Hi all,
I’ve been reading here a bit for a few months, and had to register so I could ask the experts. 
I was going to post in the software or hardware forum, but maybe it’s better here…
Anyway, I recently got the Sony DRU-820A and just started trying to copy my discs – beginning with Alias Season 1. It took many tries to get the result I wanted after removing content, and it’s still not quite there (more on that after the burning problem).
So, the blanks I have are a 100 Fujifilm 16x +Rs (identified as PRODISC R05). Using Nero 6.6.0, I set it to burn at 16x, and it took 1h30m!! 
The second one I tried at 8x, and it took 48m! The drive is on ATA-33, is that what’s wrong? (The controller is ATA-66, but it’s a 40-wire cable.) CD-DVD speed showed a burst rate of only 17MB, on an ATA-33 DVD reader (so I assume the Sony burner would be the same). Ouch, that IS too little for 16x, but what about 8x? I wonder how much faster it would be at 4x… Also, at 8x/16x, the “Buffer Level” was dropping below 50% every 1-2 seconds – is that supposed to happen? Both discs seem to work OK, other than the DVD content working how I wanted. I can see some rings on the “16x” disc, which is a bad thing from what I’ve read. DMA is enabled BTW.
Before trying the +Rs, I did a couple CD-RWs and DVD-RWs, which worked as I expected (30m on 2x -RW). So what’s causing my problem now, the ATA-33 connection, media, drive/firmware (it has the latest)…?
Let me know if you need any more info. I had a CD burner for a while, and this is my first time trying DVD stuff.
As far as removing content/recoding, I’m using Recode (tried Shrink too). First, it was deleting the commentary track during encoding, but only when using Deep Analysis/High Quality recoding (didn’t check if just one option was the cause). Figured out that was caused by it automatically selecting English audio/subs, and deselecting Spanish – if I manually uncheck Spanish, it comes out fine.
Then, playing the result, when the commentary track is chosen, which is then in the position that Spanish was, it displayed additional Spanish graphics (menus) and the beginning/end of the episodes. Using IfoEdit, I did “Delete Playback” on those problem menus, and the FBI warning. Everything played fine with Nero ShowTime. But when I burned the first 16x +R and tried it in the standalone player (Pioneer recorder), it started, and then stopped where the FBI warning would’ve been (didn’t go to the menu like ShowTime). After manually bringing up the menu, I noticed that all of the “pointer” things were freezing it (Play All menu item, after commentary intro, end of episode where it’s supposed to return to menu, etc.) with “Search” in the display. 
For the second DVD I tried, I used VobBlanker to “Delete” the same menu items. Then it worked fine in the standalone player too, EXCEPT for the one menu button to start the commentary (the other one for an episode that has a commentary intro works fine)… SO close, although this part isn’t a big deal.
I haven’t looked at PgcEdit yet, but I’m wondering if that would help get everything working right since it has tracing and stuff. I wonder if it’s too complicated since I don’t understand all the “inner workings” of DVD. :o I’ll check it out soon.
Well, thanks for any help! 
Particularly about what’s going on with my super slow burns.
I was also looking at PgcEdit, and compared the original DVD to Recode’s output, and I think I can follow the commands enough to fix what Recode changed, which broke switching off the commentary via the menu. 
Pretty neat…
:a They worked the first few times, and they work perfect in another Pioneer unit which is basically the same model (one with a hard drive, one not). Again, I posted more details in the other thread.
I feel like I’ve figured out a lot of the DVD coding command stuff, and was able to fix what Recode broke (side effect of removing audio tracks it appears). And I thought it was cool to be able to “hide” the menu buttons for removed languages and stuff.