I am a person who has worked with computers for 35 years
While that's nice and everything, that honestly has no bearing on anything.
I look at firmware as if it worked for a year without a problem it should work now
No. You're missing information. Verbatim (which is what you're using) can outsource to different companies, and dye types and manufacturing processes can and do change. Firmware updates can be offered to address these changes. MCC 004 is typically a very reliable media code, but the thing is that despite the fact the media code is constant, it could be made by CMC or Prodisc if the discs were made in Taiwan. So it's not as though all MCC 004 is coming from a single source.
Verbatim made in Taiwan is made by CMC, Prodisc (or possibly Ritek in some countries . . . I'm not sure if those are fake Verbatims)
Verbatim made in India is made by Moser Baer
Verbatim made in Singapore is made by Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation (of which Verbatim is a subsidiary)
Verbatim made in Japan is made by Taiyo Yuden
That is also faulty reasoning if a program has been updated to interact with drives in a different manner. If you're not using the latest sata drivers or default Microsoft drivers, this could be one explanation.
I have seen many weird problems over those years. This one is one. I can wait until it request a DVD to write and it works OK, if I have the DVD in the drive waiting it fails.
That does smack of a firmware/driver interaction issue.
Yes Iam only copying previous copies, but that shouldn't may a difference.
For legal reasons, I can really only assist when people are using original discs.
But you're right: that won't make a difference.