Having problem burning with DVDA

LISH wrote on 12/11/2003, 1:29 PM
I recently purchased a Plextor 708A. After installing
it I burned a project onto a DVD+RW. The disc would
not play at all. I then searched in this forum to see
many people say that they had problems with this
drive. I took someones advice to prepare the movie in
DVDA and burn with Nero. I tried this twice, once on
a DVD+RW and once on a DVD-R. To burn with Nero I
just took all the files from DVDA's default VIDEO_TS
folder and put them on the DVD. The AUDIO_TS folder
had nothing in it. Both played in my computers drive
but once I select anything on the first menu eveything
stops. Basically I can see the first menu and nothing
else. Anything I select just stays as a still frame
of the first menu.

Obviously I have never done any work with DVD's before
and I do not know the next step to take. I don't know
if the problem is coming from DVDA, Nero, or my
Plextor drive. If anyone could help I would really
appreciate it. Thank you so much.

Comments

kameronj wrote on 12/11/2003, 1:57 PM
I don't know if the problem is coming from DVDA, Nero, or my Plextor drive.

Oh I think you forgot one......you. Or, at least the way I am reading the post you posted - there is either some steps left out of what you are doing, or you are not 'splaining it too good there Lucy.

In reverse order you say you took the files from the default DVDA folder and put them on the DVD. I read you took the Video not the audio. Why wouldn't you take all the files and folders? For that matter...it sounds like you took the files out of the folders.....well, did ya? Huh? Not a good move.

But...be that as it may - doing it this way and burning with Nero wouldn't have anything a'tall to do with DVDA, now would it? So...I guess that pretty much takes DVDA out of the loop.....doncha think?

So we are down to Nero and your burner.

Hmmmmm. Let's go back to the first project you burned to DVD+RW that didn't work. What 'project" was this? Saying it was a project that was burned but didn't work is kind of broad - doncha think? So it's hard to tell if it is Nero, your burner, or DVDA.

Me thinks you should do a little readin prior to tryin your next burn. Cozy on up with some past posts here in this forum - or dash on over to www.dvdrhelp.com and do some readin on how to do some stuff.
LISH wrote on 12/11/2003, 2:48 PM
sorry for asking for help, I'll make sure to just give up next time. I will go back to browsing dvdrhelp.com and various other sites. DVDA still can't see my DVD-RW drive. That is my problem. If anyone has any suggestions, I would really appreciate it.
winds310 wrote on 12/11/2003, 3:39 PM
I've got a Plextor 708A. DVDA doesn't support it. If won't recognize it at all if you have DVD-R media in it, and I've never managed to get a good burn onto DVD+R or DVD+RW media, although I think some people have.

I have been successful by using the following procedure:

1) Prepare the DVD files in DVDA
2) Open Nero Express (the following steps assume Nero Express, not Nero, and not Nero Vision Express which is different entirely).
3) Make sure the 708A [DVD] is the listed drive (for some reason Nero lists DVD drives twice, once as a DVD burner and once as a CD-R/CD-RW burner).
3) Select the DVD-Video FIles option.
4) You should see a file list dialog box with two directories, AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS. Double click on hte VIDEO_TS to open it.
5) Click the add button. That will pop up a file selction dialog. Navigate to the VIDEO_TS folder DVDA created. Select all the files in that folder, hit add then finished.
6) Hit next which should bring you to the Burn page. Change anything you want there, but uncheck the 'Verfiy after write' since the 708A will only do that at 2X which is painful. You will like get a file allocation error and a warning about a read failure. I always ignore these and haven't seen any prbloem yet.

Good luck... Great burner, sadly DVDA isn't keeping up very well with the explosion in DVD burners...

Steve Wark
pb wrote on 12/11/2003, 4:29 PM
Lucy,

I regret to tell you that you will likely never get that burner to work properly with DVD-A. Just as DVD Complete does not see my Sony firewire external burners, DVDA does not seem to like Plextor. I did burn a few (I think) DVD + RW or maybe DVD-RW but it would not "see" the burner with a DVD-R in it. I guess a convoluted work around is burn to the comaptible disc, use REcordNow Max to make a disc image then burn DVD-Rs from that. In my case it does not cause a probelm because the master disc goes to the duplicator stack which doesn't care what format it copying.
LISH wrote on 12/11/2003, 4:53 PM
Thanks, I'l give these a try...
kameronj wrote on 12/11/2003, 5:59 PM
Hey....don't think I was saying that you shouldn't do a post or anything - I was just trying to hit the points you made and tried to offer some places to find some answers.

Glad some other Plextor users rang in too.
LISH wrote on 12/11/2003, 6:12 PM
The project I am trying to burn is a DVD with a chapter select menus, and special features page. I tried what winds310 described to me, that is exactly what I had done before, I gave it another shot. This time, it will play, but there are no menus. In Windows Media Player I can choose the different clips, but it's a different story when played in any other app. If I tell it to go to the Title menu it does, but it will not do this on its own. When the menu is up, if I try to navigate to any of the other pages, it stays at a freeze frame. Does anyone know what could be causing this. I ran through my DVDA file and nothing looks out of the ordinary but then again this is my first project so I wouldn't really know what is "ordinary." I would appreciate any help you can give me. I will review pb's suggestion now but if at all possible I would like to sort this out within DVDA and Nero. Thanks again everyone...
winds310 wrote on 12/12/2003, 3:54 AM
How does it do in a standalone player?

I had menu problems with the Ravisent player that came with my Matrox G450 card, and with version 4 of PowerDVD. Version 5 of PowerDVD works fine. I don't remember the exact symptoms, but what you are describing sounds familiar.

You might try simpler projects to see how that goes. Just drag one media file to the main window and burn that. See if you get the menu page and selecting the menu works. Then try two media files, then layered menus, etc.

Rather than burning media, use the Nero Image Drive for testing software apps. Once it works there, move on to media.

Good Luck...

Steve Wark
LISH wrote on 12/12/2003, 7:25 AM
Thanks you've been REALLY helpful. I've got it to work now using a mixture of advice from everyone. Thank you .