Customers having problems with my DVDs

colins wrote on 2/3/2009, 6:13 AM
I am wondering what is the best format for DVDs (-R or +R) as I have been getting some of my customers saying the DVDs will not play - yet I always check them on my (relatively new) Sony DVD player and they seem ok (mostly) -- some do not but most are ok.

I am using Verbatim 16x DVD-R

I have tried rendering from DVD-A at a slower speed (8x) but seems not to make a difference.

Any advice please?

Colin

Comments

TOG62 wrote on 2/3/2009, 7:06 AM
There are some players that won't play any kind of recordable DVD. Thankfully, these are few in number and mainly old. I doubt that you'd improve significantly on the media you're using but some people say that DVD+Rs with the booktype set to DVD-ROM have slightly better compatibility with old players. DVD+Rs with their native booktype are, in my limited experience, definitely less compatible than DVD-Rs.

Mike
musicvid10 wrote on 2/3/2009, 12:25 PM
The +R / Book Type issue is only on very old players. There are very few of them around. In the last four years I have had only one disc that I had to burn on -R to work on an old player (that was for my poverty-stricken nephew).

I would look elsewhere for the source of your problem. You said what you are playing them on but you did not say what machine you are burning them on.
colins wrote on 2/3/2009, 1:15 PM
Thanks guys. The writer is the one that came with the Dell Inspiron 530s I bought last year. It's a PBDS DVD+RW DH-16W SATA
johnmeyer wrote on 2/3/2009, 4:32 PM
I've never heard of that drive.

Try to find a DVD drive somewhere that can run this free software:

nero DVD speed

It will tell you if the burn is good or not. It's the only way to scientifically start to narrow down the problem (burner; media; DVD player; +R vs. -R issues). If you get high error rates, then either the media or the burner is a problem. Try with different media on the same burner, and that usually will then tell you if it is the media or the burner.

Verbatim is usually top notch, but there are generally different types.

Also, make sure you are not using an average bitrate higher than 8,000,000 (note: average, not peak).
TOG62 wrote on 2/4/2009, 12:32 AM
The +R / Book Type issue is only on very old players.

I suppose that depends upon what you regard as very old. I have a 5 year old Toshiba DVD/HD recorder that can't play DVD+Rs unless the booktype is set as DVD-ROM. In all other respects it behaves perfectly and I hope to keep it another 5 years (at least ;-).

Mike
colins wrote on 2/4/2009, 12:49 AM
Thanks for that. I downloaded the program and run a test on the last DVD I burnt:

PI Errors
Max 57
Ave 4.99
Total 58053

PI Failures
Max 4
Ave 0.01
Total 769

Haven't got the slightest idea what this all means!

Colin
TOG62 wrote on 2/4/2009, 2:32 AM
I did a couple of checks with discs I knew to be of variable quality. You figures look pretty good by comparison to what I got. I did notice, though, that the actual results you get depend upon the drive you use to carry out the test.

I have an old drive that doesn't write particularly well but reads almost anything, and this gave much better readings than a newer and more reliable drive. I have no idea how this comes about. Probably others can add more insight.

Mike
colins wrote on 2/4/2009, 8:07 AM
So, should I stick to the safest option of DVD-R? Or should I go with DVD+R as this is what my burner on my PC seems to be (See above).
johnmeyer wrote on 2/4/2009, 2:24 PM
Your burn numbers look fine.

In your original post, it sounded like some of the discs have problems even on your own player. If a burn is good, but shows errors, I begin to wonder about what bitrate you used. If you use an average bitrate of more than 8,000,000, it might cause a problem. Since you definitely are having problems, you might want to keep the average less then 7,500,000.

That's the only other thing I can think of which fits your symptoms.
Movick wrote on 2/6/2009, 1:20 AM
I've had this issue with a batch of Hydrodisc DVD-R I purchased from discmakers about 18 months ago. The company doesn't offer anything but the -R format in this disc type. The advantage of this particular product is that it has a special print surface embedded onto the disc which prints out exponentially beter than standard printable media - the difference is night and day.

The issue I've faced is that my friend and client has had an 80 percent return rate on these burned discs fom his customers. I burned a batch of 50, painfully one at a time for him until he was ready for duplication, testing each and every one. I even went so far as to visit him with a monitor and super low-end DVD player and successfully played each of the returned discs without a hitch.

I found this odd as the rep from Discmakers assured me virtually all recent players would read the -R format. It wasn't until a few weeks ago that I discovered Discmaker's statement is not accurate; I placed a burned disc in my brand new Philips DVD player and it read "no disc." I opened the manual to find that it would not read minus media!

This is a very frustrating issue, the only solution is duplication I'm afraid.

Mov

warriorking wrote on 2/7/2009, 1:28 PM
My experience has been very problamatic with DVD-R media regardless of the brand, I have always used DVD+R with great results, fewer coasters in my works, and compliance has been 99% with my customer DVD players....