Despite what hearsay exists DVDAPro will work with all burners, internal or external. THE driver and the firmware are always the issue. The driver must exist properly at the OS level. DVDAPro only borrows that interpretation. Legacy driver issues may persist.

Firmware is an issue when burning across different types of media and has to be seen as relationship between already having a solid existing driver and the media code of the blank media. This is not transparent to DVDAPro - it must work in order for a burn to occur.

ISO Image Writer here:

Edit: Earlier I referred to it as a ISO Image Burner, but I really mean ISO Image Writer.

The "next" button is greyed out because there is no "next" step. The ISO Image Writer is just a driver that creates an ISO file. Which is the same as "Prepare".

DVD-A 5.2 Build 135

Here is what I see when I prepare a BD. The only choice is an ISO file. According to the DVD-A help, this is normal behavior, and it also happens to be what I want.




Here is what I see when I prepare a DVD. There is no choice for a ISO file.



So how do I create an DVD ISO file? According to Step 7 of DVD-A Help "Burning Your DVD Project," I need to do the following:

[i]7. Select the burn parameters:

a. In the Volume name box, type the name of your disc.

b. From the Device drop-down list, choose your DVD/Blu-ray Disc burner or ISO Image Writer.

c. Perform one of the following actions:

If You chose your DVD burner
Then In the Speed drop-down list, choose your burning speed.

If You chose ISO Image Writer
Then In the File name field, click the button to browse to the location where you would like to save the file.

d. Select the Advanced button to display the Advanced Burn Parameters dialog. The Drive Info tab lists information about the drive to which the DVD will be burned. The Media Info tab lists information about the type of media currently in your DVD burner. The Labels tab has information about the volume name, volume set name, and application ID, which you can adjust, if necessary. Click OK to return to the Select Burn Parameters page.

e. If you’re using a -RW disc, you can select one of the Erase mode radio buttons to erase the disc before burning.

f. Select the Burn disc radio button if you want to burn your project, or select the Test only button to perform a test burn without activating your burner's laser.

Test burns are not available with single- or dual-layer discs using +R/+RW media or when the Use legacy disc drivers check box is cleared on the Burning tab of the Preferences dialog.

g. Select the Eject disc when done check box so the DVD drive will open when the burn is completed.

Click the Finish button to start burning.[/I]

I can follow the above steps to the point of choosing "Next" or "Finish" because those buttons are greyed out (see picture in above post).

So I cannot create an DVD ISO file. This is what I would like to do.

Thanks.

Kimberly

Kimberly,
I am still using DVD A Pro 5.2 build 124 and have no problem creating a DVD .iso with ISO Image Writer.
You could (and maybe should?) use (e.g.) ImgBurn to create image files from folders though.

@vk:

You are creating a DVD ISO after Step 7, presumably by [I]Click the Finish button to start burning.[/I]?

That's what I remember is supposed to happen. Maybe I'll reinstall this build or a prior build. Who knows, maybe something was corrupted along the way or maybe in turned off from the prior build. Thanks for the validation.

Regards,

Kimberly

PS. I recently switched to BurnAware Premium (about $30 USD) for burning.

Under the BURN parameters, you select the ISO Image Writer, after selecting that, right underneath you select the location to store the ISO folder. You cannot write the ISO folder directly to a disk, only to a harddrive location, from what I understand.

[I] You cannot write the ISO folder directly to a disk, only to a harddrive location, from what I understand.[/I]

Correct. I'm giving it a folder on the hard drive where it's supposed to write the ISO file. But even after telling it the folder, the Next/Finish buttons are greyed out so I cannot proceed. Strange. Haven't rolled back to a prior version yet but I will try that later today when I have some time.

Are you preparing a dual layer size project?

@Arthur:

Nope -- just a single layer DVD with DVD-A compliant video and audio files prepared with MainConcept, etc. No recompression needed in DVD-A except menus which contain composited items. The DVD runs about 35 minutes so well under the limit for a 4.7gb DVD media.

It's not the end of the world, as I have workarounds. But it bugs me that it "should" work according to the Help files, and I think I did it in the past when I was testing ImgBurn and needed an ISO file.

In your image "Make Blu-ray Disc", you are setting the filename for the iso file to be created.
In your "Make DVD" image, you are setting the folder where DVDA will create the DVD folders VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS.

