Pioneer DVR-AO4 - having trouble

[baccus]

I just got a Pioneer DVR-A04, and i'm having some trouble with it.

I've tried 3 different types of media, and i'm only trying to burn data discs right now.

First brand was DVDPro from Meritline, second type was Fujifilm DVD-R's, and I had 1 disc of the Pioneer media that came with the drive.

the DVDPro ones will only burn at 1x (no surprise), but about 4 of 7 disc's did not work right. They passed simulation, passed burn, but failed data verification. other other 3 worked fine.

the pioneer dvd worked fine

the Fujifilm media, i've tried 2 and they both failed to even burn correctly.

Is it the media or is something wrong with my dvd-r drive?

I'm using Nero. I did try RecordNow with 1 fujidisc and it didn't burn correctly.

I really don't know what else to try, I don't want to keep buying media types just for the fun of it.

as i said, i'm just trying to burn data discs. I am filling the disc up to the 4.7gb limit (under it, not trying to overburn or anything.)

anybody got any clues. let me know

[SLK001]

Welcome to the cold, hard, cruel world of DVD recording. Right now, the media is in its infancy. Some can hack it, some cannot. You probably won't be surprised to hear that the cheap stuff mostly cannot. I'm surprised that Fuji didn't pass muster. I would be driving back to my place of purchase for a refund, or an equivalent exchange. Just for the record, I have had excellent results with Verbatim media in my DVR-A04. I heard that CompUSA had them for $35 for 15 last week (don't know if they are still going for this).

[baccus]

actually, I just noticed that I have firmware 1.30. On pioneer's site, 1.20 seems to be the latest.

anybody running 1.30 as well? Mine is a retail Pioneer DVR-A04 from newegg.com. The only references I've found on the web to firmware 1.30 are for sony OEM drives. Weird.

Should I flash down to 1.20? Flash the region free 1.20 version? Anybody have the 1.10 version to flash down to?

Ideas? A third fuji DVD-R just failed data verification.

[BJ_M]

thanks for the tip about Verbatim -- we may try them ...

but for 100% working disks -- i never go wrong with apple dvd-r disks and they are cheaper than the pioneer disks (which also always work) .. for dvd-rw i always use just pioneer disks ..