Jerky playback on DVD player

pwcjan wrote on 10/31/2005, 8:24 AM

I am using Vegas 5 and DVD architect 2. I have made several DVD for many different people and all played with no problems.

I just finished a wedding video for a friend with both video and pictures. It plays ok on both of my DVD players. She said it played fine untill it got to the last part that was all pictures (with pan and crop). She said it stopped and started. Since I[ve never had this problem before I am guessing it's her DVDj player.

Any suggestions on making a DVD that is more compliable with her player? Would it help to burn at a slower speed?

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 10/31/2005, 8:27 PM

You'll get dozens of suggestions about this, I am sure. I am doubtful whether any of them will help. Some DVD players just don't play recordable media very well.

However, here are the usual things to try (in order of importance):

1. Try different media. Some brands are definitely more compatible than others. Maxell and Verbatim are good. If you purchase mail order Taiyo Yuden seems to be the current favorite.

1b. This is an extension of trying different media. If your burner can handle both + and - media, try the other type. It is quite definitely true that some players can play DVD-R that can't play DVD+R, and vice versa.

2. Try a lower bitrate. I have yet to see anyone actually prove that this solves anything. Most of the information I have says that it won't make any difference whatsoever. However, everyone always suggests it, so give it a try. If it works -- and if you have not changed anything else whatsoever except bitrate -- please post back here and let me know. I'd really like to hear from someone who scientifically held all variable constant (same project except bitrate, same authoring software, same burning software, same DVD playback player) except bitrate and then had a disc play that didn't play before.

3. Burn with different software. If you burned with Nero, then burn directly with DVDA. If you burned with DVDA, burn with Nero or some other application. The earlier versions of DVDA (including version 2.0 that you're using) were pretty flaky with how they burned, although it was my impression that either it worked with your burner or it didn't. If the above three suggestions fail, try this one.

My experience is that the problem lies mostly with the DVD player. Some of them -- including some not that old -- just simply don't reliably play recordable DVDs. I used to have a client that had an early Sony DVD player that would do just what you descirbe: It would play fine for some chapters and then would just stutter or refuse to play at all. I started using Maxell media, and that definitely made a difference, but even that wasn't 100%.

pwcjan wrote on 11/1/2005, 2:40 PM

Thanks for the suggestions. I am using verbatim DVDs but I have some maxwell that I might try. I can only burn DVD+R. I burned it with DVDA but I have Nero so I can try that too.

I agree that I think it's her DVD player. She said that they had another DVD player and will try playing it in that one. Hope that solved the problem.

jrazz wrote on 11/1/2005, 4:04 PM

In Nero, you can also change the book type to "rom" as opposed to +r. I have read on here that this helps sovle some compatibility issues.