Is this DVD Hardware or Software Problem? Please Help.

Hi everyone, wondering if you have any ideas about this.

I am having problems getting DVD files to burn to new blank media. I am using a brand new ASUS DRW-24B1st DVD drive.

I have tried to create new movies using both Sony Vegas 10 and Pinnacle Studio 14. I have been using trial versions of each because I want to find a solution that works before I buy one for $100. I am importing AVCHD files to edit the movies. It seems like I have no problem creating and rendering the video from AVCHD to MPEG-2 to write to the blank DVD. It's when the burn process begins that I have a problem. The process starts but fails using both the native Pinnacle software and the Sony DVD Architect 5.0. The DVD Architect says that I have a IOCTL error. Pinnacle doesn't even mention an error, it just says that the burn failed.

For the heck of it I tried burning a DVD using the Windows DVD Maker software installed on Win 7 and using their sample videos clip I was able to successfully burn a DVD that played fine in my Xbox 360.

I have updated all of the drivers I could think of, I tried to reflash the firmware of optical drive (it came installed with version 1.04 and won't go back to 1.03). I have tried two different types of blank media.

So now I am trying to isolate if this a hardware problem, a software issue, a compatability problem or all of the above. Any suggestions? Anyone have any similar problems with this optical drive and software combo?

Here are the hardware specs:

CPU - i7 950
MOBO - Asus Sabertooth x58
RAM - 6 GB Corsair Dominator
HDD - WD Caviar Black 1 TB Sata 6.0
GPU - MSI - N460GTX Cyclone
OD - ASUS DRW-24B1ST
OS - Win 7 Home Premium 64 bit