Preservation of correspondence

woodelf wrote: I tend to write DVD-R at 4x, although the batch I have at the moment will go down to 2x (but not 1x ... I think that the acceptable speeds are encoded onto the media). I think that the CD-Rs I have will go down to x or 8x but I tend to write them at 24x or so. In fact the CD-Rs are rated at 52x writing (or something equally ridiculous) but the DVD rewriter drive won't do them at more than 36x or so. I don't know whether write speed makes much of a difference. I just think that if it can just about cope with 52x then giving it a little longer (by writing at say 24x) should mean it doesn't have to turn the laser up so high to heat up the medium (or maybe it can just write the medium a little more thoroughly). But I have no idea whether either of those might be true and I certainly do not have the equipment to examine the disks physically and check. Of course, writing at a lower speed should mean I'm less likely to hit a buffer underrun - although drives mask such problems these days it does eat away at the available space a little. Antonio