Menus, Media, and Coasters

Mandk wrote on 12/18/2003, 12:25 PM
I distributed about 50 sets of a two disk production earlier this week. So far I have two people returning disk one of the set cause it will not work. Basically the put it in the player, it fires us, and the menus may or may not work and the underlying video may or may not be as clear as it should be. No problems with disk 2 of the set so far.

Both disks were prepared in Vegas, have about equal run times, were rendered using the Main Concept MPG-2 codec prior to DVD-A and were similarly authored in DVD-A.

I would blame player incompatibility except for the fact that disk two plays fine and disk one has problems. This is leading me to believe that the media is causing the problems. I used the Ritek G4 and Memorex 4x disks in a pioneer A06 burner. I also tested samples of each run in a total of 7 players without a failure.

When I get the defective disks back I can do a better evaluation.

Does anyone have any suggestions of things I may be missing?

Thanks

Comments

Jsnkc wrote on 12/18/2003, 12:49 PM
I'd also make sure your bitrates aren't too high, that can cause a lot of problems as well.
TomG wrote on 12/18/2003, 12:54 PM
I'd stay away from Memorex media... I've had problems and have heard the same from others on this forum. I put my money on Verbatim/Maxell/TDK. ESPECIALLY when you are burning > 1x....

TomG
JL wrote on 12/18/2003, 1:14 PM
I don’t think you can draw any conclusions yet. For one thing, it could be coincidence that both bad disks happen to be disk no. 1 (i.e., with only two bad disks of 100 there’s a 50/50 chance they would both be the same disk). Also, you were not very specific on the problem: menu or video quality, or both? Do both disks have identical symptoms? As you said, you’ll know more when you get the problem disks back.
Jay Gladwell wrote on 12/18/2003, 1:17 PM
Ritek G04 media is your best bet--it costs less, too!
Mandk wrote on 12/18/2003, 1:31 PM
Unfortunately I ran out (orders were more than I anticipated).

Had to buy the memorex stuff at the last minute.
johnmeyer wrote on 12/18/2003, 1:35 PM
Do you know what bitrates were used on each disk? Was the bitrate different on disk one than on disk two? If the media, authoring software, and player are the same for each disk, then I'd sure look at the bitrate.
johnmeyer wrote on 12/18/2003, 1:35 PM
Do you know what bitrates were used on each disk? Was the bitrate different on disk one than on disk two? If the media, authoring software, and player are the same for each disk, then I'd sure look at the bitrate.
kameronj wrote on 12/19/2003, 6:39 AM
Do you know what bitrates were used on each disk? Was the bitrate different on disk one than on disk two? If the media, authoring software, and player are the same for each disk, then I'd sure look at the bitrate.

(just thought I'd ask again, in case you missed the question already.)

:->
Mandk wrote on 12/19/2003, 6:44 AM
When I originally encoded the disks I thought the bit rate was set the same - variable at 6 - 8 max. I am reworking the first disk and confirm the rate at 6 max.

The second returned disk was on the Ritek media and it appears there is a bit rate issue. I looking more closely I could see some break up at the same place this gentleman experienced a freeze on his player (A two year old Samsung). All of the test players more or less skipped over this spot but his and the first returned disk player froze.

All in it gives me a great excuse to fix a typo I found in the credits!

Thank you all for your help and suggestions.
TomG wrote on 12/19/2003, 7:02 AM
Glad you seem to have found your problem. I guess you were lucky that only 2 came back. I also have been experiencing some DVD breakups and hangs and still am not sure what the real problem is. How can you check the bitrate on a finished disk and what is the proper bitrate when rendering and/or burning? When do you use fixed and when do you use variable? Is it just a matter of size and/or quality or do some players just choke on higher bitrates? Whenever I have a DVD hang it seems that I get that hang on both the players I play it on.

TomG
LeeV wrote on 12/19/2003, 8:34 AM
Use TDK.