HP DVD Writer 840b produces hesitations in dvd-video??

[brownstem]

Hi, I have an HP DVD Writer 840b in a brand-new HP Media Center PC. Whenever I burn dvd-video discs using this drive the movie has brief hesitations every 20 or 30 minutes before continuing play--sort of like the layer break hesitation, which is normal. It's neither the media (always TY or Verb) nor the software (either Decrypter, ImgBurn, or Nero). These discs have the same problem no matter which standalone player I play them in, too.

Now, if I burn the exact same ISO or dvd folder using one of my other burners (NEC 2510a, Plextor 716UF) I don't get this problem, so I know it's the HP burner. It has firmware version HI86, which I believe is the most current. Anyone else have this problem, and, if so, what did you do about it? Thanks.

[Krispy Kritter]

I've had similar issues in the past with my older Lite-On drive. After experimenting a bit, I found the problem to be the burn safe implementation. Anytime that I was burning a disc and the buffer would go to zero causing the burn to pause, would corrupt the disc.

The workaround was be to ensure nothing else was running on the pc during your burns, and/or to burn at a slower speed.

I replaced the drive with a NEC 35xx drive, and no further issues.

[brownstem]

Thanks, Krispy Kritter, but actually I've already tried that. I did a couple of burns while watching the buffer level throughout (not the most exciting thing to do ) and nothing was amiss. Also, I never use my computer for anything else while burning. In fact, despite the fact it has 1.5GB of RAM I still usually do a fresh reboot before burning and never touch the machine during the process. Thanks again, but I'm pretty sure I've just got a crappy drive.