I have an A04 Five months old with very little use. On about 9 out of 10 copies I am getting freezing well into the film.
I have tried both Nero and RecordNow Max, On the Fly and reading to the Hard Drive first. Tried four different types of disc. Traxdata, Datasafe Ritek, Datawrite Yellow and a local brand. Never used to have any problems. The A04 is on firmware 1.31. I've tried discs on 3 different brands of DVD Player and computer. I never seem to get a problem using DVD Shrink to convert originals and burning, just straight forward copies.:confused:

The ones that you have success with (DVDShrink ones).... can you get a good copy of them that doesn't freeze ?

Also, what is the source of your copies that freeze ? i.e. what are they copied with/from ?, what media ? are they authored etc. ?

The copies I have problems with are all full retail copies. Media varies but the ones at the moment are on Verbatim. Can get good copies using DVD Shrink from originals. Have tried reading and writing using DVD Decrypter and the same problem.

Yeah ... what I was getting at m8 was ....what are the disks you are copying ? i.e. are they copies of originals and, if so, what media are they on ? plus any other info.
Also can you copy your successful copies done with DvdShrink ?

Are you only doing 1:1 backups? I use DVD Decrypter in ISO mode and it works perfectly for all 1:1 backups.

Have tried Decrypter to read and write in Iso mode and the same. The set I am trying to copy play absolutely perfect. Had exactly the same problem trying to backup the Disney Set which also played perfectly. I am copying copies and I've had the same problem no matter what medium they were sent to me on. I've also varied the brand of discs I am copying onto.
The funny thing is they always freeze towards the end and you get no indication of any problems whilst copying.

maybe not the exact thing, but have found that my standalone dvd player gets warm, and the dvd's freeze well into the movie. i then tried a player that had a non central loading tray with the heat from the transformer etc appearing to come from the other end of the player - no freezing anymore...

Used 3 different players and they freeze during fast forward so the player isn't even warm.

Ok, so you have tried different media, including Riteks and tried 3 different players, so that narrows it down to a couple of areas.

As the problem only seems to be happening when youare copying disk to disk (as opposed to creating disks), I'm thinking of a few possibilities.

I'm guessing a bit here but, is it possible that the disks you are copying are crammed to the hilt with data (i.e. full to the brim), whereas the successful copies with DVDShrink have a few spare megabytes of blank space.
If so it could be that your A04 is ageing a bit and is now unable to write accurately to the extremities of the disk.

An easy way to check this out, would be to run one of your disks through Dvd20ne and set the output size to say 4444mb. This will leave a bit of space at the outer edge of the disk. It wont affect the quality very much. Then check it on the PC before burning and if all looks good try another burn and see what happens.

Might be worth getting a few DVD-RW's ;)

A04 was new at Christmas and hasn't done fifty burns. But will check out the other theory. Thanks for your time.

xv

I use dvd decrypter first then dvd2one & then copytodvd and never have any problems, Burn's sweet first time everytime.

Largest DVD I'm currently trying is only 4.31GB. Samt, I'm only copying a copy,not decode and shrink.

Phil, Seems you're on the right track. Ran one that was only 4.31GB through dvd decrypter and DVD2One and it ended up at 3.87GB and burnt OK. Time to take the burner back for a replacement. Will try one more and get back.

Bingo Phil. All the discs I am having problems with are 4.2 GB plus

Glad to be of help m8, I have been "through the hoop" a few times pulling my hair out too.

Not wanting to confuse things, but I have also had a similar experience as yours, but it was down to a bad batch of unbranded Riteks, would you believe and these wouldn't write to the extremities of the disks.

Might be worth just checking this, with another brand/batch , b4 returning the drive. ;)

Have tried Datasafe Ritek, Traxdata ,Datawrite Yellows and a Local Brand all with the same results. So I can't see it being the discs. It was bought locally so it's not too much hassle. Thanks again m8. Will let you know when I get it back.

Hi m8 try changing the firmware from 131 to 2.0 then try gen 4, 2x discs

If it's a firmware issue,why does everyone use 1.31 and have no problems?
Can firmware be changed numerous times.It's been 1.40 and down to 1.20 before going to 1.31?

What speed are you recording at?
I have a pioneer a03 and it doesn't like burning at 2 speed any more.
1 speed burns are fine.

Tried 1 and 2. No difference.

what o/s u got jeff???

XP Pro Daz, took the burner back to the shop and they tried it out in one of their machines and it's faulty so they sent it back for replacement. Hopefully get one back this week.