burnt dvd's that wont play

[wob]

so ive started doing corprate video work and people are asking for dvd's of projects... i thought i covered it well.. (ill skip over the fact idvd kept crshing while burning and then dvd studio pro did the same - and i had to go to and pay to get a couple of disks burnt from a miniDV master tape)..

but, still when i tried to make some more copies of the video (10mins long) from one of the dvd's i had made - i used popcorn and datasafe pro TY dye - r disks burning at 1x speed - they still jump and skip in the player of the company i did them for... even though the ones i had made elsewhere seemed to work fine!

what am i doing wrong?
is it a RAM or HD space issue?

they worked on my mac and in my dvd player.. but the ones i got burnt elsewhere worked in my players PLUS the ones at the folks i did the job for.. what are they doing differently than me?

i actually have a friend who didnt know anything about computers and his first burnt dvd works perfectly on everthing he's thrown it at.. even though he's using not great memorex dvd-r's! the big difference is he's using a PC.. is this something (and i hate to say this) that PC's do better?

any ideas....?

thanks

 

[rjphoto]

so ive started doing corprate video work and people are asking for dvd's of projects... i thought i covered it well.. (ill skip over the fact idvd kept crshing while burning and then dvd studio pro did the same - and i had to go to and pay to get a couple of disks burnt from a miniDV master tape)..

but, still when i tried to make some more copies of the video (10mins long) from one of the dvd's i had made - i used popcorn and datasafe pro TY dye - r disks burning at 1x speed - they still jump and skip in the player of the company i did them for... even though the ones i had made elsewhere seemed to work fine!

what am i doing wrong?
is it a RAM or HD space issue?

they worked on my mac and in my dvd player.. but the ones i got burnt elsewhere worked in my players PLUS the ones at the folks i did the job for.. what are they doing differently than me?

i actually have a friend who didnt know anything about computers and his first burnt dvd works perfectly on everthing he's thrown it at.. even though he's using not great memorex dvd-r's! the big difference is he's using a PC.. is this something (and i hate to say this) that PC's do better?

any ideas....?

thanks

We're going to need some more info.

What kind of Mac are you using?
How much RAM and Hard Drive do you have on it?
What Version software are you using?
Oh, and what brand of DVD's are you using?

 

[wob]

We're going to need some more info.

What kind of Mac are you using?
How much RAM and Hard Drive do you have on it?
What Version software are you using?
Oh, and what brand of DVD's are you using?

Okay..

PowerMac G4 Quicksilver 2002 800 (running OSX 10.3)
768mb RAM - 40GB HD (and 80GB external)
Popcorn version 1.0 / idvd3 / dvd studio pro 3.0.2
Datasafe Pro DVD-R 8x (TY dye)

 

[Artful Dodger]

Hi, try different media, TDK, Verbaitum (it's sometimes the media, stick with a name brand) and since I need more of the first process of how you made these let's go ahead to the part of if they are just copies, you don't need to compress them. Everything has been done so just make a copy of them using Toast (if you have it) or an image and burn the dvd.
I guess you can look at it like this, import video, use iMovie (to edit) then send to iDVD-burn. To use Popcorn for the 10 minute dvd I'm not sure why but let us know as I don't us Popcorn myself but if you are compressing it it would look very bad and may add to the problem.
My copy process (legal): put in dvd/open Toast/make a copy and burn.
As for your specs, I can't say if there is a big difference with iDVD 5 since that is what I've started to use over iDVD 3. As for the crashing, well how much space (HDD) is left when doing your work? Just making sure your leaving enough room for your needs. Anything else I can't really guess with not using DVDSP 3.

 

[rjphoto]

they worked on my mac and in my dvd player..

Take your disk to Walmart and try their cheapo DVD players. If it works buy one for the company you are doing the work for.

It may be that their player won't play the disk you are using / creating. I've had it happen. Changed media and slowed down the burn (You are already at 1x so that's out) and it worked.

Also, make sure there are no other processes running when you are burning. Turn off your screen saver and make sure the Energy Saver is set to always on.

Again, as Artful Dodger said, check your free hard drive space.
If it was me I would upgrade my iLife to version 5, too.

 

[wob]

im in the uk so walmart is out of the picture but i get the idea.. why do some players play back dvd-r's fine and others dont? why would the ones i got made by a company work better than the ones i made at home? (can it only be a brand of disk issue?)

i did a direct copy of the disk - so no compression at all, it was exactly the same as the original and played back fine in my mac and in my dvd player.. i just want to figure out how to give dvd-r's the best possible chance of working in as many players as possible... can i do that at home or will taking it to some copying place always give me a more reliable disk?

if yes, then what are these guys using that i cant get?

 

[rjphoto]

im in the uk so walmart is out of the picture but i get the idea.. why do some players play back dvd-r's fine and others dont? why would the ones i got made by a company work better than the ones i made at home? (can it only be a brand of disk issue?)

i did a direct copy of the disk - so no compression at all, it was exactly the same as the original and played back fine in my mac and in my dvd player.. i just want to figure out how to give dvd-r's the best possible chance of working in as many players as possible... can i do that at home or will taking it to some copying place always give me a more reliable disk?

if yes, then what are these guys using that i cant get?

I don't know much about UK Region Codes, but could that be part of the problem? HHHMMM....

How much does it cost to have "these guys" make the disk for you? And how long does it take them to do it?

