Hi all,

Yes, Rich is still alive. I got a few emails from some of you worrying where I went to. Lots of problems with my family and hospitals here .. lost my Dad 6 months ago then Mom had problems and tonight I'm waiting for my wife's father to come out of emergency surgery. Things have been hectic.

But in between all that I did get myself a new DVD burner to "test out". One of those new Pioneer 105 jobbies that does 1,2 and 4x DVD and such.

Some history for those of you just tuning in. I've been burning home made DVD's for a long time with a 1x Panasonic 321 DVD-R/RAM burner. The darned thing burned every single DVD type I could throw at it. Off brands, name brands and every kind of 79 cent garbage DVD-R bulk disk I could find. So far over 120 DVDs and ONE coaster .. WHICH was caused when I accidently shut off the computer while it was burning

Frankly I got tired of waiting up to 50 minutes to burn one DVD. So in comes the new Pioneer. I purchased a sample pack of all kinds of discs. A couple each of Sony, Ritek, Prino, TDK and some off-brands. Discs from 1x to 2x and 4x. The new Pioneer burned every one. But that was ALL it did. Not ONE will play in my DVD stand alone. And MOST won't play in my computer with PowerDVD software. The old Panasonic is installed in one of my other computers. So I did a side by side. Burned the Princo 1x at 1x in the Pannasonic and also 1x in the Pioneer. Ditto for all the others. The only difference was where the disc was certified for 2x or 4x I was limited to 1x only on the Panasonic AND also 1x on the Pioneer.

So here I am with about 24 discs of all types. All the discs burned with the Pannasonic play perfectly everywhere. Haven't got ONE burned with the Pioneer to work anywhere.

It very much "sounds" like a problem with the burner no? Could be. All I know is it burns just fine and the final burn is completed okay. But they just won't play. BTW, I still had about 6 or 7 of those really cheap 79 cent 1x no-names that I've been using. The Pioneer burned them fine. BUT again, nothing will play the burned discs. However .. twelve discs later I have yet to get one to work in any stand alone dvd player. Or even in my computer. By the way, I did a "side by side" test .. putting the same brand/speed disk in BOTH the Pioneer and the old Panasonic. Twelve coasters on the Pioneer side and 12 perfect (play everywhere) DVDs on the Pannasonic side.

I'm NOT quite ready to condem the Pioneer yet. Yes I've tried the Pioneer at 1x speed and it's no-go there either. Point is, when I first got my Pannasonic it worked perfectly right out of the box.

Maybe the DVD burner DOES make a difference? Maybe I just got a bad one? I dunno. Anyone else have either an A05 or DVR-105 and NOT had at least some problems? If so how did you fix it?

Rich, did I hear you right? Your having "problems"! You mean those things that keep other things from working right? Is this the same Rich - Impossible! I always thought you had a touch of the devine watching out over you.... Now, like the second comming, you walk amongst us mortals! Fallen from grace, to mix in the swill or bugs that we spend our lives in!

WELCOME BACK TO THE RACK!!

Here is a test that will PROVE beyond all doubt that you are the REAL Rich - open the tray on your pioneer, bend down and blow into it - if ALL your problems go away then you are indeed the same Rich!

Speaking more practically - Lotsa people are have x4 sucess on many players. I checked before I bought my A05 but that was just before a tidal wave of work (8am-2am, 2nd month!) I installed it but have yet to burn a DVD. My wife has burned about 50 CDRs though - x16 and all are perfect.

I know its tought but you need to try another unit. Alt get an RMA from Pioneer.

How about swapping DVDRs between your two computers? Cables?? Supply strengths? Try cleaning? Try again with the case open (changes the mechanical environment)? DMA/PIO?? Did you try burning a CDR?? CDRW?? DVDRW? Try PLAYING burned and bought DVDs?

Glad your back, humble and human!

Lemme know when you burn your first playable DVD-R at any speed that plays in your stand alone DVD player. Then tell ME how! <grin>

Pioneer 105, fake TDK discs burn perfect at 2x, play everywhere I tried (computer based drives, Pioneer 525, Naiko N-2081 etc)
Same applies for Ritek04 4x dye on ie. Neo or FWS discs

My firmware is 1.00, authoring with either SpruceUP or Maestro, burned with Nero 5.5.9.17 or if DVD copy then DVDDecrypter or DVDXCopy.

Also tried some fake TDK that did burn only at 1x and some Ritek03 dye on FWS 1x and even God knows what dye on White Label blue top (really cheap & nasty)

Never one coster
It might be that your firmware is 1.21 (that could be a problem) or the drive is just naked from a start

Seb

Hi Rich,

It has been a long time.
Sorry to hear about your family problems.
Hang in there.
Now regarding your Pioneer 105, I have the oem version of the same drive, the Cendyne 4X. It has the factory firmware, which is 1.0.
I purchase a cake box of 25 silver topped Ritek dvd-r's and I have been burning successfully for awhile now. Now these dvd-r's burn at 1X on the Pioneer 105 and play flawlessly on my JVC dvd player. I find the 4X media to be a bit expensive at the moment.
If you would like, I could send you some sample dvd-r's that I burnt. You did the same for me when I was trying to burn my replay mpegs as svcd's. I would like to return the favor.

Best regards,
Ray S

Problem solved.

DO NOT .. download the latest version of Nero 5.5.10
That is the problem. You guys are probably not using that version. I always upgrade everything as soon as it becomes available. Just got off the phone with the people at Ahead (Nero) and they confirmed the bug in version 5.5.10.0

I've reverted back to 5.5.9.17 and now am happily burning 1x 2x 4x and all kinds of discs .. expensive and cheap .. Whew .. just like old times.

BTW, the latest firmware for the DVR-105 is 1.21. Mine also came with version 1.0. At present even Pioneer is not aware of firmware upgrade of 1.21. (It's on the Japan firm's web site) Be very careful as there are "issues" with the 104 model and they NEED to be updated. The 105 doesn't have the problem but like I say, I usually keep up to date.

Peace in the valley, Sun is shining, birds singing .. and the "force" is back in sync. Now I just gotta replace (re-burn) the 20 coasters I made. heh heh

Mark this on your calendar .. Rich got coaster ..

Ah seriously .. the problem with Nero manifests itself when you try to burn a DVD Title Set. I believe there's something amiss in the ISO settings and when you actually UN-check Joliet (or one of the others that HAVE to be UN-checked) Nero goofs and doesn't do it. I heard of this exact same problem in the past. Where a DVD would seemingly author fine. But would not even be recognised by a known player that HAD played them in the past. (I was working to help another guy with the problem) We found he was using ISO level 2 instead of one. (or something like that)

What threw me for a loop was that I DID have all the parameters set properly. So I discounted the problem being Nero.

It's him allright - welcome back!

Whew.....Glad you're back Rich......I too was getting worried. Glad to see you still have the Midas Touch as well.

Tim

Rich,

You need to get on some other forums. It was confirmed withing a couple of days that Nero 5.5.10.0 had a problem.

Also just anytbody I read regrets upgrading the firmware on 105 to 1.21

So reading before doing might just be a good idea.Never does not mean better any more in this world

Seb

of course I was 90 out of 90 before I started having problems with the first DVDRW. After reformatting HDs (you know how I love to reformat), reinstall everythign and a good drive cleaning I put another 100 through. Also I "look" for ink imperfections on the disc - if I can see them the burn WILL be bad - EVEN if the imperfection is NOT in the recording surface! Bad Q is bad Q. These discs do work great for data however, not one bad disc - I think there is much deeper error correction appplied to data. I'm up to 20+ data discs and not one failed verification.