Newby Q: Did I use the wrong format?

sdchap wrote on 3/29/2010, 10:12 AM
Yesterday I had an embarrassing situation when a potential investor was unable to open and view a video I'd created with Vegas Platinum 9.0, and burned with DVD Architect Studio 4.5.

Before meeting with him, I'd tested the DVD both in my home DVD player and on my Vista PC. It worked fine on both.

Unfortunately, his office computer was a Mac (don't know what kind, but everything--CRT, CPU, etc.--was housed within what looked like a 20"-plus monitor). It wouldn't open the DVD files (VIDEO-TS / AUDIO-TS).

No problem, I thought, we'll watch it on your TV with through your DVD player. Unfortunately, though, the DVD player wouldn't recognize the disc.

Is there a specific format I should be using to help ensure universal compatibility? Should I include numerous formats on a singe DVD, or should I include several DVDs that he could try?

I've been rendering the project, which is only 3 minutes long, as an .mpg in Vegas Platinum 9.0.

Please note I'm still climbing up the learning curve, so step-by-step suggestions are greatly appreciated!

Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 3/29/2010, 10:34 AM
Use a good quality disc, we like Verbatim and Taiyo-Yuden here.
Burn at lower than maximum speed.
Some "very" old players may need DVD-R instead of DVD+R because of the book type bug.
Keep your average video bitrate around 6Mbs.

Those are the common things that affect DVD playability. There are no video "format" options. DVD is MPEG-2 video, period. The audio, whether AC-3 or PCM, should play fine on all players. Good luck.
Sonata wrote on 3/30/2010, 6:43 AM
I have run into this before, too, so I make sure to bring both a +R and -R formatted disc with me, burned slowly, and not worrying about +/-RW.

It doesn't always help, though, since some older players are finicky about anything that isn't commercially produced, which happened to me about a month ago. I've also run into situations where a DVD player played something that I burned on my own PC, but wouldn't play something burned on my friend's PC, even though we used the same container of blank media, so the burner itself came into play.

The computer you described is a fairly current iMac, so I am not sure why it wouldn't have played anything you threw at it... maybe it's missing a codec in its media player or something (I haven't used a Mac since OS 8.1 was released, so I probably should stop typing now).
Steve Mann wrote on 3/30/2010, 8:48 PM
I bring my own portable DVD player. Less than $80 at WalMart or similar big-box, and I am guaranteed to have something that will play.