Hi, > > This is the first time i read about a technical reason for those > > patches. > > You've merely heard an echo of quasi-technical rumor.
For me as an application programmer all talk about system, firmware or hardware is rumor. One learns to live with that. > > My -RWs leave me after a few months but that does not look > > like a subtle format problem. Rather like the dye changing > > its photochemical properties within a year after production. > > It might as well indicate your particular firmware deficiency: it simply > fails to pick optimal power for particular media manufacturer[s] or > DVD-RW media in general. Well possible. But why did the media work in september 2004 and die a quick and reliable dead in november 2005 ? The same spindles. Two brands with two different media infos. Wether unused previously or re-written. I made exact lab logs in 2004 because those are donated media and i wanted to use them for proper science. They were not flawless but most of them worked. Now they are mostly trash. Either my burner goes bad (and there is no indication with DVD+RW or CD-RW), or the media went bad at normal room temperatures, or both. > In other words I find it hard to believe it's inherent -RW > problem and I bet that a whole lot of people would refute your > experience. One remarkable point with DVD+RW media is that all brands of 4x media which i ever bought are reported as Media ID: RICOHJPN/W11 whereas three DVD-RW brands yielded three media ids. What, for example, shall i think of a warning sticker on the wrapper of TDK DVD-RW media labeled as "2x" "WARNING This product is intended for use only in 4X speed DVD-R/RW drives/recorders." and further in small letters on the backside: "Use of this product in certain [...] DVD-RW drives [...] may result in damage to both the loaded disc and to the drive [...] the lense [...] becomes fogged [...] source of the problem is a firmware bug [...]" No list of endangered drives, of course. (Calm down, Thomas, don't be unrelaxed ... om mani padme hum ...) The variety of cooks seems not to be conducive to the DVD-RW broth. Let me hope the RICOH DVD+RW production plant never burns down. This is my impression as user and as provider of support to other users. I got no insight into the commercial or technical reasons of that mess. If i get asked about what burner to buy, i answer that i got good experiences with my current one and DVD+RW. Of course i do not state that -RW and other brands would not work. I do state, though, that DVD burning is by far not as technically mature as is CD burning. A matching combination of drive and media is still a prescious thing. > > The loss rate is reduced if they are in growisofs state "restricted > > overwrite" > > On a side note, phrases like this last one is like soil for > quasi-technical rumors and other controversies. That was not my intention. > There is no such thing as "growisofs state "restricted overwrite""! My apologies. Meant was: if they are in the state which the documentation of dvd+rw-tools refers as "restricted overwrite" but which is not mentioned or used by cdrecord-ProDVD. It is simply that growisofs is the only program known to me that allows this burning procedure which resembles +RW and obviously not only saves the time to blank but also seems to save the life of my remaining DVD-RW media. My original sentence might be a daring shortcut but is it really misleading from the viewpoint of users ? > But please, don't mix > together applications and recording modes in terminology. To my defense i ask you to consider that the specs of the standard bodies are not easy to obtain and not easy to understand. Furthermore i promise to be more exacting. On the risk that my mails get even longer. Have a nice day :) Thomas -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]