WMP DVD Playback Problems

[Thomas Kendrick]

I'm having trouble getting a DVD-R disc to playback on Windows Media Player 9 or 10. Having problems with the same discs on two different PCs, one WMP9, other WMP10. Both WinXP SP2 machines.

Prior versions of same project had no menus and no problems, so I thought the problem might be related to motion menus created in TMPG Author. SoI went to a static menu. Same problem. DVD gets stuck at the menu and won't play.

So I authored (TMPG) a new version with no menu. That seemed to work okay in WMP.

So instead of a menu, I edited in (MovieStudio+DVD) a motion background .avi with a title overlay to the front of the project (5 minute demo). Rendered to uncompressed .avi, encoded in TMPGEnc. Authored in TMPG Author. That hangs up in WMA at the motion background.

All versions of this project play like gangbusters in my set-top box and through PowerDVD. I also took all versions to a friend's house and they all played fine on his Mac and on his standalone DVD player.

I'm burning on Fuji DVD-R Taiyo Yuden discs. These media have played in everything fine until now.

I'm probably leaving out some key piece of information, and if so, let me know and I'll respond.

Any ideas or similar problems from others? I can try going through DVD Shrink and Decrypter or DVDA but I like the quality I'm now getting with TMPGEnc and Author, so I'd like to stick with that combo if possible.

Thanks.

Tommy

[Rob Lohman]

Two things:

1. keep in mind that WMP is not a serious DVD player (in my opinion)

2. it uses (last time I checked) an DVD engine that was installed by another program


If I where you I would try the following:

1. how does it play with serious DVD play software like WinDVD or PowerDVD (you can get demos of both)?

2. how does it play on a settop "real" DVD player?

[Thomas Kendrick]

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : Two things:

1. keep in mind that WMP is not a serious DVD player (in my opinion)

2. it uses (last time I checked) an DVD engine that was installed by another program


If I where you I would try the following:

1. how does it play with serious DVD play software like WinDVD or PowerDVD (you can get demos of both)?

2. how does it play on a settop "real" DVD player? -->>>

Rob,

It plays GREAT in both PowerDVD and on settop player. I'm sending out an actor's demo, so I was hoping it would also play flawlessly on a PC, but maybe that's not possible to insure.

With your suggestions in another thread, I've got the project looking very good. It looks fine on TV and on the pc or mac with a software dvd player other than Windows Media Player.

Maybe I shouldn't worry so much about WMP compatibility.

Tommy

[Rob Lohman]

Personally I wouldn't, I don't know of anyone that uses WMP to
play DVD's. It's for a reason most computers come with either of
the two software packages I mentioned <g>

[Dan Euritt]

rob is right on the money, if you look at the microsoft website, it'll tell you that wmp is not designed to play back dvd's... microsoft recommends that you get dvd software instead, and they even provide some links for that purpose.

there are probably some licensing issues involved that microsoft doesn't want to spend any money on... you could always create a wmp9 demo reel on cd, it's a much better codec than the dvd mpeg2 is.

[Thomas Kendrick]

you could always create a wmp9 demo reel on cd, it's a much better codec than the dvd mpeg2 is. -->>>

Dan,

Thanks for the suggestion. Better is good. I'll see if I can get that accomplished tonight.

Tommy

[Rob Lohman]

You could even include it on the DVD-Video disc. You can make
DVD hybrid discs (fully compatible) that have a DVD-Video track
and a DVD-ROM track (looks the same to a PC) that has your
Windows Media file or QuickTime file or whatever.

[Thomas Kendrick]

<<<-- Originally posted by Rob Lohman : You could even include it on the DVD-Video disc. You can make
DVD hybrid discs (fully compatible) that have a DVD-Video track
and a DVD-ROM track (looks the same to a PC) that has your
Windows Media file or QuickTime file or whatever. -->>>

I got the wmp9 media encoder and played with it a bit last night. Haven't yet tried burning it to a cd or dvd. The hybrid disc sounds interesting. Is that something that needs to be menu selectable (DVD-video or DVD-ROM track)?

I'm also thinking of including a VO demo on the same disc. There's plenty of room as my video demo only takes +/- 400 meg of disc space on the DVD.

Tommy

[Rob Lohman]

I haven't really looked, but I suspect that any serious DVD
Authoring application will allow you to create a hybrid disc. If
I remember correctly Sony's DVD Architect supports this.

For voice over work your authoring application needs to support
multiple audio channels (sometimes called languages).

I'm not sure what you are asking with "menu selectable"...

[Thomas Kendrick]

I'm not sure what you are asking with "menu selectable"... -->>>

IOW, on a hybrid disc, does the user have/ get to select the DVD-video track vs. the DVD-rom track via a menu or does the user's system default to one or the other based on their particular setup?

tommy

[Rob Lohman]

No no, the "normal" DVD player just sees the video "track" and
plays like a regular DVD disc (keep in mind that most hollywood/
commercial discs are hybrid ones as well!). When you insert it
into a computer it sees both so to speak. So you can have an
autorun.inf for Windows autostart or when you go there with
explorer you will see the file and/or directories you placed beside
the normal AUDIO_TS & VIDEO_TS directories.