Has anyone altered the the dvd template size and encoded

I'm asking because when I am encoding a downloaded divx file to put onto a vcd I alter the size of the template to 352x288. Is it possible to do the same with a dvd? And does anyone have a pioneer DVR-104 that has burning difficulties? I have made two menus with ulead dvd movie factory, added chapters and trailers and the kvcd trademark intro as my startup file. On the most part everything starts off well but when I get to around a quarter of the way into the burn the disc ejects and I either get an error of no data to write or a power calibration error! I even ran the simulate burn beforehand which checked out fine. Any help would be great as I have now had 2 out of 2 straight failures at burning dvd's and I only got the drive on monday