Hi.

I was recently in contact with a dude to whom I sent a DVD with some of my shorts for screening at a festival type event. He said there were some errors with skipping, stuttery sound, that kind of thing.

It occurs to me that I've had issues before, I don't really know the cause. I was hoping someone could help with figuring out the weak link(s) in the chain.

This dude's recommendations were:

Close all other programs while burning
Use brand name DVDs
Burn at slower speed (2-4x)

I'll admit I've been dumb about some of this, doing all sorts of other things while the burn goes on, or at least leaving stuff running in the background. I DO use fujifilm DVDs, but I understand that there may be several manufacturers who make DVDs with fujifilm written on them? And I usually burn at 6 or 8x, I guess.

Other things that may be problematic - I use Roxio, 'cause my Nero won't author (gives me a "cannot create disk structure" message), and I can't justify the cost of DVD architect. I bought a burner for cheap, that I don't recall the exact brand name of. Someone on here mentioned that it existed, so I got it.

I use Vegas to edit, render my timeline/DV AVIs to MPEG-2, and use those MPEG2s to create the DVDs.

Some DVDs are fine (usually shorter movies), but some do weird things in certain spots, and those certain spots are problematic in several different DVD players. I can't specifically recall an instance where I've made a new DVD and it had the same problems in the same spots, but I can't say it's never happened. Sometimes they like to act weird near the end of a file/movie, where the credits'll freeze in the last few seconds, or it'll make a horrible screeching/growling sound after the movie's done, before it kicks back to the main menu.

I'm kind of afraid to offer anyone editing services now (not that I've really done much anyway), for fear that I'll output crap DVDs.

Anyway, that's my tale. Make of it what you will. Thanks.

Also important for burned DVDs is to keep the combined data rate below 7.3 mbs. Although the standard allows something like 9.2, it just won't work reliably on burned DVDs.

hey
can you get a dvd and turn it upside down and tell me what colour it is. is it blue, purple, gold, silver etc

Josh,

Roxio and Nero do not play well together, you can have one or the other on your system but not both.

I was using Roxio then bought a D/L DVD drive that came with Nero.
I knew I had to remove Roxio before installing Nero so I did not have a problem.

Interesting note that Sonics DVDit does work with Nero installed even though it is a Roxio product. My guess is they are written differently.

How ever I am having a problem getting the DVDs to work on all players,
They work in all computers, my DVD player (it plays all types) they will not work in my parents DVD player in which the documentation says I am using the correct media for the player. I’ll try what Doug suggested and see what happens.

Good luck,
Bill

hey Bill Hamell tell me what the colour of the dye is on the dvds

Well, I can do more with Roxio in terms of menu layout than Nero, and Roxio will actual author the disk, so I guess Nero goes bye bye. Didn't know that about those two programs, by the way.


My discs I have right now are purple on the bottom.

My player's an NEC, I believe.

A lot depends on the players,I had the same DVD play differantly in three machines.In one it played perfect the other it skipped and the third it wouldent let me in the menue.One I had burned by an experiance company played in most machines I tried, but when I sent it to a Festival they returned it saying it would not play in thier machine.Its seems like hit and miss burning your own DVD's, and getting them to work on all brands of players.

Can some please tell me the colour of the dye on the dvd. I got a good point when asking this.

Nathaniel,

Mine looks more purple than blue.
Bill

grade c. theres your problem if they have a purple back they are grade c(the cheapest/worse grade around) dont worry semi-pro people use these disks. even me. if you want to garentee playable on dvd players make sure they either have a blue, gold or silver backing. also make sure the bitrate is low. these disks are a little more expensive but they are almost garrenteed to play on dvd players. even 1st generation.

where can you buy dvd's that aren't purple? Is there a brand name?

best thing is find a DVD or video reseller which sell alot of stock e.g www.svp.co.uk. the brand to look for is taiya yuden. These i can garentee will be the best disks will ever have.

I am using Taiyo Yuden but the discs look purple. I buy them from Neato.

Do they sell the grade A at retailers, or do I have to order 'em somewhere? I don't need 'em that often. A stack of 50'll last me a long long time.

