best way to burn dvd's from timeline

I am using a G4, running osx10.3.9 duel gig, 1.5 gig ram, w/ fcp3 using western digital internal drives.

I have been making dvd's by using the print to video function. Sending the signal out to my dv camera and then into a consumer sony recording deck. GX300. Then i finalize the disk in the DVD recorder. I have been getting calls that some dvd's are not playing while others play fine. I upgraded to ridata blank media and i think i have been getting a few less calls but maybe its in my burning technique. Would you recomend the best way to burn so this doesnt happen. Maybe DVD dub equipment that is trustworthy. I burn about 50 per job.

Thanks, jim

DVD burning is a bit voodoo. You will almost never get a burn that works for all machines out there. Even our local pro burn house has a disclaimer that stuff they make won't work for everyone.

However, if you are getting a lot of knockbacks, you can try a few things
- if your deck can do it, throwing in a DVD+r instead of a -r and resupplying the rejects with this.
- renting a different kind of deck to see if your hit rate goes up
- changing media brands.

The process you are using doesn't really affect the ability of the DVDs to be played in other machines, so your workflow is fine.



Post Edited (02-27-06 17:38)

There are a couple of other tricks to this.

Some stand-alone burners use a burn bitrate that's too high at the "High Quality" (1-hour) setting. Back the burner off to the 2-hour setting. The quality hit will be minimal and your success rate will go to the moon. We put 30 second commercials on disk at the 2-hour setting.

Don't forget to finalize the disks. When the burn gets done, there is a dance you have to go through to make the disk a "real" movie DVD (Disk Settings, Set Disk, Finalize Disk, Yes, Are your Sure, Yes, etc. etc.) If you pull the disk out too early, it will play on that and similar players, but most players will fail.

To get past the moon, you need expensive blank disks. We use the Maxell Gold Top DVD-R blanks and nobody refuses our burns.

Koz

Jim...

Contrary to some manufacturers claims, what you are creating with a DVD recording deck is not a true DVD, but a DVD-VR (DVD Video Recording). The reason for the compatibility issues is that a DVD-VR does not contain all of the files necessary for the player to recognize the disk as a real DVD. Put a disk you've burned in your computer and look at the files. You will notice the Audio_TS folder is missing, and this can cause some players to not recognize the disk. There may or may not be other files or folders missing. Yes the disk will play back on the machine that created it, and probably on other similar machines. We've found compatibility at less than 50% with "one offs" burned on our Panasonic DVD recorders and even the expensive Pioneer PRV-LX1.

A much better way to go is to use DVD Studio Pro or even iDVD to author a disk. This is quick and easy to do and it will contain all of the necessary files and assure you the highest level of compatibility. You just have to author one disk that contains all of the necessary files, including the Audio_TS folder which will be empty, but is necessary for compatibility reasons. Then use that disk as the master in any of the available inexpensive duplicators to make your 50 copies. Alternately you can use Toast on your Mac to make copies of your authored disc. Your clients will be happier, and happier clients mean more business for you.

Also, Greg's advice is right on about burning at the 2-hour rate. So even if you are using Compressor or iDVD to create your files, encode them at a lower bit rate to improve compatibility. Good luck.

thanks,
Chuck

Thanks very much for your time. I will give those suggestions a go.
Jim

<<< We've found compatibility at less than 50% with "one offs" burned on our Panasonic DVD recorders >>>

That's the success rate you get if you don't finalize the disk. Are you *sure* you're following all the steps in the process? Our machine is a Panasonic DMR-E50 and the success rate is excellent. We keep some very ratty DVD players in service as a worst case condition and the only time we've ever had failures is using bad blanks.

<<<encode them at a lower bit rate to improve compatibility. >>>

I wasn't aware you could tune iDVD. It uses fixed compression and you can't (last I checked) change it. Otherwise, yes, don't go over 7.

Koz

"I wasn't aware you could tune iDVD. It uses fixed compression and you can't (last I checked) change it.
Otherwise, yes, don't go over 7."

On the latest version of iDVD you can adjust it, in the preferences it gives you 2 options, higher quality, more compatibility.

Good luck!

Kevin



"A problem can never be solved by the same consciousness that created it"
Einstein

Koz...

We figured the compatibility percentage on the discs returned that clients couldn't play. Granted that this was several years ago, and players and dyes have improved, so it may not be that bad today. As far as I know they were all "finalized." After a couple of months of many many returns, we stopped doing "one off" dubs. These were done into a Panasonic DMR-T2020 which I believe is similar to your E-50. We also have several players we test discs with, but have found some clients may have even rattier DVD players, or computers with numerous software conflicts. We will now only do "one offs" if the client has successfully used them in the past. Otherwise, we will "author" the disk even if it is just a track that plays with no menus.

Our normal procedure now is to encode with a Sonic Fusion SD1000 hardware encoder in real time on an older Mac running OS 9.2. Move the files to a G5 with DVD Studio Pro 3 and an external Pioneer burner. Encoding, moving the files, authoring and burning can be done in about the same amount of time that it takes to dub into a DVD Recorder and then wait for the disc to be finalized. And the result is a disc that is more compatible and doesn't have the ugly Panasonic blue and yellow menu.

Mentioning iDVD, I was thinking of exporting the timeline from FCP using the Quicktime MPEG encoder, then bringing those files into iDVD. Didn't think about just dragging QT files to iDVD, which I guess is what you referred to. Maybe you can't lower the bit rate in iDVD. I haven't used it for years. But in Compressor, or using the QuickTime MPEG encoder you certainly can change it. We've found keeping the overall bit rate to about 6.5 yields excellent results. Also, compressing audio to Dolby AC3 also helps keep the bit rate from getting too high.

thanks,

Chuck

I looked it up. This is the instruction set for our Panasonic.

After the disk completes burning:

Function
Finalize
Yes
Start

[drive cranks for many minutes]

Return
Eject.

This process can sometimes double the burn time for the show, so if burning on this machine is fast and convenient, you're probably doing it wrong.

Now having said all that, we have two of those burners. The second one has never worked right and produces coaster after coaster. In that sense, we have a 50% success rate in buying stand alone burners.

Do you have a Worst Case DVD Player? This is highly recommended. If a client can't play a disk, offer to buy his/her DVD player--or buy them another one. Sooner or later, you have the worst players in the world and if your work makes it through that Quality Control, they will play anywhere.

This process is not for the faint of heart. You will discover your burn success rate going rapidly to zero using this process. The trick is to peel off the bottom one or two players as just Bad Players and stick with the rest. Of course all your QC players have to play rental movies.

Koz

We use a Toshiba DVD hard drive burner and we've only had one or two 'problem' discs so far.

I don't use menus at all for these disks - they are self starting, just like vhs. And they take WAY less time to make and copy than authoring, encoding and burning via iDVD or DVSP. It's actually been a weight off my mind to get this different workflow.

Obviously if you need specific menus, it's more professional to author it by hand. It also costs the client a lot more.

>>Mentioning iDVD, I was thinking of exporting the timeline from FCP using the Quicktime MPEG encoder, then bringing those files into iDVD.<<

If you do this you will be double compressing and the quality will certainly suffer. IDVD is designed to do the compression for you automatically at one of two settings , depending on the length of the media. You can just drag the quicktime (export quicktime > current settings) in for best results.