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Recently a member was asking why it was taking so long to burn a DVD.

I have just purchased the latest Sony Duel layer DVD burner.
To speed it up it was very strongly recommended to upgrade my RAM to 1Gb to this it might also include upgrading the mother board.

I am running MS XP desk top
Any comments on this please.

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
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Possibly its because the xp software communicating with the dvd burner isnt perfect, sometimes manufacturers like sony will do better software updates that work better with the burners own firmware and stuff. A dvd burner with 512 ram on your pc shouldnt be slow, but 1 gig would make it faster.It shouldnt be neccesary though. Sometimes dvd burning software like nero can be faster than relying on xp's own drivers, which frankly, suck.

why would the amount of ram of your PC make a burner faster? The only reason I can come up with for it is that your reading buffer is bigger, giving the burner a bit more breathing room in case suddenly the system needs its resources for something else. The writing speed itself of the burner should not be affected otherwise, though possibly burning programs will decide the burning speed based on the amount of RAM your PC has.

Expanding RAM is always a good idea, no matter what you're doing. As for a burning program NEEDING 1gb of RAM, that's not true. Burning a disc takes up system resources, as well as hard disk space depending on what you're doing, so more RAM gives your system leeway if you want to do something else while it's burning. I've got 2gb of PC6400 (DDR2 800) and plan to upgrade in the future.

As for knowing if your computer can handle it, you have to know what motherboard you have. You can either dig up the literature for your board, or pop open the case and read what it says on it.

CPU speed is probably the most important thing if it's transcoding the DVD (burning a video?)

IMO, you should have atleast 512mb of ram...preferably more (I'd personally go with 2 gigs if I could afford it).

If you are editing/burning videos, you should DEFINATELY have atleast 1gb of ram. Generally, video editing requires a rather high end PC to do...unless you really like to wait, and really like to watch your computer go all screwy when you run out of ram

Have fun

How long is it taking you to burn a DVD? It is not a fast process, however good your drive is, as 4.7g is a lot of data to burn and that take time.

What software are you using? What media speed are you using? Are you checking that your software is set to the maximum speed the drive can burn at, and not lower? And, what ram do you have now?

It sounds a tad extreme, fitting more ram and changing your mobo just to speed up DVD burning. Yes, 1g of ram is lovely, but unless you are a power user, gamer or do considerable media editing, you will not notice a huge difference. It wont improve the speed of DVD burning dramatically if your other settings are correct.

Unless you are going to do it yourself, fitting a new mobo will be expensive, better to check your software settings first, before spending money on new components which may not fix the problem, and may produce new problems.

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

Thank you all for the imput. I will be taking it to a very reasonable and reliable computer technican next week to establish what I have and what is required to upgrade if and where necessary.
The new burner has not been installed yet. Also the old burner is reasonably new I will be able to sell it very quickly.

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Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

Keith, no offence, but IMO, it would be better to discuss the problems with people who have no vested interest in selling you anything and have no financial gain to make from you, before spending money on "technicians" and the like who are out to make a profit.

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

Tiny
No problems there we are in the same computer club. If he got too pushy his buisness would go down extremly fast.

One old very reliable company in same buisness started doing the wrong thing and big problems, the manager and the head technican left now company gets very little work.

Our area is rather funny that way bad service travels very fast no matter what buisness you are in. We have a very large older generation and it travels via the Bowls and a few service clubs.

Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

Cool - fair enough

It's a common theme here, that the tech places often pay on commission and the more services someone persuades a person to have done on their PC, the more they'll get paid. MEans people really get messed about sometimes



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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions

I burned 4.27gb of data to a DVD today at 4x, and it took about 6-7 minutes. I also checked my processor load, and it was showing 1-2%. Doing that much of an upgrade to your machine isn't going to make much of a difference in the actual burning, but it may speed up the file checking and such a bit, that's it.

It really depends on what size ram you have now?
512 or above will do the job, as to how much faster it will go would only be a matter of a few minutes if that?
The extra ram would help you in other areas like speeding up some of the programs you use but as far as the burner goes, no more than 512 is needed to do the job in a reasonable amount of time

Thank you for all the info. I am not computer technical and can and often do get my terms mixed up. The added Ram will certainly help especially with all the photos I work with.
My computer was actually built for me from an empty case to the best equipment I could afford and it pays me to keep upgrading as all the rest of the workings are of a good quality and in excellent condition.

I am far from having money to burn but I prefer to buy quality rather than quaniuty at a cheap price.
This is a easy past time for me so I might as well have the best I can afford.

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Keith

Near enough is not good enough, therefore good enough is not near enough, and only your best will do.
I VOTE DO YOU if not WHY NOT?
VOTE NOW VOTE NOW

That is the very worst thing about owning a computer, when you need to upgrade
The parts change so much, so quickly that quite often you need to change motherboards to accommodate any ram/processor/3d card/soundcard that you buy now because anything that will fit into your current MB is obsolete]:|

nooo it's the best bit!!

It's SOOO much fun, buying components, getting them, opening all those shiney boxes and having a pizza and rigging party, that fantastic feeling when you turn it on, watch the status lights and hear it beep, and know it's booting!!

The sucky bit is installing the OS and misc software


yeah!!


(unless it's a horrible puter blown up and can only afford to replace some components, so may all blow up again when you boot for the first time.)

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I like to think that whoever designed marine life was thinking of it as basically an entertainment medium. That would explain some of the things down there, some of the unearthly biological contraptions