Does Control Affect Burn Quality

[wvary]

Hi,

I have an i7 with 6 gig of mem and plenty of disk space.
I was using a Samsung SH-S223F to burn DVD videos for a while.
One day I ran DVDInfoPro to test the quality of the burn and the quality was average.
I went out and bought a Pioneer DVR-S18LBK and the quality was better.
I've connected the burners to the on-board SATA ports and a silicon SATA adapter.
I'm using an MSI x58 motherboard.
I'm using ImgBurn to burn.
Burning at 4x on the Samsung and 6x on the Pioneer. Can't make the Pioneer burn at 4x.
I've made sure that nothing else is happening while burning.

My question is will a high-end sata adapter send different writing instructions to the firmware on the dvd burner which in turn produce better quality dvd burns?

I'm using media such as:
TDK +R and -R
Maxell +R
HP +R
Optimum +R and -R
Philips +R and -R
Magnavox +R and -R
RiData +R and -R

I know these are cheap media, but I gave 10 of each (-R only) to a friend who uses a DVD duplicator to burn and the quality was amazing. The only I know is that this person uses Pioneer DVR-116 burners in the the duplicator. Not sure which duplicator controller is used.

I'm sorry for being so lengthy, but I thought the picture should be told.

Thanks,

Will

 

[cjl]

There should be absolutely no difference at all in burn quality between an add-in SATA controller and the motherboard's SATA controller. The only difference should be from the media and the burner itself.

 

[wvary]

Thanks cjl for the quick reply. I didn't think so, but need a pro to confirm. I just wish there's a way to slow down the burn. I've tried using MediaCodeSpeedEdit to see if I could add 4x to the media type i used, but no luck. The option is disabled.

I just bought a Sony Optiarc burner. I'll play with that one tonight.