Many Coffee Coasters/Dual Layer Break Point Blues

Howdy all. Was up until the wee hours trying to figure out a solution regarding this topic. I'm new to DVDSP, and I'm trying to author a few DVD's originating from HDV footage. I need to get 3 hours of stuff on 1 of the DVD's so I've entered into the Dual Layer arena. I've read that I need to manually place a dual layer marker on one of my tracks, but no matter where I try ( many attempts), I can't get around the formatting error. I know that Layer 0 needs to be larger that Layer 1, but my final DVD is 7.7gigs, so the acceptable range of where the marker can go is quite small. I'm working in DVDSP 4, with mpeg 2 files from compressor. Don't know if this matters, but I've pretty much created all my menu work in motion. Side note: is there any way to tell how big your menu is? I assume that DVDSP 4 includes this in it's size indicator.

Have you tried simply letting DVDSP put the layer break point in automatically?

Well yes actually, but i've since moved on and have other troubles...I re-compressed the Mpeg 2 files so they're smaller, and now DVDSP does add the break point automatically. I now have a more vexing problem though. I'm still trying to create a dual layer disk. In the simulator it's running great, and even after a build, when I drop the video_ts folder on the mac dvd player that runs great. But every time I try to burn a disk my set top dvd player comes up with an error and it can't read the disk. I've noticed a strange pattern on the back of the disk. (I'm trying to burn a single sided disk). It's solid up until about the half way point, and then it looks sort of striped almost. Does this mean anything to anyone? I've built a very simple menu, with an animated background and three buttons that go to 3 different assets. I've chosed red laser, single sided. I'm really stuck here because I can't put 3 hours of material on a -R disk. Also, I have been successful burning 2 out of 20 Dual layer disks so far, so I know it can be done, I just don't know what the difference was...

When you Build to the Hard Drive you can then bring up the Format Window. The Markers you can choose as the Layer Break will not be grayed out. If you want to add other Markers in range or find a range you should add Cell Markers. So add a Chapter Marker then uncheck the Type: Chapter option in the Inspector. Build again and check the options in the Format window again...

You can use an app like DVDAfterEdit to show you the range easily but its not free.

What Brand of +R DL discs are you using? Even when you burn them correctly compatibility is not great, so try to use Verbatim or something to even have a fighting chance,

Cheers,