thanks for the reply.
i didn't know there was a crappy kind of verbatim dl on the market. i get them in bulk so there's no way to check the box but now that you mention it i do notice that on these last disks i got it does say 8x and on my older ones it sais 2.4x
i still have 8x disks and i just downgraded back to 2.4.4 just to check, and i'm now starting to burn the same iso again. will be back with nfo.
edit: just finished burning with imgburn v2.4.4.0, same media, everything is fine now. i also changed OPC setting to "ON". here's the log:
I 11:50:26 ImgBurn Version 2.4.4.0 started!
I 11:50:26 Microsoft Windows XP Professional (5.1, Build 2600 : Service Pack 3)
I 11:50:26 Total Physical Memory: 2,095,532 KB - Available: 1,287,968 KB
I 11:50:26 Initialising SPTI...
I 11:50:26 Searching for SCSI / ATAPI devices...
I 11:50:56 Found 1 DVD