I just bought a BTC 1004 drive. It had firmware 038 and produced nice coasters with the cheap Sunstar 1x DVD-R media from german media mar**t. No errors with burning software Nero 5xxx supplied with the drive. But the results checked with DVDInfo pro looked horrible. After flashing the drive to FW 043 the result looked a lot better. But I still have a problem reading the DVD-R with my old Toshiba SD-1212 5.x* (RPC1)drive. The DVDInfo pro RPM check results look awefull. I flashed the firmware of the Toshiba from 14 to Version 22 but that did`t help. There is another Firmwareversion that is supposed to fix DVD-R read Problems but that version(1032) is only RPC2.
My Question is now:
Any chance to get my drive region free + dvd-r Compatible?
If not I`m thinking about buying a standalone player that is able to read hopefully anything I write with the BTC 1004!! Whats a good recomendation for a standalone player that really works.
And third the Media Question! Good Cheap and availlable in Germany.
Thanks for your help

Jörg

Well good is not normally associated with cheap. However Samsung DVD-R 2X (MID=BeAll.G00001) works surprisingly well. Actually the C1/C2 error scan is a lot better than more expensive 4X media like Verbatim (MID=TYG01). However it's only writable at 2X. Anyway, buy them if you can find them i Germany. You will not be disapointed (I hope).

Cheers,
Peter

Hi robin26,
I am very satisfyied with my stand alone DVD player
SONY DVP NS330 .It is compatible with every cheap media i fed it so far and what is even better is , that even media with awful K'probes scan (unreadable in other DVD players ) can be read there with minor problems if any at all.
Bought in CARREFOUR ATHENS,GREECE for 150 euro.
Cheers
Nikos