Verbatim 16x (no logo) discs are purple and they are not "C-Grade". I have found Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim to be excellent. I do not think you can go by color of the dye alone.

I'll echo what Glenn said - you can't tell the grade of a disc by the color of the dye.

Use a good quality retailer who will describe their discs honestly and accurately. If some of the discs they sell are described as Grade A and some aren't, then don't get the ones that aren't because they are probably Grade B or C.

As mentioned Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden are good brands.

Use a program like DVD InfoPro or Nero DVD Speed to test your discs. My personal favourite is the Disc Quality test in Nero DVD Speed.

Remember if you want 100% compatability you need replicated discs which means runs of 1000 or so discs. With duplicated (ie burnt) discs the best you can hope for is about 95% compatability.

Grade a discs are what they use in the industry. They are hard to get but you can't just burn onto them. they have to be stamped. talking about the japenese disks i suggested earlier on the ones i buy if i have an order for about 100 dvds are blue. I would normally use the purple disks but they are not very good on first generation dvd players.

I found this helpful in choosing DVD media.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

Grade a discs are what they use in the industry. They are hard to get but you can't just burn onto them. they have to be stamped.

I won't claim to be an expert on DVDs, but that is incorrect; possibly you're confusing Grade A with Authoring discs.

My understanding is that Grade A discs are ones that have passed the manufacturers quality control checks.

Grade B ones shows limited defects. Grade C show even more defects (the defects on Grade C discs are often obvious even on a simple visual check).

In the early days of CD and DVD manufacturing a high percentage of the production would show defects. In order to avoid the losses associated with throwing them away, manufacturers sell them as B or C grade stock. So an unscrupulous retailer may give some media a glowing write-up on their web site, but in fact it may be C grade stuff that they've bought very cheap.

That's one good reason to get reputable media from reputable retailers.

This dude's recommendations were:

Close all other programs while burning
Use brand name DVDs
Burn at slower speed (2-4x)

If you aren’t doing a task that is processor intensive, I don’t see any need to close all other programs while burning a DVD on today’s fast computers. Also, the guy’s recommendation to use brand name DVDs is uninformed. All the brand name companies source their DVDs from multiple media manufacturers. Just like any other product, some manufacturers make good quality products, while all too many make poor quality products. What you need to look for, then, is not the brand of the DVD, but the manufacturer, which can be determined by the Media ID of a DVD. Beware that the Media ID has been faked at times, so it is a good idea to purchase media only from reputable retailers (http://www.digitalfaq.com/dvdguides/buyerguides/buymedia.htm).

There are several free programs available for Windows and at least one for the Mac that will show the Media ID of a DVD. See the first part of the Blank DVD media quality guide (http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm).

The best DVD manufacturers are Mitsubishi Chemicals, Taiyo Yuden, Hitachi Maxell, Sony, and TDK. The Verbatim brand is owned by Mitsubishi Chemicals. However, be aware that Maxell, TDK, Verbatim and Sony also sell third party media under their brand names that is not as good as their own media.

It is possible to purchase straight, unbranded Taiyo Yuden DVD media online. Just make sure to purchase only from a reputable online store.

If you need to purchase from a brick and mortar store there is of course the problem that you cannot know the actual manufacturer of the DVD. In this situation a general rule of thumb is to purchase media made in Japan. Verbatim media is excellent if the DVDs are manufactured by the brand name’s parent company Mitsubishi Chemicals, but since Mitsubishi makes their discs in Taiwan just like many of the junk manufacturers it is impossible to tell their media apart by the country of origin. The exception is Mitsubishi’s dual layer media, which is made in Singapore.

A great resource on DVD media quality is the Blank media quality guide & FAQ (http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/index.htm).

Well, my PC is a 1.8 GB P4, with a gig of RAM. I don't know if that's considered fast these days.

Guess I'm throwing my crappy purple discs away. . .


Maybe he associated brand name with the good manufacturers.

I have TGY03 which is Taiyo Yuden 1st class media bought from Neato. The DVD is purple yet it is considered 1st Class Media.

