Charles Hazen 3210 West 13th Ave Eugene, OR 97402 (541) 465-4932 hazenworld@aol.com HI Oppo team, I want to thank you guys for your desire to check into my particular burning issue with my 980H player. Recently I have spoken to Gagan a couple of times and explained the problems I've been having with DUAL LAYER media playing on the unit. I am enclosing the player and a few various discs that exhibit the problem of stopped playback, frozen images, and inability to select off menu. The problems happen whenever a home made and burned dual layer disc is played in the OPPO player. It seems to be an issue that I cannot figure out the cause or the fix, so I hope that you will be able to determine what might be going on. Because I have tried so many variations of software, media, and players, I just don't know what to think except that maybe the player is not working correctly, or because there is some inability of the player to handle media like .avi files which have gone through a common encoding process using different softwares. I have no issues at all with standard 4.7 media made using the same variations, it is only when it comes to dual layer media that these problems happen. The problems seem to occur during the latter half of the dual media, perhaps after the layer-break or something. I think that with the high public use of many of these programs to do exactly what I am trying to do may warrant an examination and ible fix of the issue that may be related to the player being able to read dvd files and structures that are created through the software that many of us use. Even discs with straight .AVI's have not worked as well, exhibiting the same issues. At some point the recorded program just freezes, or gets into jumping, freezing, or even an inability to select the program off the main menu. These discs have been made in several different ways, and i'm afraid I don't really have detailed notes on how each was done, but I hope that the number of discs and the results and information that you may be able to gather will determine what the problem may be. It just seems a bit unlikely that with my success with standard discs on all these softwares, that each and every combination of my burning attempts to dual layer would fail in the same way, yet be playable on other units like XBOX360 or my cheapo audiovox cd player. I have seen a couple of the discs fail or have the same issues on standard home players as well, like an old samsung I have, and another unit which is a cheap dual VHS-DVD unit. I have not tested every disc on other units, but it's odd that the discs play fine on the PC, the XBOX, and the Audiovox portable, but do not play on my OPPO. I realize that there may be a software or burner issue involved, but it would prolly have to be an issue involving two burners and several software programs all having the same issue as well. Unless there is some magic codec or some file or some property that my pc or the software requires just for the ability of getting a clean, good, playable, dual layer burn, I just don't know what to think - since starndard media works so well with all the methods of burning/authoring I have described. Gagan agreed that I had tried enough variations to warrant your company taking a look at the issue by examing my player and my discs, and I hope you will be able to find an answer to this problem. If there is a fix on firmware or some internal dvd player property that may allow for files which are generally .AVI's to start, and then are generally encoded to make dvd compliant files for burning using the many kinds of popular burning software that I have tried with dual layer, that would perhaps be a very good thing to know or to improve upon for the OPPO player. It is also strange, to repeat, that even .avi files burned to disc as .avi data, exhibit the same problem when you get to a certain point on the disc. I also realize that some of these failings seem to take us in the direction of suspecting the burners, the media, or the software, but the fact is the discs have all the material burned on them, do play on pc,xbox360, and an audiovox player just fine, and only seem to not work on the OPPO, and perhaps other home-living room type units (though tested only once or twice on older cheaper players.) I really hope some sort of precise answer may be forthcoming so that I can learn what to do to make dual-layer media playable on my OPPO player. Basically, every combination I have tried creates the same kind of results that just won't play on the OPPO. I have gone through perhaps 30 other DL discs since buying the OPPO last summer, but the problem has really become more frustrating and troublesome recently since I have had a stronger need and desire to use DL media - and I am realizing that all the methods I've tried just do not work. I thought I'd stumble on to some- thing, but I obvioulsy haven't figured out what it could be as of yet, and I strongly wish to get to the bottom of the issue - whether it's the player or whatever causing the failures. I generally have used the following: generally burning at 8x,4x (mostly), 2.4x, and even 2x NERO (updated vers 7/ Licensed copy) Convertxtodvd DVD SHRINK Image Burn WinAvi (recently d/l'ed to to test, but failed in same ways) Ashampoo (just got this to test same, and it failed on dual layer in OPPO, but plays on pc, and files were converted from .avi to dvd type files) the dual layer media I've used is TDK DVD+R DL and MEMOREX DVD+R DL the burners I have used are the 20x Multi-Format External Memorex and my originally dell installed " _NEC DVD+-RW ND-03450A ". I have an analog type system I guess you'd say, JVC 36" TV, analog audio setup, etc... - basics (not that this matters likely in this case_ Anyway, I sincerely thank you for the help, cooperation, and consideration you are giving to this matter, and I hope that the results will help both of us. thanks again, CHARLES HAZEN