Leopard won't recognize commercial dvd's

Hello.
I first noticed this problem when I first inserted my Leopard installation disc. It didn't show up on the desktop. I then kept the disc inside the machine while I held down the "c" key and restarted. I then got the installation window and went ahead and installed. Whew.
Things seem to work fine with the OS, but now when I insert a commercial dvd ( TV shows on dvd, a self made dvd, or for instance, a new Photoshop Elements 4.0 install disc, which I had to upgrade to today ) the dvd tray doesn't open and close. It opens well with a hard push on the eject button on the keyboard, but only wants to close with little half-hearted closing motions, or if I ( gulp ) push it in manually.
I was able to get the PSE install disc to show in the desktop after a few trys and fortunately, I was able to complete the installation. But when I manage to get a commercially made dvd in the dvd tray nothing happens. It used to just open to the dvd screen and remote controls etc.
I also noticed that when I try to run repair permissions from disk utility, a Sony dvd drive ( looks like the one that came with my power mac ) shows itself on the left pane along with my hard drive. Also, when I try to run repair permissions ( on the hard drive ), the blue and white progress bar just shows blue and white, fast moving and endless waves.
Any help or advice will be much appreciated!

Are you using known high quality jewelcase based media that hasn't been written or labelled on?
Here's a website to find high quality media:
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia/
Also are you burning at less than maximum speed?
Are you sure the drive is known to handle that kind of media? Look at the System Profiler in Apple menu -> About This Mac -> More Info -> Hardware -> Disk Burning, and read the kinds of media known to be able to be burnt.

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