Ok, I ordered a 100 pack of Taiyo Yuden DVDs for $36. So thanks dudes.

i have those discs and i will never go back on them now. they are first class

I just hope y'all are right, and it's the discs that are the problem.

goto google and you will start to see what i mean

Hey guys. Still having issues with the DVDs, even after buying the Taiyo Yuden discs.


I've noticed something, and it just occurred to me. It's always "black" areas of the movie where the disc starts to hitch and stutter -- usually the beginning of a movie (opening titles, white text on black BG), the very end (last couple seconds of closing credits, white text on black BG), and sometimes in the middle of a movie, if it cuts to black or fades to black I have a movie where it goes black between scenes, some of them have stutter issues). Why is this?

My fake commercials that don't start in black are issue free (except maybe at the very end, but I usually never watch the very end -- talkin' the last few seconds of credits)

Aha... we have an answer: your levels are illegal (http://www.signvideo.com/dv-black-levels-dvd-authoring-mpeg-2-part-1.htm).

Actually, the black levels are not what I'm having issues with, it's the hitching and stuttering that are driving me nuts. The hitching and stuttering just happens to coincide with the black parts of my movies, but I didn't see anything in that article that touched on this problem.

That is strange, because illegal black levels causes strange behavior, such as skipping and stopping.

Interesting. I don't know what to do about it.

Are there ANY spaces in the footage before or after the black areas?

Do you mean pure black with no text? Yes, most of my movies start in black, credits fade in, and vice versa for the end. One movie cuts to pure black or fades to it after every scene.

No I mean just empty space, no black matte, no nothing. For instance I had an audio sync problem in Premiere 6.x, it also made sections skip on DVD. The cause, I didn't have a continous video track the entire length. Some of my black matte sections were a couple frames short of the next clip. That cause the audio to fall out of snyc ever so slightly and stuttery issues with the video on some players. Even if there was no audio in that section of the video, it still had some weird issue. It's a long shot but just tryin'.

Wow, dude. . .I never thought of that. I don't actually put black matte down, I just fade video out, and let the empty timeline render as black (when I render the MPEG-2, it's usually from a rendered AVI). Are you saying this is a bad way to do it? I thought empty timeline = black when you render. Never thought it made a difference.

I could be wrong but that is what happened to me in the past. No black matte = issues. Now I put black matte, or black video down where-ever I want no footage or to do a fade to black etc. I also use it to connect footage that has no transitions. I'm not sure with other NLEs or newer versions of Premiere, but if you don't have a continous video track it seems to me that the DVD player or player software will take that empty space as a zero signal and choke on it.

That is so crazy! I never knew! I thought it just rendered as black.

So I should have black matte under credits and in parts of the movie that are supposed to just be black?

Is it okay to rerender something with those changes? My first film, I don't have the project file anymore (hard drive died), so I'd have to add it to the already-rendered AVI, and re-render it. Will that work?

Come to think of it, it'd be a pain to recapture all the footage from my other shorts to just to add black. Can I just rerender the AVI with black matte in the appropriate places? Make the opacity 0% on the parts of the AVI that are black and then put matte under them?

Never hurts to try. I think credits are ok as it produces transparent video, therefore, not breaking the timeline. But in sections where you don't have ANY footage at all -I'd put black matte there.

As far as previous videos, it's worth a shot, I can't tell you what the outcome would be. I was lucky enough to catch this while I was still working on my projects.

I've always faded to black by leaving a gap in the Vegas timeline too. But I have not experienced any 'glitches'. I do use DVDA however, so maybe that recognizes the black as black.

Anyway I'd be interested to hear how you're making out.

Edit: If you want add a black matte, can't you just add a video track under all the other tracks so that blank spaces in the timeline would be filled with the black matte?

Me too...did you try that out yet Josh?

Hey guys. Bringing this back after nearly a year.

I just finished my latest project, burned a DVD. It plays fine in my player, so I thought I'd solved my problem (I put a video layer that was just a generated media solid color black below everything else, and in addition, put broadcast colors on all the video tracks). In another DVD player however, absolutely skips and stutters at the beginning of the movie (I put a second of black, and then credits fade up, white text on black, with audio/music underneath).

Any other suggestions? Also, how do I know that whatever black I'm spitting out is legal?

