First off hello to all as this is my first post and I'm very appreciative for all the valuble info I have already read in the Forums. I have recently developed a problem playing DVD-R's in my old faithfull Panasonic A310(ya I know...Old). For the last 6 months I have been using the following with always perfect results playing back backed up movies. Some up to 2 hours and 20 minutes. Rip the DVD with DVD Decrypter, DVD Shrink to compress or DVD FabPro to split, Nero 6.*** to burn. Writer is Plextor 708A FW 1.04(now 1.06) always using Ritek G04 DVD-R media. I have burned about 125 movies and all have played flawlessly until about a week ago. I started to watch a movie and for the first time I started having audio drop outs and random pixalation break up. It will not repeat the problem at the same spot. It can happen 10 minutes into the movie or an hour and ten minutes in. It is affecting all the movies I have recently burned. I tried burning at 1X and 2X also with no luck. Also I tried using DVD decrypter and IMG Tool to burn. No luck. I tried the new FW 1.06 and also tried a new pack of Ritek G04's with no succes. All the movies play back perfect in the PC and using DVDInfo the discs check out perfectly. So...any suggestions?. New media perhaps...I was going to get Verbatim until I read about all the Taiwan media not being too good. Maxell perhaps? I had yet to burn a coaster using the Ritek 4X G04 from Newegg but now I'm bummin. I would like to keep using the Pana A310 as it's a good unit for me and fits my needs well...Thanks in advance...

Church

It's possible that you got a bad batch of Ritek G04.
May people have been having issues with G04 lately.
It seems that the average quality of these discs have gone downhill.
Try some new media!
Also, make sure you update Nero to the newest version. (Currently 6.3.1.10)

Thanks for the feedback... I had actually tested alot of different media...Taiyo Yuden, TDK, Maxell, etc. etc. I did numerous tests to see if the Riteks and the Taiyo's were having read problems and they were all perfect. In fact the G04's were actually giving better test results than the TY's. Stupid idiot me...I finally realized...I never bothered to check if a regular production DVD would glitch. I was so used to only playing the DVD-R's. Well...even the regular DVD's were having problems after a while into the movie. My guess is that it's a thermal issue and that the Panasonic is finally giving up the ghost. I replaced it with a Denon 2200....

church

Sorry to hear the player went bad on you.
FYI, if you "stack" players or VCRs together this can also result in playback issues.
Make sure your DVD player is not touching any other electronics or heat sources.