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Greetings to all,

MEDION is a German company with a reputation
on the web for well-built, reliable electronic
merchandise, including a stand-alone consumer
DVD recorder which retails for $299.

I was extremely happy with my unit, model MD 40570,
which is the only DVD recorder sold by Medion.
I bought 50 Arita (Ritek) brand DVD+R's (it will
only record on DVD+R) rated 2.4X, and all my blanks
burned perfectly.

Then 2.4X became unavailable, so I upgraded to 100
Arita brand 4X DVD+R blanks. After burning maybe
five of these successfully, the Medion turned every 4X
thereafter into a useless coaster (and any other 4X
brand I tried, became coasters as well). This happens
during Finalization (disc does not truly "Finalize").

(According to Memorex, some internal 2.4X DVD burners
require an upgrade before they can handle 4X, which
is a "different standard".)

My questions to the group are these:

1. Can the Medion handle the "different standard" of "4X"?

2. Can the wrong media do permanent damage to the Medion?

(Yes, I tried the factory reset, and even the firmware
upgrade.)

3. Has anyone seen the seconds counter on the Medion
go faster, then slower, like mine is doing now
intermittently? This produces a smaller burn area
than should rightly appear on the disc.

4. Could problem #3 be caused by the firmware upgrade?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
the original Tankgirl