Confused about DVD compatibility

Hi all,

OK, I built my DVD, and tested it on 6 different DVD players (stand alone and computer drives). They all played the DVD without a problem. So I send the DVD to my clients, and then several clients say that the DVD has problems towards the end of the disc.

My question is: how is this possible? I use the very best discs I can get (Plextor brand, Tayio Yuden media), and burnt them with 4X burning speed (while they can go up to 16X speed). I set the bitrate of my video to variable (5.0-6.0 max) with two camera angles and AC3 sound. Any ideas why we have compatibility issues?

Thanks!

Marco

Not enough information to help you out here. Sounds like you are using good media, so that isn't the problem.

Problem toward the end of the disc - is not very much help.

Hi all.


As J.F. says, it sounds like you are using decent DVD stock. However, it could be very possible that the disks have imperfections on them. When you burned the disks, what software did you use?

When I burn DVDs, especially dual layer (DVD+R9), I use Roxio Toast Titanium 6.07. I do not know about DVD Studio Pro 3 or above, but Toast can verify a disk after it has been burned. Did you verify your DVD after it was burned?

Don't rip your hair out over this. There can be several reasons why your clients are having problems. For example, perhaps reflectivity of your DVD stock is not compatible with the lasers of their DVD players. Perhaps the lasers of their DVD players need to be cleaned. Perhaps their DVD players are older.

There are many reasons for incompatibility. One thing that you have not mentioned is the type of DVD stock that you are using. Are you using DVD+R9 (dual layer blank DVDs), DVD+R, DVD-R, etc?


I hope this information helps.


Take care.

-DH

Hi Marco,

The problem is likely the media itself, and/or higher or spiked bitr-rates near the edge of the media.

Regarding media:

Burning at 4x on 16x media isn't always as a good thing. There is a lot of confusion over this in the industry, so let me clear this up once and for all.

Recording at 2x or 1x should be done with 2x media.
Recording at 4x should be done with 4x media.
Recording at 2x should be done with either 4x or 2x media.
Recording ar 8x should be done with 8x or 16x media (footnote 1).
Recordiing at 16x should only be done with 16x media.
Recording at 2.4x should be done with 2.4x +R DL Media.
Recording ar 4x on 4x rated +R 4x DL should be avoided. Record at 2.4x.

Footnote 1

Each "x" rating described a cemmecial layer process specific for that speed of recording. The higher speed commeical processes are not always good for lower speeds. They are cemmically different, and should be avoided. You will often find you get better results recording at 4x on actual 4x media.

The higher the speed you record, the more likely you are going to create a situation where the player may be required to re-pass a sector, and this can cause distortion which will look like data rates are too high. In effect, they are too high, because the sector must re-read them and thus it cannot do its job fast enough. That is essentially what happens when bit rates are too high. So as you can see, there is more than one way to arrive at a particular symptom.

Additionals

If it is a one-off I want to give to a client, and all I have are 8x or 16x media, I would just go with an 8x burn myself. Though I would rather use 4x media for clients. It's also a good idea to inform any client, that burned discs are not close to 100% on all players. At best, I tell viewers that easily 80% of teh players will be fine, but that 20% is still a large number. Lot's of players will skip, pixelate, or act strangle when playing DVD-R media. There is no shortage of el-cheap-o players out there.

Using Toast v6 with DVD+R media will not set the book type properly. Avoid using +R media for video unless you are sure you understand how to set book type.

-Alex Alexzander

Thanks for your replies. But now I'm even more confused hahahaha!

I burnt them with Toast v6.07 / DVD+R. So that might be the problem Alex? I chose to burn them with Toast because DVDSP2 only burns DVD-R (Toast verifies the media and says it's OK).

Marco

Using Toast 6 with a DVD+R is a recipe for disaster. The book type will be all wrong, and several set-top DVD players will not play it. The solution is simply use DVD-R media when working with Toast 6 on the Macintosh.

