I was left no choice when selecting. Region Free does not support my DVD writer at all. At least the author is straight and honest. AnyDVD is said to have compatibility probs with Matshita UJ-811. Nevertheless I tried. It worked and works perfectly well. AnyDVD running for the 1st time asked to determine the region code of my dvd drive. I did. After that I had no problems. I burn with Matshita with the help of AnyDVD/Clone DVD very well.
I think it must be important.
And let me say that those two progs are simply great. Fast, reliable, easy to use and producing perfect quality. I am amazed.
(Configuration: Acer TravelMate 244LM, Matshita UJ-811, Windows XP Home).

Thanks for taking the time to answer my request.

http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=87653

In fact it was so long ago that I have in the meantime got rid of the drive and laptop and moved on.

However I cant help but notice that you posted the same thing to six differnt threads...are you a matsushita employee, because to be honest providing a link to a so-called support phone number is a joke. Matsushita/panasonic want nothing to do with supporting their products. I rang and emailed them several times and they gave me no help whatsoever. Telling me to 'refer to my notebook manufacturer' is all well and good but what if they have gone bust, as was the case with me.

Furthermore, it is clear from my investigations that some of the problems with the uj-811 were not notebook specific, but down to crap design, and I think Panasonic know this. There are mentions all over the web of how the drive fails to write at more than 8x, how it produces crap disks, how it stops working. Also, ever tried to flash the firmware...its impossible because they encrypt it to stop people fixing the problems they cant be bothered to.

These problems arent something to do with my laptop, or even all laptops from one company, these are to do with Panasonic/Matsushita and you can guarantee they want nothing to do with you if you have these problems.

All in all the drive is a piece of crap and I would never buy any laptop with a panasonic drive again on the basis of my experience with it. I suggest you do the same.

Well... Matsushita is really a "tricky" DVD burner, I have to admit, but:

1. I have been using it for some time and it never failed.
2. Panasonic is considered to produce "quality drives for professionals".
3. It never ever had a problem with any media.

Yes, it has some, you might say, disantages, like the region-set issue, the DVDIdentifier problem, etc.

Nevertheless, it is reliable to my experience and that is what counts.

what software do you use for this? What firmware? I have a UJ-811 in my Toshiba Satelite and I can't get it working! VERY frustrating! Have tried the bundled software (Drag'n Drop) and Nero 6 - neither have worked for me.

Someone please help me!

I think you haven't been paying attention, TylerNZ.
alex thyl has UJ-811 drive firmware version H100 on his laptop.
You may want to use a dvd lens cleaner kit to clean the UJ-811 drive.

alex, the key words were "quality drives for professionals". what about end users? it's a different story for some endusers like reefflex and TylerNZ who have Panasonic UJ-811 drives on their systems that are not working correctly. so I have to disagree with you on your 2nd statement. also, not everyone has a panasonic drive that is as reliable as yours.

The UJ-811 drive that was in my brother's Mitac 8080 notebook computer had died a few months ago (meaning it no longer works at all). We're going to replace it with either a "refurbished" UJ-811 drive or a different cd/dvd burner.

This thread is 2 years old. I would assume they have their problems solved by now.