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burning dvds -- can't close the deal

H

homeshire

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 24, 2002
214
0
Ohio, looking toward Germany
I've been having a hell of a time lately burning dvds. I've had a half dozen or so which will copy, burn and verify, and as it approaches 96+% verified, it will suddenly find an error and spit the disk out at me. this after 2 hrs. of patient waiting to have the disk.

These files approach full capacity of the disk, but do not reach or exceed it. I am burning through the finder. I called Applecare and they suggested I try burning through IDVD. I burned the IDVD tutorial, and nary a problem. They told me if that were the case, it would at least point up to a software problem, rather than a hardware problem. I'm hesitant to call Applecare back because I just know that they're gonna burn and ruin a whole lot of my blank dvds just rummaging around for a solution.

Anyone got an idea what may be going on here? Is it burning through the finder that's causing problems? Burning to near capacity of the disk, and then actually exceeding capacity, even though theoretically it has not reached full capacity?

I find it nearly impossible to believe that this many disks could come oh so close to completion, and then suddenly to have a random error pop in.

thanks for any help.
 
I burnt a DVD through the Finder the other day and that went fine. So far, I have had 100% success rate (4/4) with my DVD burns - 2 were videos in iDVD, one was an iTunes data DVD back-up, and the other was this DVD in the Finder.

Why don't you try disk utility. Are you using Panther? Try burning a data DVD in disk utility - try to fill it up and it can be a useful backup of some of your data (so you're not wasting a DVD-R as much). If that works, you'll know it's an issue with the Finder on your system, not your SuperDrive. If that doesn't work, I'd get back on the phone to Apple...

Oh, and you're definately burning using DVD-R's? (Not DVD+R)
 
This is just a possiblity, but have you tried DVDs from another manufacturer/batch? If you for some reason got a bum batch of DVDs, there could be small errors creeping in that show up in verification. iDVD might've just gotten lucky, or it might be less sensitive to errors than the Finder.

Just out of curiosity, how do the discs work if you try them again? They didn't verify, but is the data actually OK (try copying everything off the DVD back to your HD and see if there's an error in the process)? It's possible the only part of the process that is going bad is the verification stage (maybe some background utility is modifying one or more of the files, making the disc look corrupt?), in which case you can just ignore it or start looking for solutions in that direction.
 
thanks for the replies. i am using dvd-r direct from the apple store. i don't believe the disks are bad. otoh you never know. i took the most recent disk and fed it right back in to the drive and my sytem just ignored it. i took that same disk to a dvd player, and it played fine right up to the moment of corruption. i can only assume that OSX in some way notes on the disk that there was an error and thus will not acknowledge it.
once or twice, and i can accept bum luck. half a dozen or so tells me i have an issue with something. since i burned fine through IDVD, i'm pretty sure it's a software issue.
 
virividox --
true enough. my concern however is that it is a hardware issue, for which toast would not help at all. but it does seem to be a software issue.

i understand toast is $100. i don't know. kids around here might have other ideas for that money.
 
well you did say it worked with idvd so you are tight to suspect its a software issue

maybe try another project with idvd and see how that goes, then give it another shot with finder.

it will 'waste' 2 dvds but its one way to check

as for toast yeah i know its not something cheap you can just get, but if you do burn a lot for archiving and authoring its worth the cost
 
virividox ---

you're right in what you say about toast. i've looked at it and thought about it. my fear, with so many other things as well, is that i'll spend the money, and shortly after apple will integrate the function into the OS, seamlessly and with all the elegance of the 3rd party app. conversely, i'll find those same functions within the oss/x11 world. then why did i spend the money?

sometimes that hesitancy pays off, sometimes i end up doing without forever. it's a crapshoot.

thanks
 
just for the sake of completeness i will post these results.

i burned my home folder, 3.6 GB, just to see if it would. i did it through the finder, which is where i was having problems.

it burned successfully. so i have no hardware problem. i had come to that conclusion anyway, but now i can eliminate it completely as a potential issue. and to boot, i have a pretty useful backup of some important stuff that i did not previously have backed up in such a well organized manner.

so now i am really only left with one question. if one approaches the limits of the capacity of a disk during a burn, will it show up as an error right at the very end of the process? and if so, should there not be some warning that this can/might/will happen,so maybe don't burn this file? okay, that's 2 questions right there.