You don't normally make an iso file for a DVD.

Can we take ten steps backwards and figure out what you are trying to do? Are you making a DVD or a Blu-ray disc?

I have DVDA Studio 5, build 157 and experienced the same thing as Kimberly on my Windows 7 PC. On my Windows 8 PC there was no problem. I then tried putting a disc in the drive on the Win 7 PC and was then able to make an ISO, even though the disc was a DVD+RW and was not blank.

TOG,
works here in my Win7HP configuration without a disc in the drive. Tested with DVDAP 5.2 build 124 and DVDAS 5.0 build 128.
I usually make the .isos for archival purposes.

[I]Can we take ten steps backwards and figure out what you are trying to do? Are you making a DVD or a Blu-ray disc? [/I]

I have an NTSC DVD project in DVD-A. It includes compliant video and audio files from Vegas Pro 12. I want to make an ISO so that I can:

1) use BurnAware to burn to a DVD, and
2) keep the ISO for archival purposes.

I have done the above with a BD project. I would like to do the above with a DVD project.

best practice path -
1) Use DVDAPro 5.0b or 5.2 to create a prepare file within the software to a fresh new empty folder - this will eventually have VTS folder and .ifo written to it on the harddrive.

2) Use Nero or perhaps BurnAware to pull up this folder contents and allow it to re-write an image. An Image will be an .iso file in a new harddrive folder. You can treat an .iso as a backup data file and write it to an optical disc for storage as a data file. Alternative is allow the BurnAware to pull up the .iso image and then write it as disc replication to subsequent more copies of DVD disc.

3) This is actually a silly scenario - just use DVDAPro - write your prepare folder and also write your DVD disc from which you make copies anyway. Less painful.

I still have yet to see any cogent convincing argument why an .iso file is better than simply creating and using the prepared files folder. The closest thing anyone's ever presented is that it's a single file. However, the folder is a single folder and copying/moving/using/transporting the folder takes all it's contents with it as a single entity.

The folder contains files that are useful as-is in a variety of situations. That seems like a big plus.

The .iso file isn't usable until it's interpreted by another piece of software that can pull the original individual files out. That seems like a big minus.

The .iso file is not compressed nor in any way contains any error checking or other benefits over the folder of files. I just don't get it.

There are several points that would be in some dispute with Chienworks general comment trajectory. The iso or other kind of disc image is the true and complete picture of an optical disc contents in a single file container. There can be some very rare situations where the disc file folder structure does not represent the authoring content of the disc. Very rare and usually not a concern for one-off author and burn systems.

One substantial difference is that file check systems can and have been built for examining the integrity of an iso to give quality assurance ( usually in mass replication systems) that merely doing checksums of file/folder structure may miss. Nero Ahead software has had some development of this in the past for the one-off market but never went very far with it as there seemed to be little market demand for it.

You could archive in iso files, but you don't save any disc space. It's probably easier since there is just one file. There are times when I need an iso file of a DVD (easier to send by DropBox), but I just ImgBurn (free) to make the iso file from the folder that DVDA made that contains the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS files.

I've always used DVDA to burn my discs. I don't see that BurnAware takes an iso file as an input.

@SteveMann:

BurnAware Premium burns ISO files, which is one of the reasons I picked it. ImgBurn does too, but I found that interface more confusing. Another reason I want ISO files is the flexibility to play them on my computer (Virtual Clone Drive, etc.) if I need a quick look without burning a disk.

@vkast:
[I]I am still using DVD A Pro 5.2 build 124 and have no problem creating a DVD .iso with ISO Image Writer.[/I]

I rolled back to 5.2 Build 124 but am still unable to make a DVD ISO as you can. Oh well, I have my workarounds.

Thanks everyone for your help.

Kimberly,
what's your setting in DVDA Pro Options / Preferences / Burning > Use legacy disc drivers? Checking it makes the difference for me at least in DVD A Pro 5.2 b 124.

@vkmast:

Genius!

I can turn it on when I need it, and turn it off in case it creates other issue : )



PS. One of these days I must get a proper drawing application . . .

KImberly,
could not locate relevant threads, but the driver issue has been discussed on the forums and was mentioned earlier in this thread too.