Playback stops midway. Burned to DVD-R.

sheraj wrote on 7/28/2006, 10:33 AM
I rendered a project as a DVD-NTSC format. Then I burned it to a DVD-R disk. During playback, it plays without halting in some DVD palyers and computers. On the other hand, it stops midway (looks like it is stuck !!!!) while playing in some other Computers and DVD players.

My husband who is a a computer engineer, said that the reason it stops playing in certain computers could be lack of sufficient memory in the computer. I can understand that. I am kinda resigned that this cannot be fixed.

What I dont understand is why do I have the same problem with some DVD players ?? Why dont we have this problem when we rent a movie.

Is there something that I can do (change some settings etc), so that the DVD plays on all DVD players (without loss in content).

Comments

TLF wrote on 7/28/2006, 11:53 PM
There is a solution, but it will depend upon the capabilities of your DD burner.

You have to burn to DVD+R discs (that's definitely PLUS, not a typo!) rather than - (MINUS) discs. And these + discs must be bitset.

Bitset means that some data are written to the disc that makes it identify itself as a DVD-ROM disc rather than a +R disc. In doing so, it can fools players into thinking it's a genuine pressed disc, just like the ones you rent..

However, not all dvd burners can bitset, some do but require a program such as Nero to tell them to do so, others will do so automatically.

Which burner do you use?

Regards,

Worley
jimmyz wrote on 7/29/2006, 8:41 AM
The problems I have had are related to inexpensive disks. Some would burn fine
and others not. I'd try different media first. If that doesn't help you can try to lower the bitrate in dvd architect and see if that helps. The process of burning discs is different,
in my understanding, from how they manufacture the dvds you buy in the store.
Hope you figure this out.
ScottW wrote on 7/29/2006, 8:54 AM
There could be a couple of issues at work here. The symptoms you describe sound like the players encountered a very high error rate on the DVD, and this caused them to stop playing. Errors are normal and expected with any DVD, and generall the DVD reader corrects most of these itself, but sometimes if you have an excessive amount of them, correction isn't possible.

Certainly the first thing you should do is get the best media that you can. Taiyo Yuden is good media and can be ordered from a number of places. Cheap media is probably the leading reason that people have issues. Don't penny-pinch when it comes to media.

I wouldn't worry about the +R that's been suggested - if you were dealing with a -R/+R issues, the DVD players wouldn't play the disk at all.

Another factor that could be at work is your DVD burner and your burn speed. In general, burning at 8x is better than burning at 2x. Some burners burn better than others - you might check out www.cdrinfo.com and see if they have a review of your burner; that will at least let you see how it stacks up against others.

If you happen to have a copy of Nero, there's a DVD error rate test that you can run, and it might be worth trying it to see how bad things are (also allows you to test different combinations, burn speed, media, etc. to see what gets you the best results).

By the way, there is a significant amount of difference between commercial media and burned media. Commercial media is stamped, typically has a lower error rate and has different reflectivity characteristics (most players are designed to read commercial media - burned media is usually an afterthought).

--Scott