DVD Player / Recorder playback issues

Jacobk wrote on 12/2/2008, 7:30 PM
I have a continued problem with my burned DVDs, they always either lag + skips in the sound, or they simply wont play. In case the DVD wont play, i simply get a "no disc" or "unknown disc" error.

The problem is not with the Player, doing a search for mentioned errors with DVD outside the quotes will give a lot results on google, so this is not a rare problem, clearly the manufacturers of these devices must be doing something wrong.

I also got this feeling, that DVD-Players are far more sensitive for some reason, and most of them have a unusual short life-time compared to drives for the PC.

I have never had a single player that didn't have some sort of problem, on the other hand i've never had a drive for the PC fail for years of usage.


I've spend hours searching for a solution, but none of those suggested of which I've found are of any value. Most of them only mentions the obvious, (check disk for scratches etc).

Verbatims - Wont play on my own player, and I'm getting reports that they lag and freeze on some players.
Imation - Single try, worked on my own player. Unknown format I.e. -r or +r (my player is said to support both)

The Imation disk also worked on a second player, where the Verbatims didn't, so I'm going to try those again at some point.

I've found that the problem is related to the media I'm using, maybe my Burner has some influence as well. But again I've had it work sometimes, where it would still fail the majority of times.

Tests on PCs shows that nothing is wrong with the DVDs, and again some players also appears to play them without problems.


I cant provide you with models of these players, but luckily it usually doesn't have anything to do with the model, atleast not from the results I've been getting, the results indicate a problem with the media, sometimes using a different media solves the problem on some players, while it might pose problems for other players (untested).

I've also looked at the settings in DVD Architect, but i don't see anything which would have any (to me) obvious effects on playback. However I'm rather unsure about the "DDP" setting, as far as i can tell, this should just be left at DDP 2.10 for normal DVDs.


Maybe some of you have delt with this issue before?

Comments

John_Cline wrote on 12/3/2008, 1:18 AM
I have no idea what your DVD problem may be. I have burned literally thousands of discs with maybe one or two customer problems. I have had extremely good luck with Verbatim discs (Imation.. not so good.) I use Taiyo Yuden premium discs mostly.

As far as players are concerned, it's been my experience that players last FAR longer than burners.

What bitrate are you using to make the MPEG files for DVD Architect? The bitrate of the audio and video combined can't exceed 9.8 megabits/second. Although it is usually best to keep the video at under 8 Mbits/sec and use .AC3 audio to keep the combined total well under 9 Mbits/sec.

What brand of burner are you using and what speed are you using on your burner to make the discs? Burning a 16x disc at 16x is asking for compatibility problems. Try burning at 8x and see what happens.
Jacobk wrote on 12/11/2008, 5:34 AM
Im Sorry for the long replay time, was busy with some new hardware.

I got no idea what model i have or dont remember, but max burn speed for DVDs is 4x, so that should tell something about how old it is. The problem is that the discs are fine on the PC, so i dont think theres anything wrong with it, plus i have had several working discs.

I usually burn at 2x which is the lowest selectable option, and that has improved the compatibility on some discs, but it did not solve the problem.

Cant check the bitrate since i just reinstalled windows, but i used the default template called "DVD PAL" in vegas pro. One of the projects is 59:43mins, and in mpeg2 takes up around 2.64gb.

I have considered to try Taiyo Yuden, but i dont think it would make much difference compared to verbatims. Maybe it has to do with the quality of the cheap players some people buy from supermarkets.

Our first DVD players may have been those brought in supermarkets, which may explain some of the problems we have had. The final we got may just have been a bad player.


Even though the discs work on the pc, i might try to get a new burner in the near future. I will be back after some more testing with the results, as well as exact models and DVDs used.