Speedy DVD Burns – Part 1: Introduction & Quality Scanning Speed Examined

When it comes to burning discs, most people who knew anything about burn quality generally had an ingrained phobia of high speed. Common recommendations included burning at “half the speed your media/burner is rated at”, while others would stick to more strict schools of thought such as “only burn at 4x”. Contravening these rules of thumb were only done with the best of media-and-drive combinations, or where time was absolutely of the essence – never mind a wasted disc or the fact the burn might be bad (necessitating another). These ideas aren’t exactly wrong – at high speeds, a lot of things have to go right for a burn to succeed. For example, the disc has to be rigid enough, the stamping has to be spot-on, the mechanism must not have any nasty resonances, the tracking servo should be able to lock on throughout the burn with the disc rotating at over 150-times per second, the laser power has to be strong enough and stable throughout the process, the disc needs to be clean and the…