problem w/MTR & DTOX?

[rockinsage]

I've been having strange problems lately with buring MTR'd/DTOX'd disks with Toast on my Pioneer DVD-R 104 drive (latest versions of all software). I backed up a few disks via MTR and DTOX, and they all have a lot of little glitches, where the audio may briefly drop out, and/or the video may skip a little. The glitches always seem to start in the middle of the main feature and continue until the end. I backed up another disk just by MTR (didn't have to do DTOX because the disk was small enough), and it didn't have any glitches.

This didn't use to happen, so I'm also wondering if maybe my DVD-R 104 is getting flaky. Could this happen if the laser or lense was dirty? Is there a way to clean it?

I guess my only other option is to start reverting to older versions of the software to see if the glitches go away.

By the way, I've tried a couple different kinds of media (Ritek, TDK, Maxell).

[terryj]

I had a similar problem happen with my -104 recently,
where it would report bad sectors on Apple branded media,
and te discs would be glitchy and stutter on playback,
and would not burn higher than 1x on my 2x TDK media,
the same it had burned on 2x speed forever before on.

I took a trip to my local Radio Shack, and bought
a CD/DVD Cleaner, the kind with the little hairs on the
underside of the disc.
Ran it, and it seemed to be ok, but after upgrading
to 10.3.8, my problem got worse, to the point where
it would only burn 1x on any DVD, including my
beloved TDK 2x media.

Pulled and pitched it, and bought a -109 new from newegg.com.
Its been working great so far!

[rockinsage]

thanks terryj, good ideas.

I guess I was also wondering if DTOX could have anything to do with it, because my non-DTOX'd discs seem to be glitch-free. Strange.