so i guess i'll go with yet another. a dvd-r advertises itself as a 4.7 GB capacity storage medium. when i insert that disk into the finder, it tells me 4.29GB, 4.28 available. after these experiences, my hunch now is that if you burn to 4.08 or so, give or take, you run the risk of the errror i've been receiving for exceeding actual physical capacity. what's up with these moving targets for capacity? what are you supposed to believe?

alright, another. having burned all these disks trying to work things out, i'm in need of more blanks. i go to the apple store, they don't have 2x. apple store columbus doesn't have anything but 4x either on the shelves. i ask the apple store guy on the phone where are the 2x disks. he says apple has discontinued in favor of 4x. that's not a disaster because my 2x superdrive will use them, but only at 1x speed. why has apple discontinued making 2x, and effectively cut my burn speed in half? and what would be another good quality product to buy, and from whom? i buy apple in order to avoid quality issues. where do i go now? thanks a lot.

:D
 
Originally posted by homeshire
just for the sake of completeness i will post these results.

i burned my home folder, 3.6 GB, just to see if it would. i did it through the finder, which is where i was having problems.

it burned successfully. so i have no hardware problem. i had come to that conclusion anyway, but now i can eliminate it completely as a potential issue. and to boot, i have a pretty useful backup of some important stuff that i did not previously have backed up in such a well organized manner.

so now i am really only left with one question. if one approaches the limits of the capacity of a disk during a burn, will it show up as an error right at the very end of the process? and if so, should there not be some warning that this can/might/will happen,so maybe don't burn this file? okay, that's 2 questions right there.

so i guess i'll go with yet another. a dvd-r advertises itself as a 4.7 GB capacity storage medium. when i insert that disk into the finder, it tells me 4.29GB, 4.28 available. after these experiences, my hunch now is that if you burn to 4.08 or so, give or take, you run the risk of the errror i've been receiving for exceeding actual physical capacity. what's up with these moving targets for capacity? what are you supposed to believe?

alright, another. having burned all these disks trying to work things out, i'm in need of more blanks. i go to the apple store, they don't have 2x. apple store columbus doesn't have anything but 4x either on the shelves. i ask the apple store guy on the phone where are the 2x disks. he says apple has discontinued in favor of 4x. that's not a disaster because my 2x superdrive will use them, but only at 1x speed. why has apple discontinued making 2x, and effectively cut my burn speed in half? and what would be another good quality product to buy, and from whom? i buy apple in order to avoid quality issues. where do i go now? thanks a lot.

:D
Click to expand...
Several of us have moaned about the discontinuation of the 2x discs. Don't worry though, contrary to what Apple says, they do actually burn at 2x speed in our drives, not 1x. So, apart from them being a bit more expensive (although now cheaper than 2x used to be prior to xmas), they still work the same.

DVD-Rs advertise that they hold 4.7GB, but then I have an 80GB (closer to 81 actually) hard drive on my PowerBook, but it only works out at 74.5GB when completely empty. This is because of the discrepancy between a MB assuming there are 1000kB in a MB when actually there are 1024. Hence this difference gets bigger when you're talking several GB.

I have burnt discs close to the limit and had no problems. If everything is working correctly, it should tell you before burning that the disc will be full.
 
johnnyjibbs --
if indeed they'll burn at 2x, then i have no complaints. thanks for the information on that.

if the discrepency in capacity is to be chalked up to our old friend the 1000 vs. 1024 debate, then again i guess i'll swallow hard and like it. that didn't occur to me on this issue, and i've never heard it mentioned as applying to discs as well as hd.
thanks for the help.
 
johnnyjibbs --
if indeed they'll burn at 2x, then i have no complaints. thanks for the information on that.

if the discrepancy in capacity is to be chalked up to our old friend the 1000 vs. 1024 debate, then again i guess i'll swallow hard and like it. that didn't occur to me on this issue, and i've never heard it mentioned as applying to discs as well as hd.
thanks for the help.
 
It happens with all storage. A DVD-R may only be able to hold 4.3GB of our data, but they are not lying when they say it has a capacity of 4.7GB (using the other terminology), so it sounds bigger and better!
 
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