A year or so i bought a cheap 4x iomagic burner and it's worked for the most part but has always had a problem with skipping late in the movie backup. I bought the cheap one because i was in school but now that im out and working i can afford to go top notch so i was wondering two things. Do dvd burners wear with time? which dvd burner would you buy if you were to repurchase?

Yes, the Lasers in Burners do wear with time.

If I was buying a new DVD Burner right now I would buy a Lite-On SOHW-8125. It can be bought fairly cheaply, and be upgraded to a Double layer Burner by upgrading the Firmware. :)

Skipping is nearly always a media issue.

yeah i thought it was a media problem too but it skips no matter what media i've used. I have tried princo, ritek,and fuji and its seems that they all have a tendency to skip.i was quite amazed that the princo even worked because of how cheap they were. i basicaly bought them to experiment on during the learning curve of backing up a dvd. After i learned the steps i bought ritek go4's and they skipped all the same. I figure it has to be the quality (or lack there of ) of my burner.