Unless you have seen problems like this with the drive before I would bet that it's the DVD-R DL discs, I only have one burner that liked them enough to complete the burn and even then I wouldn't use them for anything as my DVD players won't play them.....
Mmm we can't help you with torrent files, I have no idea what it is but I suspect that it's legality might be questionable - sorry.
As for ImgBurn just leave all the settings on default when you're starting out, they work best !
Sometimes it's easier for your folks to try and get a DVD player/TV that accepts Pal and NTSC signals Here in the UK this seems easier to do than in the US though.....
All my TVs and players at home accept both signals.
Personally speaking I would stay away from DVD-R DL's, the -R Dual Layer discs seem to be very problematic. All my dual layer burns are on Verbatim DVD+R DLs, the plus format is accepted by all my players in the house and has never given me any problems.
I think Memorex DVD+R DLs use Ritek dye (or did) and therefore results will never be as consistent as when using Verbatim DVD+R DLs......
Is ImgBurn still trying to write to the discs when you get the freeze ? Can you tell us what it says just before this happens in the log ?
I don't have Vista Ultimate but Vista on the laptop we have at home plays nicely for me (admin) with ImgBurn too.
It take a little getting used to but on the whole I quite like Vista now, in fact if it wasn't likely to kill my old desktop Dell PC I would get it for that as well.....
Could you run us through what you are doing currently ? Then we can take a look and make suggestions....
Have you seen the guide here as well - http://forum.imgburn.com/index.php?showtopic=5555 ?
Do you mean Burn quality ? I think DVDinfoPro has drive tests included in it, also others will proabably have this as well to test speed (CD Speed is another prog) etc
If you burn a disc with ImgBurn you can then use DVDinfoPro (if installed) to test the disc for errors etc....
I have never seen this bit before - any idea what you have done to the settings ? Maybe you should restore the default ImgBurn settings before you attempt another burn, using Verbatim DVD+R DL discs......