I don't have any kind of problem during playback and never had problems before the 60GB upgrade. With the 20GB HD only (and the same software configuration: alpha 7, hijack 395 and emplode 2.0) i've never seen something like that. i've nothing running during the sync (i've just discovered emphatic but it doesn't work for me, when i start it, i've millions of "line 452rc setgeom: -1," messages in console and nothing happening, so i'm not running it). I don't know if will help but during the freeze the player shows the "synchronizing" logo until I hard reset it (unplug the current). thanks.