Whether the information has been accurately written or not isnâ??t all there is to worry about. What makes +R media highly compatible is the book type flag can be set. However, Toast 6 wonâ??t do that, and this is essentially the problem you are likely running into it.

You can continue to do everything the way you are doing it now, except switch from +R media to â??R media.

-Alex Alexander

Hi Alex,

Thank you very much for explaining. I wonder why this issue is not known, or did I overlook topics about this issue? Anyway, thanks!

Marco

Hi all.


Alex, I wonder about something. You say not to use Toast 6 to burn a DVD+R. After mastering a DVD's VIDEO_TS folder, I used Toast 6.07 to burn a DVD+R9 (dual layer DVD). In fact, I have burned a few of them, and I never had any problems doing so. Also, the dual layer DVDs that I burned played fairly well in my Samsung DVD players.

I think I may have burned a DVD+R a twice or thrice. Still, no problems with either the burn or the playback.

If it means anything, I always set Toast 6.07 to record at the best speed, whatever that may mean.

Your information seems sound. If I may ask, is there a website from which you got your information? I always like to read the technical stuff so that I can better my workflow and process.


Take care.


-DH

I don't have Toast (my bad), so I'm unfamiliar with the specs. I have seen behavior similar to what you mentioned using software that copies the files to DVD as a data disk. When doing this, the disk is often left *open.* When that happens, some DVD players will work fine until they get to the last (or last few) sectors and then get lost.

The Toast experts here can tell you whether it's even possible for that to happen in Toast.

I encounter this problem whenever I copy the VIDEO_TS folder directly to a DVD, then burn. Lots of unplayable disks in some players. Instead, I have DVDSP create an image. Burning the image to disk using Disk Utility seems to cure that.

Alex, I think you just answered a problem I have been having. You mention "book type". I have been having a hair-pulling couple days trying to figure out why burns I make with Toast 7 do not work with my Apex. I use Maxell DVD+R 2.4x media to create a DVD and it will not play on my Apex A600, However, when a buddy copies the disc I made with DVD Shrink, the new DVD plays back perfectly. Now, when I use Toast to copy the DVD Shrink created disc, that 3rd gen copy ALSO plays perfectly in the Apex!

So, this tells me Toast is capable of burning with the correct Book Type, but it is not able to set the Book Type on a new DVD. Is my understanding on this correct?

If so, this is a very frustrating shortcoming for Toast! Is there any other software for the Mac that will allow me to set the Book Type, or am I relegated to using a PC to create proper Book Type DVDs?

It seems that being able to set the proper Book Type greatly increases compatibility, so why would Roxio not include this capability in Toast?



Thanks
Gary Sumlak
thumbprints Multimedia Inc.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
[www.thumbprints.ca]

*** Superior Film Transfers at a Reasonable Price ***

After doing some lengthy digging into the subject on various newsgroups, I came up with a solution (I think) to my compatibility problem.

I found a program called DVD2oneX2 that is specifically designed to create DVD Video discs. I have created 4 DVD Videos from Video_TS folders on my system (4 different projects) and they ALL work in my Apex. ALL the DVDs were create using Verbatim 4x DVD+R discs.

Woo Hoo!!

However, DVD Videos created on DVD-R discs still do not work. As the ApexA600 is an older mach, I am not too surprised, just disappointed. That being said, I am very happy that I can now create video DVDs that are more compatible than I was previously able.

One caveat though, DVD2oneX2 will ONLY burn the VIDEO_TS folder (it creates its on AUDIO_TS folder), so if I have additional content (like a screansaver logo, or documentation, etc.) I am SOL.

I sent an e-mail off the DVD2one support; hopefully there is a way, and if so, I will post back.

Ta
Gary



Thanks
Gary Sumlak
thumbprints Multimedia Inc.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
[www.thumbprints.ca]

*** Superior Film Transfers at a Reasonable Price ***