Burning PC Engine ISO images

[Wim_Senna]

I was just wondering what cd brand performs the best for burning ISO images of PC Engine cd-roms.

Right now nothing I burned on TDK discs works, nor do the no-brand cd's. Philips works great (will have to buy a bunch of those).

Just wanted to know what you use and what works best for you.

[corn619]

Maybe this will help. I always used Fujifilm CD-Rs and never had a issue. Heres the guide I used. http://www.emuasylum.com/index.php?page ... nt&faqid=8

[Hatta]

I always use Taiyo Yuden CDRs. They invented the CDR, and have always been top quality. Usually I just buy a stack from American Digital. I actually need to do that again soon. Been burning too many CD-I discs.

Also, burn at the slowest possible speed. If your burner can't do 4x or lower, get an older burner.

[Ziggy]

I've never had a problem with Memorex or TDK, though I haven't used them in years. The only thing I've for a while now is Sony or Verbatim, both have been great for me.

[Wim_Senna]

I always use Taiyo Yuden CDRs. They invented the CDR, and have always been top quality. Usually I just buy a stack from American Digital. I actually need to do that again soon. Been burning too many CD-I discs.

Also, burn at the slowest possible speed. If your burner can't do 4x or lower, get an older burner.

My 3 games that do work right now were burned on 16x

[Hatta]

CDs burned fast should work, but burning slowly can help with problems.

[Wim_Senna]

The laser unit went out a few days ago. Now I need to look for a replacement, but the HOP-M3 laserunit is kinda hard to find...

I read that using cd-r's in a Duo destroys the laserunit quite fast. Is this true or am I just unlucky that it went after 3 days???

[Hatta]

CDRs destroying lasers is largely a myth. The only kernel of truth I'm aware of is with Dreamcast discs. Since they're natively GDRoms not CDRoms they need to be properly remastered to fill the entire disc so the laser arm doesn't have to move around too much. With consoles that use CDs natively, you're using a 1:1 copy so you don't have to worry about padding the image. It will be exactly as stressful on the mechanics of the drive as an original disc.

People like to scapegoat. These are old machines with old parts, they will die randomly. When that happens people will blame a convenient target, CDRs fill that role. I'm not aware of any mechanism through which a CDR could damage a console, nor of any data that would suggest the existence of such a mechanism.

[Ziggy]

It will be exactly as stressful on the mechanics of the drive as an original disc.

Right. But does the lens have to work harder to read a burn? Probably not the case with newer console, but maybe so with the older ones. CD drives in older consoles were in their primitive state.

There's even rumors today about burns and the Wii. DVD+R are said to cause the lens to work harder to read them, so -R's should be used instead.

Of course, I don't take anything I read at 100% true value.

[Hatta]

Right. But does the lens have to work harder to read a burn?

What does it mean for a lens to "work hard"? Lenses bend light. It doesn't take any energy for them to do it, and bending the light doesn't wear out the lens. Saying a lens works harder to read a CDR is a lot like saying a mirror works harder when an ugly person is looking at it. If anything is going out it's the mechanics that control the lens, or the laser is burning out.

It occurs to me that it's actually testable if it's the focusing mechanism. You could hook leads up to the motors that control the lens and take readings while it reads a CD and a CDR. Do some statistical manipulation and you could get average distances traveled each time the lens focuses, how many times it changes direction, how long it takes to focus, etc. That would actually get some data behind this assertion. Too bad I don't have the equipment to do such an experiment.