Hiall!
I’ve started using Double Layer DVDs as a dirt-cheap storage alternative to BluRay, as they now cost just a tiny fraction of empty BluRay disks while providing almost half of the capacity. I also hate new standards, as they tend to require an upgrade of all my hardware, including stand-alone and car appliances.
Anyway, I’ve noticed a symptom when trying to burn DL DVDs. Although I never fill them to the edge, leaving at least 100-200 MB free, K3B frequently fails to write the last percent or two of the disk. If I retry another blank medium, I get a coaster again. If I delete a 50-100 MB file from the project, however, the disk gets written error-free. I’ve come to the conclusion that K3B makes a lousy work at guessing the space required to accomodate the project files. It’s mainly .avi and .mpg files (i.e. various movie formats). Now, AFAIK, the space occupied by compressed files (such as movies, mp3s, jpgs etc) is hard to calculate in advance, so maybe there’s where K3B is failing? Anyhow, what I’m asking of you is, can anybody confirm this behaviour? What’s your mileage with K3B? Also, has anyone encountered this problem with Single-Layer (4,7 GB) DVD blanks?
Any answers/suggestions welcome.
It shouldn’t matter whether the file is compressed or not, since k3b writes them unmodified to the disk and the exact size (whether or not it’s compressed internally) and therefore the number of blocks needed is known.
What may be happening is that the actual capacity of the media is less that k3b is programmed to expect. However I would have thought that k3b would have been programmed with the sizes mandated by the standards.
DVD+R DL - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So I don’t know the answer. Maybe there is a setting somewhere in k3b where you can tweak the capacity a bit downwards.
I haven’t had problems getting within 50 or so MB of the capacity of SL disks. DL disks are too expensive for my taste, especially as they are currently only write-once.
PS: Almost half the capacity of Blu-Ray? Sure? DVD-9 is 8.5GB while Blu-Ray is 50GB. More like 1/6th the capacity.
JosipBroz wrote:
> Hiall!
> I’ve started using Double Layer DVDs as a dirt-cheap storage
> alternative to BluRay, as they now cost just a tiny fraction of empty
> BluRay disks while providing almost half of the capacity. I also hate
DVD SL = 4.7GB
DVD DL = 8.5GB
Blu ray SL = 25GB
Blu ray DL = 50GB
Just for the record.
> new standards, as they tend to require an upgrade of all my hardware,
> including stand-alone and car appliances.
> Anyway, I’ve noticed a symptom when trying to burn DL DVDs. Although I
> never fill them to the edge, leaving at least 100-200 MB free, K3B
> frequently fails to write the last percent or two of the disk. If I
How much data are you trying to write? I mean, 8.5GB is total space,
not total usable space, there is some loss due to the format of the
data.
> retry another blank medium, I get a coaster again. If I delete a 50-100
> MB file from the project, however, the disk gets written error-free.
> I’ve come to the conclusion that K3B makes a lousy work at guessing the
> space required to accomodate the project files. It’s mainly .avi and
> .mpg files (i.e. various movie formats). Now, AFAIK, the space occupied
> by compressed files (such as movies, mp3s, jpgs etc) is hard to
> calculate in advance, so maybe there’s where K3B is failing? Anyhow,
Possible that k3b isn’t making good allowance for the actual
appropriate usable space… not sure. I guess I’ve never tried
to maximize my space usage on a DL DVD.
> what I’m asking of you is, can anybody confirm this behaviour? What’s
> your mileage with K3B? Also, has anyone encountered this problem with
> Single-Layer (4,7 GB) DVD blanks?
> Any answers/suggestions welcome.
>
I have not seen your problem… have tried to overburn CDs and have
gotten into some problems… but that’s expected.
I’m not trying to overburn anything here. I just drag’n’drop files into the project window until the K3D green bar indicates that only 150-200 MB free space remains. Apparently, that indication is outright wrong (and that’s what I’m trying to confirm here).
On Mon, 2008-11-10 at 08:26 +0000, JosipBroz wrote:
> I’m not trying to overburn anything here. I just drag’n’drop files into
> the project window until the K3D green bar indicates that only 150-200
> MB free space remains. Apparently, that indication is outright wrong
> (and that’s what I’m trying to confirm here).
>
>
I was just pointing out that your problem seems similar… and that
it is possible like you said that it might be a bug. I have LOTS
of data though… and I have some DL media… I may give this a try
and try to confirm.
That’d be great!
Just to clarify: overburning is explicitly disabled in my K3D, so I doubt it’s trying to overburn, I think it just fails a regular burning process. Of course, there’s always the remote possibility that I just have a batch of bad media, all failing at 98-99 % …
Update: the problem may be due to K3B wrongly calculating the capacity of the medium. My theory is that, particularly with second-rate noname media, there may be unwritable/faulty sectors that significantly reduce the actual capacity of the disc. Anyhow, the problems ceased to occur since I’ve started to leave ~300-350 MB free space in my projects (fingers crossed…)