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I've been mostly happy with the Plextor 708a's performance when making copies of my Hollywood movie DVDs, however, I've experienced a great number of problems when burning disks from programs I authored using Ulead DVD Workshop 2. In all cases, I used Nero's latest burning software to make the disks.

Now, here is the situation:

For a while I had a problem with my Plextor and Nero concerning burn times. Even when I selected the fastest speed to burn the disks, it would still take an hour/disk to complete. The countdown timer would just be stuck at zero while the progress meter indicated a long way's to go. Updating to the latest Plextor firmware resolved this particular issue.

Now, disks burned okay for the first little while. DVDs almost always loaded immediately in my set top DVD player and there were no problems accessing various chapters and elements. However, soon burned disks would show strange burn circles (indicating the laser may have stopped and started at odd points) and not play at all, or would work but take forever to load in the set top player.

This problem I have had with each firmware upgrade of the 708a. The first couple of self-authored DVDs would work fine but then coaster after coaster would result. In most cases, I burned at 1x.

Any solutions to this problem?

Thanks.

sounds like a media problem. what brand of dvd media are you using?

I'm using Ritek 4x printable media. These disks have been generally reliable with the Plextor (esp. for movie DVDs) but lately I've been getting inconsistent results with self-authored DVDs. Usually after a firmware upgrade, I get perfect copies that play immediately in my set top DVD player but after some use, subsequent copies can take upwards of 30 seconds or more to load but otherwise function correctly; some disks don't play at all. In all instances, I try to burn at 1x when practical.2

Ritek is not the best media to use. In the past Ritek media was one of the better brands of media but that is NO MORE. I would suggest you use the RECOMMENDED BRANDS OF DVD MEDIA that PLEXTOR supports. RITEK is only on the COMPATIBLE list of PLEXTOR which doesn't mean the media will work correctly or successfully with the 708A drive.
Use MAXELL DVD-R 4x speed with media code TYG01 which is TAIYO YUDEN or media code MXL RG01 which both are MADE IN JAPAN. On the MAXELL SPINDLES as long as it says MADE IN JAPAN those are the ones you want to purchase. You could also use DVD+R 4x speed MAXELL which is manufactured by RICOH.

In my opinion it's the RITEK media that is causing the coasters. I used RITEK G04 media when I first began dvd burning but then their quality began to slip. I began getting coasters or parts of the dvd movies that I backed up would freeze up towards the end. Than I began using the MAXELL, RICOH & TAIYO YUDEN media and no more coasters or freezing up. Check out the PLEXTOR FORUM at cdfreaks.com

Thanks for the info, DVD Addict. I will try out the media you mentioned, as well as the CDFreaks forum.

Make sure that DMA is enabled. See How to enable DMA in Windows XP (with pictures) (or the corresponding topic for your flavour of Windows).

G