Pioneer 433 DVD recorder DVD failing?

[Robbins1940]

I have the Pioneer DVR-433H recorder and I just had 2 failed copies to DVD-R. I can hear the motor of the DVD drive powering up and down during burning from HDD to DVD. I have hardly used the DVD drive. Have I got a bad drive?

[Robbins1940]

Turns out I was trying to fit too much onto 1 disc. I removed 1 video and the disc burned okay. Funny I wonder why the machine didn't say I was transferring too much onto the disc?

[Seeker47]

Turns out I was trying to fit too much onto 1 disc. I removed 1 video and the disc burned okay. Funny I wonder why the machine didn't say I was transferring too much onto the disc?

Assuming this works like the somewhat later 520 model, it should warn you -- in Red -- about a capacity mismatch, at the last Copy screen prior to the burn. Some of us have seen "COPY ERR" at or near the end of the failed burn, in this situation. This may be more likely when there are multiple items in your Copy List -- particularly if some of them were heavily edited, as when removing commercials. My theory: an incorrect computation by the DVR of the true total running time. If your subtraction of one or more copy items solves the problem, it is unlikely to be a failing burner in the unit. The time to worry is when a burn failure (with or without "COPY ERR") is repeated and repeatable within a short time span, and your adjustments don't change this.

[Robbins1940]

It said the size of the disc is 4.4gb and the size of the videos I was going to put on it was 4.4gb. The bar was not in the red but after 20 minutes burning a message came on saying can not complete burn. I took off a few minutes worth and the 3rd burn was okay.

After wasting 2 16x verbatim discs I tried a rewriteable and still got a failure.

I wonder if this is an error in the programming of the machine?

[Seeker47]

It said the size of the disc is 4.4gb and the size of the videos I was going to put on it was 4.4gb. The bar was not in the red but after 20 minutes burning a message came on saying can not complete burn. I took off a few minutes worth and the 3rd burn was okay.

After wasting 2 16x verbatim discs I tried a rewriteable and still got a failure.

I wonder if this is an error in the programming of the machine?

A.K.A., the firmware. Can't rule it out . . . but Pioneer is not known as one of the manufacturers that tends to release f/w updates for its recorders. In any case, I think that edging right up to the max. capacity of what you can burn is probably not the best idea. Isn't the advice for PC burners -- much repeated here in the forums -- to try and keep the single layer burns to no more than 4.2G ? With less being safer ? A burner is a burner, so that would seem to hold for the DVD recorders as well.