Seeking DVD writer advice

Several months ago I purchased a Panasonic (LF-D521 I believe) DVD writer. I have not had any success writing DVDs on this drive that can be read on the DVD players either of my T.V.s have. I've tested DVDs created by friends and they can be read and used normally.

Panasonic's support for this drive is a bit thin, I haven't had much luck. It will make DVDs and I can read/play them in the same drive. I am using DVD X Copy and Nero Burning ROM.

I've pretty much given up on my current drive and am looking to buy another.

Any suggestions on a good DVD writer?

What are the makes and models of the standalone dvd players?

Write formats supported DVD-ROM; DVD-RAM; DVD-RW; DVD-R; CD-RW; CD-R

You may be inadvertently burning as a dvd-ram or dvd-rw rather than dvd-r

Or you have friends with +r drives and your players support +r but not -r.

I have been using DVD -R discs

I don't have the make/model numbers of either player handy but I have looked both of them up and they are listed as compatible with DVD -R discs. I have tested other DVD -R discs and both will play them. The friend I borrowed discs from to test with uses DVD X Copy Lite. He does not use the Nero engine as I do.

I had some initial problems using just DVD X Copy. After the software had read the source DVD, just as it fired off the process to burn the new DVD my PC would reboot itself. Consistently, every time. My emails to DVD X Copy for support and my own efforts to resolve that problem were not successful. I purchased a Nero Burning ROM license to try DVD X Copy using the Nero engine, that method did not result in a reboot.

The DVDs I create appear to be normal, they will play quite well in the same drive that created them. I have an additional DVD read drive in the same PC, that drive will play some, but not all of the DVDs created.

I checked Panasonic's site for drivers and utilities, the drive came bundled with the latest driver version. I downloaded and reloaded the driver anyway. I also hunted high and low for any reports of similar trouble and possible solutions but came up empty.

My PC is built on an ASUS P4PE mainboard with an Intel 2.4ghz P4 CPU running Win 2K. It has been very stable and reliable.

I would prefer to get my current writer to work well but I've pretty much given up.