How to Speed up CD and DVD burning

Many users just buy blank CDs and DVDs without thinking much about the manufacturer who created them - most want it cheap which has the result that their system has to cope with different media. They notice that their system burns some CDs and DVDs faster without knowing why. Your burner might have the specification to burn DVDs with 8x speed but your burning software offers you only 4x. This article explains why that is the case and what you can do to never make this happen again.

The firmware of your burner has information on various manufacturers and their products including the maximum speed of the media. If a CD or DVD is used and no information can be found the burner will not use the maximum speed but a slower speed and increase that over time - this means of course that the process takes longer even though the burner and the blank disc are capable of faster speeds.

Fixing this is probably easy. The first step would be to make sure that your burner has the latest firmware installed; The firmware page collects and tracks firmwares of various burners, check them out. Make sure you read the instructions on that page before you proceed, your burner could stop working if the upgrade fails.

You should check the website of the manufacturer of the burner for firmware upgrades as well, it is always better to use the offical source if available.

If you can’t find an upgrade for your burner or the upgrade did not help in your special case you can do the following to speed up the process:

• Make sure that your burner is connected correctly to your system, if it is possible make him secondary master.
• Check the current transfer mode (DMA) of the burner. (Hardware Manager)

You can also check blank DVDs and CDs and find out which are best suited for your burner and purchase them from then on. DVD Identifier checks DVD and displays information about the manufacturer of the blank discs, nero cd speed does the same for CDs.

Once you know the manufacturer of the media and checked that you can burn with max speed you start buying only media from that manufacturer from then on. Please note that the name of the company on the blank media not necesarily reflects the real manufacturer.