Okay, so what does it mean if it only stutters once the screen is totally black? At the end of the movie, the credits come up almost immediately after the last shot cuts to black. At that point, everything is smooth. When the last credit scrolls up and off the screen, leaving nothing but black, it starts stuttering again (I can tell 'cause the music is still fading out). What does this signify?

What are your encoding settings?

Are you using Variable or Constant bitrates? If using VBR, the bitrate might be spiking at certain points, causing the stutter during playback.

If your video duration allows you to use a high bitrate, try using CBR over VBR to see if that helps...

Regards,
George

Yes, the DVD NTSC template uses VBR, with a Max of 8,000,000, (bps) an average of 6,000,000, and minimum of 192,000.

If changing to CBR, what would you recommend, numbers-wise?

Also, when I do the MPEG-2, the video and audio are encoded in one file. I know it's common for people to do MPEG-2 video and AC3 audio or whatever. Is that an issue?

Yes, the DVD NTSC template uses VBR, with a Max of 8,000,000, (bps) an average of 6,000,000, and minimum of 192,000.

If changing to CBR, what would you recommend, numbers-wise?

Also, when I do the MPEG-2, the video and audio are encoded in one file. I know it's common for people to do MPEG-2 video and AC3 audio or whatever. Is that an issue?

What type of audio are you using in your final project?

Also, do you have multiple audio tracks (or just one).

And how long is your video duration?

Regards,
George

What type of audio? I'm not sure I understand the question. . . It's dialogue, with Sound FX and music.

I have rendered directly from the timeline before to MPEG-2, in which case I can have many tracks. . .10 or so. I can also just make a WAV from the timeline, and then use that. Either way is fine with me.

Project is approximately 33 minutes long. Thanks.

Type of audio meaning Dolby Digital (AC3), LPCM, mpeg audio...

If you are using lpcm audio (1,536kbps), then that combined with your VBR max bitrate of 8,000kbps pushes the upper boundaries for burned material (about 9,536kbps -- and a bitrate spike above the stated MAX might go over the dvd limit).

Since your project is only ~33 minutes, you don't have to worry too much about disc usage (unless you are trying to include a personal folder on the disc). So for 33minutes, I would recommend CBR video bitrate of 7mbps, and Dolby Digital audio at around 256kbs.

Regards,
George

Ok, I'm using the mainconcept MPEG-2 encoder, and including an audio stream. I don't see options for PCM, AC3, etc in there. I can change the rate to 256, however.

Wait. . .I guess I can render the whole soundtrack to a stereo AC3 file, and then when I make my MPEG-2 from the timeline, use that as the only audio track (mute all others)? Will that work? I'll still render using the DVD NTSC template, but instead of wav audio, it'll be the AC3?

Sorry, it wouldn't let me do more editing.

Okay. . .is there another audio option? It wants me to spend $200 on the AC-3 encoder to use any kind of AC rendering option.

What version of Vegas are you using (Full or MovieStudio version)?

And what DVD Authoring software are you using?

If your version of Vegas did not come with DVD Architect, then I would recommend downloading the latest Trial versions of either DVD Architect Studio 4.5, or the Full DVD Architect. I believe they will let you use AC3 audio, and then you can check if that will fix your stuttering issue during playback...

There are other DVD Authoring programs that offer AC3 audio -- Ulead's DVD MovieFactory comes to mind, and I'm sure there are others...

Regards,
George

It's the full version of Vegas 6.

Unfortunately, I use Roxio Easy Media Creator/DVD Builder. .. it's what came with my burner.

I have Nero, but it won't author DVDs. Gives me an error message as soon as it starts. It'll do data DVDs fine, but won't author them.

That's a good idea about the trial of DVD architect. Do you have to render the files before you bring 'em into architect? Like, would I make an MPEG-2 video, and a WAV audio, and then let DVDA make the AC3 audio?

I found a free aC3 encoder, but apparently without the ac3 plugin, Vegas won't even acknowledge ac3 files' existence (doesn't see it if I try to import).

Wait, am I a moron? Do I just need to enter Vegas' serial number to get access to the AC3 encoder?