Burning DVD's

[sdennison]

I have a G4 Powerbook (OSX 10.4.3) with a Matshita UJ-816 DVD drive. I am trying to burn a large file that has been coverted from a Word doc to PDF (1.8 Gig).

I insert the proper, blank DVD-RW disc, drag & drop the PDF to the DVD, title the DVD in the burn box, click burn and away we go. It seems that the DVD burns, then closes, then verifies, then finishes and the box closes. When I click on the DVD it shows the title but file size is 0 KB available. If I try to view it in another computer, I get an error message stating that the file is corrupt.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!

 

[superbovine]

I have a G4 Powerbook (OSX 10.4.3) with a Matshita UJ-816 DVD drive. I am trying to burn a large file that has been coverted from a Word doc to PDF (1.8 Gig).

I insert the proper, blank DVD-RW disc, drag & drop the PDF to the DVD, title the DVD in the burn box, click burn and away we go. It seems that the DVD burns, then closes, then verifies, then finishes and the box closes. When I click on the DVD it shows the title but file size is 0 KB available. If I try to view it in another computer, I get an error message stating that the file is corrupt.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!

try using different media (apple branded)
try dropping your burn speed down.

 

[balamw]

I am trying to burn a large file that has been coverted from a Word doc to PDF (1.8 Gig).

I'm sorry, you lost me here. How the heck did you end up with a 1.8GB PDF file?!? Patricularly from Word. Is it mostly bitmapped graphics? Does it have lots of embedded fonts or something? How many pages is it?

On the DVD burning issue, I have usually found packet writing (file by file, drag & drop) to be less than portable on any platform, can you just use mkisofs in Terminal or Disk Utility to create an UDF/ISO or even HFS+ image on your HDD and burn that to the disc in one go?

B

 

[liketom]

i have had this so many times - and all is down to me buying really expnesive computer equipment like my Powerbook and Powermac and being a tight git when it comes to buying media like DVD's lol

try another DVD in there i thinks.

and drop the speed as well some DVD's are really rubbish and just will not write at there proper speeds

 

[sdennison]

The DVD drive I have Matshita UJ-816 will only write at 2x to 4x and these discs are burned at 1x speed. The discs are Sony DVD-RW 1x - 2x. The file is a book I have written but it is 235 pages made up mostly of jpeg scans.

Is it possible that the Mac encodes for reading only but only on a Mac. I can put the discs in other Macs and they can be read. In a PC however, no dice.

 

[balamw]

The file is a book I have written but it is 235 pages made up mostly of jpeg scans.

Makes sense. Though it is still averaging ~8MB/page! Out of curiosity are the scans full color or are they greyscale? What dpi? If the scans are B&W (text on white paper, handwriting), you might be better off with another compression type in the PDF, e.g. CCITT. I have a number of patent PDF files around which average ~70kB/page and are also just images. At this rate your file should only be ~15MB.

Is it possible that the Mac encodes for reading only but only on a Mac. I can put the discs in other Macs and they can be read. In a PC however, no dice.

Absolutely. The Tiger DVD can't be read at all when you put it in an XP box. Can you do a "Get Info" on a Mac where it works and see what it says under "Format"? If it isn't ISO 9660, it probably won't work.

UDF support is hit or miss on Windows and also note that Windows is notorious for not wanting to read multisession DVDs, even in ISO9660 format, which may be what you end up with when you drag & drop.

B

 

[sdennison]

B,

Thanks for the info. The format is Mac OS Extended. Is there a way to change the format?

The book is about my father and his experiences during WWII. The scans are color, 300 dpi of his actual letters home as well as pictures and postcards. This is large, I know but I want to be able to provide this disc to a publisher. I have tried to send it to a few associates for an initial review and thought that PDF was the way to go. I also have it in the original Word doc format and is 160 meg file. Does Mac encode a Word doc as well? I had one friend who wanted it in Word say that he could not open the jpg's, only was able to read the written text.

Thanks,

 

[balamw]

Thanks for the info. The format is Mac OS Extended. Is there a way to change the format?

Toast, or create an ISO image using mkisofs.

I haven't had any trouble with Word & JPEGs to/from Windows, but 160 MB sounds more reasonable. I wonder if your PDF became uncompressed.

B

 

[sdennison]

I just got a note from a guy I sent the file to on a CD in Word doc format. No problem on his PC with the latest Word version. He even printed the whole 235 pages to read on the plane flying to Hawaii.

I tried using the disc utilities process for formatting the DVD for Microsoft PC's but I have no option to change to MS-DOS format as the instructions say.

Sorry for my ignorance, what is Toast and/or mkisofs?

Re: the file size, I was told that when Mac converts to PDF using the print command, the PDF format rewrites in it's own language hence the increase in file size.

I guess my solution is to be able to format the DVD before I burn it but how?

 

[balamw]

Sorry for my ignorance, what is Toast and/or mkisofs?

Toast is a 3rd party CD/DVD burning application from roxio http://www.roxio.com. mkisofs is a unix command that you can run from Terminal to create ISO images, which could then be burned useing Disk Utility. mkisofs = make ISO file system.

I believe mkisofs is now standard and you don't need to download it from fink. But here's a tip courtesy of Google. http://www.axonz.com/article.php?story=20030604141200241

You can usually turn on PDF Compression when printing to PDF on OS X, this might help with the file size.

B