DVD Compatability

[Dana Salsbury]

My wife does quality control and watches every DVD start to finish. We've had a crippling problem with tested DVDs not playing correctly on other people's DVD players. One had a sound cutout on a section that worked fine on ours. We had burned 10 DVDs and none of them worked on "several" players that the client tried. Today we got a call from a client whose DVD skips from the middle of a clip to begin playing the music video, which is a completely different menu item!!

What do you think is the cause?

I know DVD players are finicky with home-burned DVDs. Is there ANY way around this? I switched my DVD media, and am buying a new DVD burner. I'm thinking about buying either Encore or Roxio Toast 9.

[Victor Kellar]

What are you using as your authoring software now? iDVD, DVD Studio Pro ...(looks like your using mac)

What about your media .. I would stick with -R. I like Verbatim and Tayo Uden (sp) and I've even had good success using inkjet printable TDKs but I'm not as comfortable reccomending those.

I always create a Disk Image first, you can do this with both iDVD or Studio Pro. Then I use Disc Utility to burn the disc at a very slow speed, like 2x. The disc image is also handy if you are burning multiple copies

Following these steps I've had very good success with my DVDs, not 100% of course but very few issues

[Dana Salsbury]

I've never used Disk Image. Where do I get it? Would it work with either Encore or Roxio Toast 9? I'm buying one of them to be able to offer Blu-Ray. I've been using either DVD Studio Pro or iDVD depending on what I'm doing. I hate both of them, and I also don't know why Apple is so silent about either ever offering Blu-Ray. (Sorry; beside the point.)

I just bought 200 Tayo Uden DVDs, but one of them was the one with the bad cut. I don't think it's the DVDs.

[Noa Put]

Tayo's are the best you can get so I don't think it's the dvd. A disk image or ISO file is a file you can create from inside your dvd authoring program. Don't know how DVD Studio Pro works but it must have an export function to an image (iso) as well instead of directly burning it to disk only. It's a file with a .ISO extension that can be accessed on your harddrive.

Normally I use Nero to burn the image afterwards to a dvd but don't know what programs mac has for this?

Also as Victor said, use the slowest burning speed, the faster you burn the more errors might occur.

I've had my share of problems with not functioning dvd's as well, some time ago I bought a cheap lot in Germany from Philips and had a return rate of 50%! Turned out the dvd's had errors which you could see before and after the burn. There were some small spots on the burning layer visible.
then I bought a new burner and switched to verbatim/tayo's and hardly any problem since.

[David Stoneburner]

Here's a question: Are you putting a paper label on the disks? I did that once. Had a huge problem and when to inkjet or thermal (until it died) printing. I would rather label it with a sharpie than put a paper label on.

[Ervin Farkas]

I author my DVDs in Encore and burn a copy to a rewritable DVD. I test that DVD in a stand-alone player for proper menu functionality, video, audio.

Then I take that master and make copies using DVD Shrink. The reason: in conjunction with Nero, I can create DVDs that "fool" players to handle them not as burned, but as pressed DVDs. It only works with DVD+Rs (usually TDKs from Costco) and the burner has to be bitsetting-enabled and I burn them at half the max speed.

Since I started doing this, I had zero complaints.

[Dana Salsbury]

Thank you for the excellent posts!

[Noa Put]

Originally Posted by Ervin Farkas

I can create DVDs that "fool" players to handle them not as burned, but as pressed DVDs.

That sounds interesting, how do you know the dvd players "think" it's a pressed dvd when it's not?

[Reg Gothard]

I'll just echo other posters' advice not to use sticky labels (has potential to unbalance the disc) and to burn slowly.

I was getting 3% - 5% returns two or three years ago. (Discs play fine in my players, not in customers.)
I changed my burner (LG to Pioneer), and started using inkjet printables. I burn 8x discs at 4x.
I've burned through DVD workshop, DVD Architect and Nero. I've burned the prepared DVDs direct, and I've burned from .isos. I've used Maxells and I've used Taiyo Yudens.
I actually took the time to burn the same program at 2x, 4x, 8x (and 12x?) and took them round to two or three customers who had troubles playing. The 4x played fine, but the 8x had problems. At that stage I was convinced...
I've burned over 2000 discs in the last two years or so, and have had zero returns. I attribute it to
a) slow burn
b) no sticky labels.
Hope this helps

[Dana Salsbury]

So I probably shouldn't stick the label to the DVD with rubber cement either.
;o)

Yeah, I love the quality I get with my Epson.

[Victor Kellar]

Got busy and lost track of this post.

To create a disc image:

In iDVD its File>Make Disc Image. It goes thru all the endcoding and you are left with a file you can burn in Toast or by using Mac's Disc Utility

In DVD Studio Pro: File>Advanced Burn>Build and Format. Down at the bottome of that submenu you will see something about burn location, by default its pointed at your DVD burner, you can select Hard drive and pick a location. This creates the disc image

[Dana Salsbury]

I doubt this is possible, but can you make a disc image in iDVD and burn it as Blu-Ray in Toast? I like that I can do Blu-Ray in such an inexpensive program, but their menus don't cut it.

[Allen Plowman]

I use Ridata dvd-r 8x inkjet printable media, I have had about 6 disc complaints out of my last thousand discs shipped. I started of burning on my pc, then I purchased a robotic burner. I use plextor drives exclusively. I originally had about 10% failure out of my very first hundred discs shipped, starting in 2004, using a sony burner and memorex blank media. I found the sony burner was extremely finicky about both media and player compatibility. I never burn faster than 4x.

[Ervin Farkas]

Originally Posted by Noa Put

That sounds interesting, how do you know the dvd players "think" it's a pressed dvd when it's not?

The first bits of information on any DVD are information about the type of DVD. When writable DVDs first came out (DVD-Rs), manufacturers burned this info onto the disk, thus you cannot change it ("the bit is set", unchangeable).

Then along came Sony unhappy with DVD-Rs, and created the DVD+R standard - and left this portion of the disk blank, writable. Now, if you use a regular burner, it will recognize the disk as DVD+R and write this info onto the disk. But if you use a bitsetting enabled burner + sofware, you can change this info ("set the bit") to DVD-ROM aka pressed DVD, giving players a much better chance to play it.

[Dana Salsbury]

Impressive. You should do this for a living!