Thursday, October 2, 2008

How To Solve Buffer Errors When Burning Discs

If you are having problems burning files to optical discs (CD's and DVD's) you may see an Error Message that says something like "Buffer overrun. Try writing at a slower speed".
(And you might not.. you might just get jittery video or garbled music.)

Optical disc are "burned" with a laser, and due to highly complicated scientific something-or-others (probably something having to do with "Physics") the burning device in your machine needs to have the 'data' fed to it at a constant rate.
This is accomplished by "compiling" the files into a memory area called a "buffer".. which then 'feeds' the CD/DVD writer in a steady stream.

Problems can occur when the software creating the burn puts too much data into the buffer (an "overrun") too quickly, or not enough data in quickly enough (an "underrun").

Tip of the day: Cure your bad burns by telling your burning device to write at at a slower burn rate. (It will {should} tell the software.)

In Windows XP:
1) Open "My Computer" (Start >My Computer, or double-click the Desktop icon.)
2) Right-click on the CD/DVD drive icon and select (click) "Properties".
3) At the top are a series of tabs, click on "Recording"
4) Use the the drop-down arrow labeled "Select a write speed" to progressively slow down your burn until the problem disappears.

In Vista:
In Vista you need to open Windows Media Player to set the burn rate. Start >Programs
burn speed

1) Click on the little arrow underneath the "Burn" menu, and select "More Options..."
2) On the Burn tab you will see the Burn speed drop-down arrow-- progressively slow down your burn until the problem disappears.

[Note: If you are using an authoring program, such as Nero or Roxio, you will find similar options in similar places (menus).]

Today's free download: When you need to copy discs, or deal with "disc images", you no longer talking about "burn files to disc", and you've entered into the realm of the "dot iso" (file type= .iso) and you need a program that offers the "Copy" option. I use a light-weight program that integrates into your Context Menus.
ISO Recorder is a tool (power toy) for Windows XP, 2003 and now Windows Vista, that allows (depending on the Windows version) to burn CD and DVD images (DVD support is only available on Windows Vista), copy disks, make images of the existing data CDs and DVDs and create ISO images from a content of a disk folder.

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