Pansonic DVD player/burner vs. Mac

[Mike Cornett]

Here's an interesting issue. I produce a 2 hour magazine program that's played back at a local public access station. I burn my program on a DVD-R with iDVD on my G4.

The access station plays everything back on a Panasonic DVD burner/player (I forgot to get the model number). My DVDs never work. Matter of fact, my G4 will not recognize the DVDs that I've borrowed from them. Although they plays in all my consumer players.

My work around is crazy...I bring in my $50 dollar DVD player and dub it to their $500 dollar Panasonic!?!

Am I missing a codec or something?

Any help would be great!

[Victor Kellar]

First of all: Have you tried different kinds of media (DVDs) Verbatim and Tao Uden get very good reviews.

Secondly, Macs really prefer -R media, no matter the brand.

Thirdly, how are you creating the DVD? If you have iDVD 5 or higher, you should be creating a disk image first, then use either Apple's Disk Utility or Roxio Toast to burn the image out at a slow speed, like X2 .. this helps eliminates issues

Fourthly, are you able to playback your DVDs on other set top DVD players, not computers .. just to eliminate some issue with the Panasonic

Fifthly, if you are making two hour DVDs you are right at iDVD's limit for content. If your program is going to TV I would think DVD Studio Pro would be a worthwhile investment, where you could use Compressor to get maximum quality out of your project.

Sixthly, where are you creating the movie in the first place? What program are you using? If you use FCE/FCP export your movie as a Quicktime Movie, not Quicktime Conversion and drop that into iDVD

[Mike Cornett]

"First of all: Have you tried different kinds of media (DVDs) Verbatim and Tao Uden get very good reviews."

**Yes. It's not the media as far as I can tell. I've used both cheapies and the best.


"Secondly, Macs really prefer -R media, no matter the brand."

**That's all I've ever used.


"Thirdly, how are you creating the DVD? If you have iDVD 5 or higher, you should be creating a disk image first, then use either Apple's Disk Utility or Roxio Toast to burn the image out at a slow speed, like X2 .. this helps eliminates issues"

**iDVD 4. Burning at X2 speed isn't effective on a burner that is meant for higher speeds. This can actually cause other problems. I don't believe it's the burn speed.


"Fourthly, are you able to playback your DVDs on other set top DVD players, not computers .. just to eliminate some issue with the Panasonic"

**Yes, my DVD works in 3 other DVD players (Apex and 2 different Sony models) and on a work PC.


"Fifthly, if you are making two hour DVDs you are right at iDVD's limit for content. If your program is going to TV I would think DVD Studio Pro would be a worthwhile investment, where you could use Compressor to get maximum quality out of your project."

**Absolutely, just got it and will be experimenting. Although, The station requires the DVD to play as soon as it's inserted into a player. No menus allowed. iDVD4 and 5 should be more than sufficient to cover this. It actually has a drag and drop feature for this.


"Sixthly, where are you creating the movie in the first place? What program are you using? If you use FCE/FCP export your movie as a Quicktime Movie, not Quicktime Conversion and drop that into iDVD"


**FCP 4.5 and now 5.1. I've tried both with the same results.

DVDs are a bizarre and interesting form of media. Thanks for the insight and suggestions. I'll keep messing around with it. Please keep thinking of any other possibilities.

[Ervin Farkas]

I would take a few commercial DVDs and try them on that Panasonic. If they don't work, it's their problem. If they do, then you're not making your DVDs to measure up to the standard.

It's irrelevant whether their disks play or not in your player and vice versa... you have to measure everything by the standard.