Minimum DVD Burn Speeds

I needed to burn a DVD at a slow speed for a project I’m working on—the DVD will be used as the master for some 3,500 copies so quality is important. The factory said the slower the burn the better the recording, that you can actually see the difference on the DVD surface when burning at higher speeds, and that a DVD burnt at high speeds may work OK in some computers but malfunction in others. They suggested 1× but we’ve compromised on 4×.

The reason for the compromise is the drive in my MacBook Pro won’t go any slower. Here’s an interesting matrix of drives, DVD-R medium, and the resulting available burn speeds, put together by a colleague (thanks Glenn).

Table of Drives vs. Media = Burn Speeds

Drive	Apple 4×	Transonic 8×	Verbatim 8×	Imation 16×
HL-DT-ST GWA-4080	4	4	4, 6	4, 6
HL-DT-ST GWA-4165	2, 4	4, 8	4, 8	4, 8, 16
Matshita UJ-815	1, 2	1, 2	1, 2	1, 2
Matshita UJ-825	1, 2, 4	1, 2	1, 2, 4	1, 2
Matshita UJ-835	1, 2, 4	1, 2	1, 2, 4, 8	1, 2
Matshita UJ-846	1, 2, 4	1, 2	1, 2, 4, 8	1, 2
Pioneer 104	1, 2	1, 2	1, 2	1, 2
Pioneer 106				1, 2, 4
Pioneer 109	1, 2, 4	4	4, 6, 8	4, 6, 8, 12, 16
Sony DW-U10A	1, 2, 4	1, 2, 4	1, 2, 4	1, 2, 4

All tests were done using Disk Utility in OS X 10.4 (Finder and hdiutil will give the same result).

My MBP has an HL-DT-ST GWA4080MA DVD drive, so the minimum burn speed is 4×.

(You can see the drive mechanism in System Profiler. Apple can (and does) change mechanisms within a product line.)