A friend has the above drive, and has several problems. First, Nero wouldnt recognize it as DVD RW drive (only a CD rom) but a flash/firmware upgrade ftom NRC site to v1.09 solved that. However still will not play a dvd movie to completion. At various points 20-40 minutes in the player and therefore computer freezes. Dispite the firmware upgrade the driver is still the microsoft default CD driver 5.1.2535.0, could this be the issue. Cant find any driver for this(looked at driverguide). The drive can rip with shrink and even burn with nero, yet still cant do a complete playback. This is a clone computer, could it be overheating or some massive incompatability issue. But i wouldnt expect it to work at all then. Plus he's got 1 GB of RAM.
Are the playback problems with the original dvds or with the copies. If with the copies it could be media related. Cheap/poor quality blank media will sometimes freeze on playback at different points in the movie. If its with the original purchased dvds then there are other problems, possibly overheat but that usually happens during the burn process not playback. One other possible problem would be paper stick on labels on the copies. Many different playback problems caused by labels. Jerry
yeah, he was using cheap media (forget the name but knowing him believe me its a fair assumption), and the labels were a definite suspect. but it was still freezing on a non labeled version of his media. Tried my memorex -r 8x but didnt have enough time to view more than 20 minutes (plus if i have to watch catwoman any more-this was the test movie/copy- i'll kill myself) will try a +r disc today as well, and i told him to try a store bought dvd as well.
If your friend is using cheap generic media, then you may want to make a step up in media quality. Your got memorex -8x media, Looks like c-magnetics makes most of these.Not very reliable. Be very cautious with these,burn them slow. The plus format performs a lot better for me on all those stand alone players,pc's,and tv dvd recorders that I play my backups on. Try a small pack of maxell's.All their manufacturers are very good no matter which lot size or format you go with.The +8x's are all made in japan and working very good. Jerry746 looks like he nailed it on his first post about the media quality and labels. Beware of store brand name media like staple's. It is very hard to find the good media of these store brand names. Look for Maxell/fuji/verbatim data life plus/taiyo yuden-especially anything made in japan on those wrappers. Staple's have the Sony +1x-8x on sale this week,They are made by taiyo yuden.However,they also have the Taiwan media mixed in with them,still pretty good-but not ty's.Check those labels out and look for made in japan, or in the case of those sony's: "MADE IN JAPAN".Those sony's are $20 for a spindle of 50. The dash 1x-8x are the same,some made in taiwan and some in japan.Japan makes the finest media.
