Verbatim M-DISC BD-R 100

[BijouMan]

How has your experience been with Verbatim's M-DISC BD-R 100 discs? What drives have you guys been able to engrave these with and at what speed? What is the MID? Please provide graphs from your favorite disc utility software (Nero DiscSpeed, Opti Drive Control, etc.)

[stonesfan129]

I have not used the BD100 discs. I have used Verbatim BD50 and BD25 discs. I have had quite a few unsuccessful burns and I think it's just down to bad media sometimes. I get the inkjet printable ones for BD50 and the regular ones for BD25 where it has the white face with blue writing. I have an LG PC drive that I do the burning with. I have heard people have better results with Verbatim media using Pioneer PC drives. I do all of my burns at half of the recommended write speed (so 4x media I burn at 2x, 16x media I burn at 8x).

[BijouMan]

Originally Posted by stonesfan129

I have not used the BD100 discs. I have used Verbatim BD50 and BD25 discs. I have had quite a few unsuccessful burns and I think it's just down to bad media sometimes. I get the inkjet printable ones for BD50 and the regular ones for BD25 where it has the white face with blue writing. I have an LG PC drive that I do the burning with. I have heard people have better results with Verbatim media using Pioneer PC drives. I do all of my burns at half of the recommended write speed (so 4x media I burn at 2x, 16x media I burn at 8x).

You don't have to slow down the write speed for better results. In fact, slowing down the write speed can make the finished product worse as the laser in a modern half-height drive is powerful enough that slowing down the speed will make the disc burn too hot. The maximum speed that the drive will burn the disc at is the optimal speed that the drive manufacturer has tested with that particular model of disc. The drive has a database of MIDs in its firmware to support different speeds depending on what model of disc you are using. For example, even if two BD-R 50 models advertise themselves as "6x", a Pioneer half-height drive in their latest series might burn a Verbatim BD-R 50 at 8x, but try a Panasonic BD-R 50 in the same drive and you will get the full 14x advertised in the drive specifications. All M-DISCs are labeled "4x", but this drive will engrave the BD-R 25s at 4x, the BD-R 50s at 8x, and the BD-R 100s at 6x (isn't that odd how the multi-layer formats engrave faster than the single-layer?) If you are using a disc with an MID that is not in this database, you will only get the speed the disc advertises or even slower, or even no burning at all in the case of BD-R 100, BD-RE 100 and BD-R 128. I can't speak for LG (actually Hitachi-LG Data Storage) half-height drives because I can't find a list of MIDs and supported speeds for those (I can for Pioneer.) Also, "BD-25", "BD-50", "BD-66" and "BD-100" refer to pressed BD-ROM discs, not BD-R(E) discs. The correct terms for those are the terms you see here.

[stonesfan129]

Originally Posted by BijouMan

You don't have to slow down the write speed for better results. In fact, slowing down the write speed can make the finished product worse as the laser in a modern half-height drive is powerful enough that slowing down the speed will make the disc burn too hot. The maximum speed that the drive will burn the disc at is the optimal speed that the drive manufacturer has tested with that particular model of disc. The drive has a database of MIDs in its firmware to support different speeds depending on what model of disc you are using. For example, even if two BD-R 50 models advertise themselves as "6x", a Pioneer half-height drive in their latest series might burn a Verbatim BD-R 50 at 8x, but try a Panasonic BD-R 50 in the same drive and you will get the full 14x advertised in the drive specifications. All M-DISCs are labeled "4x", but this drive will engrave the BD-R 25s at 4x, the BD-R 50s at 8x, and the BD-R 100s at 6x (isn't that odd how the multi-layer formats engrave faster than the single-layer?) If you are using a disc with an MID that is not in this database, you will only get the speed the disc advertises or even slower, or even no burning at all in the case of BD-R 100, BD-RE 100 and BD-R 128. I can't speak for LG (actually Hitachi-LG Data Storage) half-height drives because I can't find a list of MIDs and supported speeds for those (I can for Pioneer.) Also, "BD-25", "BD-50", "BD-66" and "BD-100" refer to pressed BD-ROM discs, not BD-R(E) discs. The correct terms for those are the terms you see here.

Right or wrong, I have always done my burns this way and when setting to auto speed I seem to always get failed burns.

[BijouMan]

Well then, there may be something wrong with your drive. It's supposed to burn discs at the recommended speed. But, then again, this thread is dedicated to the Verbatim M-DISC BD-R 100 discs.

[smithb]

Originally Posted by stonesfan129

Right or wrong, I have always done my burns this way and when setting to auto speed I seem to always get failed burns.

I've burned all my Verbatim BD-R 25's at 2X. I've also always been burning disks at the slower speeds since back in the early 2000's with DVD-R's to now BD-R's with great success. I can't recall a single failure in the last 500 Verbatim BD-R disks I've burned. They aren't M-Discs though.

All I can say about burning at slower speeds is that in the early days everyone that I knew that had failures burned at faster speeds, while I did not. Maybe that has changed since then, but it hasn't caused me any problems to continue doing what I do, except time.

Now I have also read that there can be differences between certain drive and blank disk manufacturers. I've always used Pioneer and Sony drives with my Verbatim blanks.