DVD Burning Failures

kirkdickinson wrote on 12/7/2005, 3:44 PM
I have two projects that I have been working on and nearing completion. I have burnt a few test disks and have had some very dissapointing results.

First off, I tried some Ritek GO5 disks that I have that I use for backups and they burn fine and look good in the DVD player, UNTIL about 30-50 minutes in and they will pixelate, glitch, smear, jiggle, zigzag and eventually lock up the DVD player. All of them would play fine for at least 36 minutes and the best one didn't lock up until over 100 minutes.

I have burned five different disks trying DVA, Nero, and trying both my Sony and Memorex DVD Burner. All of them are corrupted somewhere. Or that is what I thought. They would not play correcly on my Sony home DVD player. Today I was at Walmart and carried the disks in with me and popped them into an Emerson DVD/TV combo, they would play all the way to the end without glitches, So I decided that the Ritek disks were disliked by my Sony home player.

I also tried some old Generic 2x DVD disks that I have here that Nero Info Tool reports as: PRINCO They record ok and play on the computer, but fail both on the Sony home player and the Emerson at Walmart. (about 45 minutes into the disk) The Sony would lock and restart, the Emerson would keep stumbling on as long as I let it looking like cr*p.

Next. I went to Staples and bought four different types of disks. I haven't been through them all yet, but started with the Memorex. Nero Infotool reports the manufacturer as CMC MAG.AE1

DVD Architect will not write to this disk, I get an error that says:
'SFMMCX'-(17)
'nvatabus'-(1)
-'SONY DVD RW DRU-800A KY01'-(0)
Module sfmmcx.cpp Line 1795
A medium error occurred.
A write error occurred. Make sure your media is approved for this drive.

Status: 00020202
Command: 2a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 20 00
Sense: 03 0c 00
Info: 00 00 00 00
Specific: 00 00 00
Extra: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

This error is BS because Nero will write to the same exact disk after I received the error. Surpise, this disk will play in the home Sony DVD player and it plays all the way through with no glitches.

Now I am confused.

The other three types of disks that I have here, that I haven't tried yet are:
Sony DVD-R SONY 08D1
Maxell DVD-R MXL RG02
Memorex DVD+R PRODISK R04

What in the world is going on here??

Thanks,

Kirk

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 12/7/2005, 5:16 PM
You have several variables:

1. The media.
2. The player.
3. The authoring software.
4. The burning software.
5. The DVD burner.


You have tried several media. More than one fails. You can more or less eliminate that.

You have tried several players, you can more or less eliminate that.

You have tried DVDA and Nero to burn.

And, you've tried more than one burner.

Well, in looking back over that summary, one thing that I didn't mention is the encoding. How did you encode the MPEG-2 file? I ran into a situation where an MPEG-2 file that had been cut using Womble's MPEG Video Wizard caused problems in the final DVD. If you have done anything non-standard in either the encoding or in the cutting of the MPEG files, that would be my suspicion.

What is non-standard? A really high average bitrate (above 8,000,000 bps). A really high max bitrate (above 8,400,000 bps). Using 0 for the min bitrate. Cutting the MPEG-2 file using any tool. Using an MPEG-2 encoder other than the one in Vegas or DVDA (although normally this is perfectly OK, and I do it all the time, I'm just trying to think of things that MIGHT be a problem). I'm sure I could come up with a bunch more, if I had the time.

The authoring software usually doesn't cause DVDs to stop playing in the middle of a chapter; problems are more likely during navigation.

It's not clear from your post whether you
kirkdickinson wrote on 12/7/2005, 6:21 PM
The video was all assembled from DV footage in Vegas 6.0c

On all the most recent ones that failed, the encoding was MP2 with the Mainconcept MPEG-2 using the DVD Architect NTSC video stream with a slight change in the average bitrate to make them fit.

The longest one required the average bitrate to be set to 4994.

The audio was encoded AC with all the presets.

The DVD was put together in DV Archetect with only two buttons. Very simple. Each DVD has two seminars on it. A button to start the first on and a button to start the second. No extra sound, but one extra graphic file added to the video in DVA.

I do know that the old cheapo PRINCO disks will fail in more than one player no matter which burning software or DVD is used. Those are out for sure.

I do know that the Ritek GO5 disks fail to play in at least my Sony Home Player,, so probably others too, no matter which burning software or DVD is used. Those are out too.

I do know that even though DVA doesn't like the Memorex (MXL RG02) even though Nero burns it, that it will play at least in the Sony Home Player need to test that in other players, but that is a prospect to use with Nero.

I also just tested the Sony (SONY 08D1) disks and they record fine from DVA and Nero and will play on the Sony Home Player. I guess I am making progress, but it is frustrating.

Thanks,

Kirk
kirkdickinson wrote on 12/9/2005, 8:26 AM
Well, today it DVA doesn't like the Sony blanks.

I get this error message:

'SFMMCX'-(17)
'nvatabus'-(1)
-'SONY DVD RW DRU-800A KY01'-(0)
Module sfmmcx.cpp Line 1795
A medium error occurred.
A write error occurred. Make sure your media is approved for this drive.

Status: 00020202
Command: 2a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 20 00
Sense: 03 0c 00
Info: 00 00 00 00
Specific: 00 00 00
Extra: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

There is NO medium error!! The same exact disk will burn with Nero.

This is a DVA error.

I can't believe that I am using Sony DVD Architect - Sony DVD DRU-800A -and Sony DVD-R blanks and get errors.

A friend of mine told me what the acronym for Sony is:
S oon work
O nly
N ot
Y et

This week, I am feeling the truth of that.

Kirk
ScottW wrote on 12/9/2005, 9:27 AM
DVDA has a long history of issues like this. Basically you should treat it as an authoring program and not a burning program and use Nero to do your burns.

--Scott
rstein wrote on 12/11/2005, 2:01 PM
And this should be acceptable because...?

Sony needs to fix the burning problem. It should NOT be incumbent on the user to have to purchase additional software to do what DVDA is supposed to do. Unless Sony wants to buy a copy of Nero for each affected user, the ball is in Sony's court to address this.

Bob.
ScottW wrote on 12/11/2005, 6:37 PM
I didn't say anything about it being acceptable. If you don't like it, use the support link at the top of the page and file your complain directly with Sony Media Software so they can promptly ignore you.
rstein wrote on 12/11/2005, 11:16 PM
As it happens, I don't have problems with DVDA's burning with my Sony and NEC DVD writers (the latter can do DL).

But I've not tried DL media (and won't till they come down in price from the stratosphere).

So I have no reason to complain, but merely am suggesting that this is a Sony issue and they should do right by the customers who are experience this glitch (and it seems to be a lot of customers).

Peace,
Bob.