning ISO files, that you burnt at lower speeds to counteract the problem, and end up with an error free burn.

These days all of our burning software contains code to never allow the buffer to run empty, therefore we rarely have any problems in that area anymore.

It keeps the buffer constantly filled with data, therefore avoiding the buffer underrun problems of the past.

I always burn at Maximum speeds these days, and never have any dramas.

I hope that gives you a plausible answer