I bought a DVD R85 recorder (used) back in 2005. It had an problem with recognizing disks, & it went back for repair. I believe it's the infamous Philips R/W head issue.

Ever since then, it's been working pretty well.

I tried some recording on Memorex 16x DVD+R discs, but it didn't work. The firmware is ff13e.

I found a post at:

http://forum.videohelp.com/topic321829.html

I followed the links for DVD R85/17 (USA model?) & downloaded the ff16k firmware:

I went through the process of upgrading the firmware

http://www.p4c.philips.com/cgi-bin/d...=Link_Software

I burned a CD using "Nero Burning ROM". The R85 didn't take the disk. Then, I had to delete the CPRIGHT.txt file..it took the disk (as per the FAQ, some customers found this was the trick).

The R85 upgraded the firmware to ff16k. However, it won't burn the 16x Memorex DVD+R disk (it has the white coating for "writing"). Specifically, after 5 secs of recording the image just "freezes". No recording shows up in the disk menu.
[ before the upgrade it would record for 2 min, 10 min, etc..but nothing would appear in the disk menu ]

?? What's going on?

I have another DVD recorder, the Philips HDRW 720. A 16x Memorex disk records fine there, & it will play on the DVD R85.

Is the DVD R85 just too old (circa 2003), & Philips doesn't have an upgrade to use the 16x disks?