Burner/Player Combination for Wedding DVD's

[Chris Harding]

Hi Guys

Only just this month I have started to have two brides coming back to me and claiming that their wedding DVD sets will not play in their player. After a bit of browings and looking at comparison charts it seems that it's not only a question of whether to use a DVD + R or DVD -R but also a complex matrix comprising both types, disk brands and also burners. A Maxell blank in a Sony burner might play well on a Samsung DVD Player but take the same blank and burn it on a Pioneer burner and the same player won't even recognise it!!!

I have had great success using 20X LG Drives and also sticking with 16X DVD -R blanks and never a comeback. Now I have found that I cannot get the LG branded media and seemingly the Laser brand I have been using in the LG burner (even burnt at 8X) might be the culprits????

How on earth are we supposed to determine which disk brand/burner/write speed/dvd type is the most compatible for fussy brides??????

Anyone found a really awesome combination that is the ultimate in compatibility??? Guys like Don Bloom who do piles of disks every year must have found a solution??

I'm getting real tired of replacing disks for brides!!!!

Apart from that hope everyone has a great Christmas break!!!!!

Chris

[Noa Put]

What bitrate do you use for your dvd's? I have had problems in the past with disks that skipped or didn't start and when a other brand or a +r instead of a -r didn't help the only solution left was re-rendering the dvd's at a lower bitrate and that solved the problem each time.

[Jeff Harper]

Tayo Yuiden (check spelling) is widely seen as the best brand blank DVDs.

[Edward Carlson]

I second Taiyo Yuden disks. They have never let me down. They recently merged with JVC, and I have one of their "new" spindles of 100 8x DVD-Rs. No problems at all.

[Don Bloom]

TY WaterShields since they came out. I have had ZERO discs that won't/don't play. I check my discs on 3 different players none of which are part of a computer (I don't play them thru I simply check to make sure they load and I can navigate the menus although I do partially play thru one DVD) I haven't had a bad DVD in many years but I also don't burn over 4X speed. For me, an extra couple of minutes here or there is worth it knowing that I will not have DVD complaints. At least that's the hope. Nothing for sure until you send them out but I haven't had any complaints so I guess it works. At least for me.

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Guys

I have seriously not had a problem for years and that was because (I presume) that I was burning disks on an LG Burner and using LG media... Our stockist went belly up a few months ago and that's when the problems started as I bought a pack of local disks but they were made by Laser... not happy with them!!

I see the LG disks are back in stock so I will for the moment revert to LG (LG don't make them BUT I have never had an issue whatever brand they are) That will be a temporary fix and then I'll order a pack of Taiyo from my East Coast wholesaler..yes they are supposed to be the best media available!!!

The problem disk the bride has play perfectly in my X Logic player (about 2 years old at least) but refuse to load in her player!!

Funny Don, I have always burned the LG disks at 16X and never had an issue...these "Laser" disks show up in Win7 as 20X but I have been burning them at 8X

Do you think that it's wise to always burn disk at no higher than 4X ?????

Thanks guys and Merry Christmas!!!

Chris

[Noa Put]

I'll order a pack of Taiyo from my East Coast wholesaler..yes they are supposed to be the best media available!!!

I think I must be the only one that doesn't share that opinion as I had a batch of taiyo's with playback problems in the past, switched to verbatim with an lg burner and had good results.

[Don Bloom]

I used to use Verbatim before TY came out with the watershield discs and had no problems with them, I wanted the glossy look and found the TYs to be reliable as the Vebatims. I've been using a Pioneer burner for a good number of years. Although about 3 or 4 years ago I upgraded to a newer burner it is still a Pioneer and works just fine.
I burn at 4X only because I'm afraid at the higher burn speeds there might be a problem and I'd hate that so I just stick to my tried and true 4X cause I know it's going to work.

[Chris Harding]

Seriously, I have never used TY's as they are tricky to get but I can safely say that Over the last 5 years at least I have never had a bride come to me and say "the DVD's won't play in my player" and that was using an LG Burner (two actually..I had a 8X and 20X over the period) but I stuck with LG DVD -R's as well ..firstly the 8X disks and then the 16X disks.

I have been told that LG don't produce DVD's at all and their ones are simply re-branded...I wonder who makes them for LG as I must admit I have never had even a burn error at any speed!!!

Looks like it's also a matter of finding a reliable burner/blank disk combination and sticking with it!!!

Chris

[Jeff Harper]

I don't know about media/burner combos, but I've had bad luck with LG burners (I've had several). I've gone through a few burners, but it wasn't till I got a Sony external burner my luck changed. I got mine about 4 years ago, and only recently it started putting out some bad burns.

As they get old they do go bad. I guess I need a new one, but I think how well they work is largely luck. I've had Sony internals that were not worth two cents.

Plextor used to be the "supposed" best, but reviews for their units are really spotty. The company was sold or something a long time ago and at that time everything changed, and their reputation took a major hit.

[Chris Harding]

Thanks Jeff

My LG's have been awesome!!

Now, I changed from an XP DuoCore machine to an Win 7 i7 and I used to author my DVD's in DVDLab which I still do on the Win7 machine BUT I have been using Win 7's "burn" facility to burn the Audio_TS and Video_TS folders to a blank disk. On the old machine I used Nero Burning Rom 6.6 but sadly it refused to install on the new machine. I installed Nero Burning Rom 11 today on the machine and burnt a DVD using the crappy Laser disks and it plays perfectly on my DVD Player (I however DID take Don's advice and burnt at 4X!!)

I wonder if the Win 7 utility does a poor burn to a video DVD...it doesn't ask for any parameters only if you want to use the disk in a CD/DVD player???? Does anyone else do the final burn using Win 7?? Maybe that's the issue?

When the holiday period is over I will replace my drive and get some decent disks anyway but was wondering if using the Win 7 burn utility might be contributing to the problem???

Chris

[Jeff Harper]

Don't ask me, I have no idea! I know Nero does a good job of burning, and DVDA does fine. I would think the Win 7 thingy should work fine, but who knows?

[Dylan Morgan]

Has anyone noticed that high motion (shot in 24p) has difficulty playing back on DVD's? I made one for a family Christmas video, handheld shot walking a dog and you could tell the DVD player struggled with the fast motion. I know all about 24p stuttering and I'm not talking about that. It was more like multiple brief pauses that happen for a slit second that seems as if the DVD player is struggling. It does the same thing on another player. It's confusing to me because I know that any Hollywood DVD wouldn't have this issue. I make sure that it's rendered out to the preset NTSC 24p 2-3 pulldown added so there will be flags. All with the standard bitrate both in vegas and DVDA.

[Chris Harding]

Just an update

My supplier was open today after the long weekend.
I re-burnt my two "un-playable" weddings onto new LG DVD -R 16X and personally delivered and tested on site and they work like a dream!!

I did notice that under the specs LG "claim" the disks are the most compatible with all DVD burners and DVD players. Both brides had different players to me and all three worked flawlessly!!!

Maybe the LG burners like LG disks????? Anyway, thanks to all who helped with hints and tips ..I'm just happy the pressure is off me now!! I have beiing using the same disks for over 5 years and never a glitch...the new "laser" brand are obviously not very good (cost more too!!!)

I think the motto here is Murphy's Law No 238 " If something works don't screw with it" (it also goes on to say if you DO screw with it and it stops working, blame someone else!)

Chris

[Kelly Langerak]

Bitrate can be an issue when doing Blu-ray but on DVD that is a first for me.

I stick with my LG external Bluray burner and Pioneer internal DVD burner using TY that have -R ONLY
+R can have issues with even newer players.