CD-R max recording speed

[Garry Heather]

PS !!

Of course, the other thing to remember is that just because your writer might go up to say 32x, doesn't mean you HAVE to write at that. Some drives seem to be knobbled with regards to some previously used speeds but they will all drop downwards by quite a margin (Eg a 32x writer may also write at say 24x, 16x, 8x and 2x).

For example, I recently found a couple of old BASF (CMC Magnetics) CD-R's knocking about that my old Teac 6x recorder hated. If I recorded at anything greater than 2x, only the recorder could reliably read it at a reasonable pace and asking a friend to try and copy the contents of the disc to his hard drive took about an hour to do about 200M with the drive audiably "seeking" all the time.

However my new writer (a Yamaha CRW-3200E) set to record at 24x (so the writer is allowed to choose the best speed and write strategy for the media) thought it could write at 8x. I thought "Good Luck, then !!", but it produced an excellent disc. Using Nero's media checker tool (on my Matsushita DVD-ROM since my Yamaha does not report read errors) detected no read errors at all. If I ever wanted evidence of burner / media compatibilty, then that was it. Turning off the optimum write speed control and burning at 24x resulted in an instant coaster that wouldn't read properly in anything.

What I'm trying to say here is you don't need media rated for the writer's top speed. Apologies if you know this already, but I've seen people trying to find media for their mega new recorder not realising that they can use "older" (and in some cases CHEAPER) media that is probably just as good quality, but will take maybe just a minute or so longer to write. Me ? If I use any older media I just go and open a beer and it's done when I come back anyway, and after a few beers, who cares how long the damn thing takes !?