In retrospect, it did give me time to find the more color-appropriate blue marker.
this post was submitted on 31 May 2026
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What speed did you burn at?
I see the top disc is labeled as an 8X max speed burn, but if I recall correctly, burning DVDs over 4X speed involves a changing speed rate and changing laser power throughout the burn, which you (and the drive reading the disc) can see on the data side. Some drives don't exactly like the banding effect this causes.
If you want good reliable burned DVDs, I'd recommend burning at 4X or less, those lower speeds burn at a constant speed and laser power.
Also helps to make sure you have brand new, perfectly clean and non scratched blanks of course.
I used to hoof it at 16x on single-layer DVD+R discs back in the day (talking 20 years ago at this point), whole disc done in about 5 minutes. Never had an issue with those.
The phenomenon you're referring to is called "Zoned Constant Linear Velocity", for anyone looking for a new Wikipedia reading rabbit hole :)
Can't say I ever tried a dual-layer blank, can only imagine they're a bit more touchy about speeds and feeds.
Oof. Yeah, I've had the pleasure of burning a few double layer discs before, I wouldn't go over 2X speed with those (the blanks aren't exactly cheap).
Glad you had good luck on 16X back then, but are they holding up these days? 🤔
I dunno, but I always kept my burn speeds dialed back to reliable safe levels. You only gotta burn it once, so go drink a beer and smoke a joint with some friends while it burns.
You only gotta burn it once, so why rush it? You want a reliable disc that reads reliably hundreds if not thousands of times..
It would be fun to test, there's still a big disc wallet buried somewhere in the (hot and occasionally humid) garage, undoubtedly including some of those 20 year old ones. Worst possible storage conditions for recordable media.
The larger issue however is there is no longer a single device in the house capable of reading one, and hasn't been for a number of years.
Also a significant fraction of them were Linux install media. Not in the modern nudge-nudge-wink-wink-we're-really-talking-piracy-here "Linux ISOs" sense, but actual Linux ISOs, which would be used a couple of times (maybe even only once) then discarded once superseded by a newer version.
It would be at least another couple of years after that period in history before I could afford a) sufficient hard drive space to not have to burn and delete things straight away after downloading them and b) flash drive(s) large enough to do away with optical media for that use case.