Still Having Problems With Final DVD Playback

[Gatociego]

Hi Akribie

I am still haveing major problems with my final DVD. (customer weddings, birthdays, etc.)
I have been useing file>export>movie and sending this to My Documents where I pick it up with Nero Vision for final burning to disc. These all play great on my Philco player and two of my friends LG players, but now 2 out of 3 customers have returned saying that their disc will not play on their DVD players.

I took your advice from before and tried file>export>DVD. All settings were per PP2 Help. The resulting piece of crap wouldn't even play on my Philco. Just a bunch of popping, static and little green lights over the top of my video.

Two questions:

1. After editing and titleing, what is the best way to burn a final disc? Use the Nero Vision thing? Or does everybody else burn their discs right out of PP2? (which, obviously I didn't do right)

2. How can I go about reburning the videos that my customers have returned? I have deleted all evidence of these videos from my compu for the sake of HD space.

 

[LRSmith]

What is the format of the DVDs you burn (+R, -R, +RW, -RW)?

I have found in my dealings with customers that -R is generally more universally accepted, however there are times that a customer requires +R media. I stay away from the rewrite DVDs.

In these cases, you can simply use your DVD copy software to translate from -R to +R, or vice versa.

 

[Akribie]

DVD +R and DVD-R are characteristics of the chosen media, and are not changeable from one to the other under software control.

I've mostly used DVD-R up till now, but these tend not to play on some older players. I currently favour DVD+R media with the burner set to DVD-ROM booktype, which seems to work with even more players than DVD-R.

 

[LRSmith]

Akribie,

Not sure what you mean by not having DVD+R/-R changeable under software control.

For example, from my experiences dealing with customers, if the DVD+R does not work, I can simply use it to copy to a DVD-R (or vice-versa). I do not have to go back to original burning software to dictate what type of media I am burning. I've yet to see that not work for any customer. I'm fairly certain most burning software is able to determine the type of media being used.

Also, isn't DVD-R an older media type than DVD+R? From the forums and tech papers I've read, it's stated that DVD-R is more compatible with older players, while the DVD+R is more compatible with new players.

That being said, I too favor +R over -R because it seems to be more compatible with the current market.

Just curious - your post surprises me.

 

[Akribie]

What I mean is that DVD-R media is required to burn to DVD-R and DVD+R media is required to burn to DVD+R. It is not possible to burn DVD-R media to DVD+R standard or vice versa. The selection is made automatically by the burner driver depending on which media is inserted, and does not affect the authoring software directly.

I have found DVD-R to be most compatible with most players, but some older players prefer DVD-ROM, which can be burned by changing the book type of the DVD writer for DVD+R media. Like you, I like to offer an alternative to clients who find that they cannot read their original format, whichever that was.

 

[LRSmith]

Ah - I see where the misunderstanding originated. You always have sound advice - as good as anything I can usually offer - thus my confusion.

 

[Gatociego]

Well, I thank you for all of your advice. And to another dozen or so responses on another forum for the same problem. But, I have to disagree with y'all just a bit. I have found that if a DVD+R does not work on a customer's DVD player, neither will a DVD-R, regardless of age/brand of player and regardless of brand of disc medium. And, conversely, if a DVD+R does play well on customer's machine, so will a DVD-R. In other words, either everything does, or nothing will.

I have mentioned before that a friend videos weddings and other events just like me. She does not even have a computer, so she does no editing. She just hooks her JVC camera to a settop player/recorder and burns a disc, hands it to the customer, gets paid and never has any complaints.

So I went down and bought a Panasonic settop DVD player/recorder. I now export my edited video from PP2 to movie. I then burn it with NVE. I take this NVE disc and put it in my settop player, connected to my settop player/recorder and burn a final disc. So far, results have been good (although I have only done this once to-date), the NVE disc wouldn't play on a customer's player, but, useing my new (expensive-slow) system, it plays well.

I tried everything in the book, and every single suggestion- with absolutely no luck. I got tired of customers coming back and telling me where I could stick my disc.

 

[Akribie]

Sorry to hear that. Not my experience, I'm glad to say.

I guess it is possible that players for different formats (I work in PAL in Europe) are differently fussy about the disk they will play.