 

[Artful Dodger]

wob
im in the uk so walmart is out of the picture but i get the idea.. why do some players play back dvd-r's fine and others dont? why would the ones i got made by a company work better than the ones i made at home? (can it only be a brand of disk issue?)

i did a direct copy of the disk - so no compression at all, it was exactly the same as the original and played back fine in my mac and in my dvd player.. i just want to figure out how to give dvd-r's the best possible chance of working in as many players as possible... can i do that at home or will taking it to some copying place always give me a more reliable disk?

if yes, then what are these guys using that i cant get?

The play back differs from the lens in some units but you may have found the problem, your player plays them, the companies doesn't. If you have a PS2/Xbox you could check it with that as well. It really sounds like that one player. I've also had problems with a dvd player not playing certain dvds but that was more of an age/media issue.

 

[wob]

The play back differs from the lens in some units but you may have found the problem, your player plays them, the companies doesn't. If you have a PS2/Xbox you could check it with that as well. It really sounds like that one player. I've also had problems with a dvd player not playing certain dvds but that was more of an age/media issue.

but why do the ones i got done at a company in central london work fine if mine don't? i was assuming that if you take your master tape to some place to get done 'professionally' then they'd be doing something different or using fancier equipment that is more likely to work in more players than what i can do from home... is there any truth in that?

 

[wob]

I don't know much about UK Region Codes, but could that be part of the problem? HHHMMM....

How much does it cost to have "these guys" make the disk for you? And how long does it take them to do it?

i dont see why.. its a UK region 2 (pal) made disk and given to a UK based company...

they did it from my 10min DVCAM master tape to 4 dvd-r's in an hour and a half.. the disks had this ugly looking blue screen menu when you start up so i made a couple of copies without it (using popcorn and copying the 'movie only' but otherwise identical) and those are the ones they are having trouble playing, not the originals..

its a company who do this kind of stuff all the time in central london for the media industry...

it may well be just a type of media issue but the dvd-r's i got come highly recommended coz they are just unbranded TY dye disks which im told are the best...

thanks for the info guys.. there doesn't seem to be a sure answer to this problem.. i guess dvd-r's are just temprimental right now..

how are shop bought dvd's able to work in any machine you put them in? im assuming it'll cost a fortune to start getting my stuff done like that when i only need a few copies for this corprate video stuff i do

EDIT: it costs £25 to digitize the material and then £4.95 for each dvd made.

 

[rjphoto]

they did it from my 10min DVCAM master tape to 4 dvd-r's in an hour and a half.. the disks had this ugly looking blue screen menu when you start upits a company who do this kind of stuff all the time in central london for the media industry...

EDIT: it costs £25 to digitize the material and then £4.95 for each dvd made.

Sounds like they are using a set-top DVD-recorder like you would use at home to record TV shows on, but plugging in the DVCAM as the source. (call them up and ask them what kind of disk they use and what kind of recorder they use.)

I've had that done and it cost $20 US per tape. (I only had one copy each made of 3 tapes). They had the blue screen with a list of 1 video on it. I figured there could have been more in the list.

 

[Flynnstone]

maybe ...
I have used iDVD to burn videos and also Toast.
If I remember iDVD would crap out after a couple burned disks. I might have had a bit of a problem playing them.
Then want I did was to have iDVD make a disk image then use Toast to burn the copies. This worked well.
Also, the burned disks look different. The "burnt" area to "unburned" was more distinct on the "Toasted" disks.

I hope that helps.

 

[pequall]

sup sup,

unfortunately I have been trying everything i can come up with to copy some DVDs and I have had mixed luck with it all.

anyways, I do not use popcorn, but when I use Toast to make my DVDs I use the Data section and burn the disk as a DVD_ROM (UDF). I do not use the Video section of Toast to make DVDs (dont ask me why ). I create a new disk and drag the VIDEO_TS file and either create or drag a provided AUDIO_TS file and execute (my AUDIO_TS files are always empty, but some players need to see that a AUDIO_TS file is there to be happy)

so if Popcorn has a similar option try that.

 

[Artful Dodger]

pequall sup sup,

unfortunately I have been trying everything i can come up with to copy some DVDs and I have had mixed luck with it all.

anyways, I do not use popcorn, but when I use Toast to make my DVDs I use the Data section and burn the disk as a DVD_ROM (UDF). I do not use the Video section of Toast to make DVDs (dont ask me why ). I create a new disk and drag the VIDEO_TS file and either create or drag a provided AUDIO_TS file and execute (my AUDIO_TS files are always empty, but some players need to see that a AUDIO_TS file is there to be happy)

so if Popcorn has a similar option try that.

Okay just so I don't get these dvds are already made? So you are just needing to make copies of them?
Okay memory lapse, are you using this setup?

 

[wob]

Sounds like they are using a set-top DVD-recorder like you would use at home to record TV shows on, but plugging in the DVCAM as the source. (call them up and ask them what kind of disk they use and what kind of recorder they use.)

I've had that done and it cost $20 US per tape. (I only had one copy each made of 3 tapes). They had the blue screen with a list of 1 video on it. I figured there could have been more in the list.

ah... that could be it.. would that make the dvd's more stable with better chance of working on more players?

ill call them and ask... they may not like to say though.. lots of these places don't like giving that stuff away coz they think they'll loose custom.. ill let you guys know what they say..