Some DVD players do not play further from the menu

Christian de Godzinsky wrote on 12/8/2008, 4:18 AM
Hi,

Just got some feedback from a client. Prepared a small quantity of DVDs (PAL 4:3) on DVD-R media that should be the most compatible.

Some DVD player have a problem with playback. Now I'm not talking about old players, neither about disks that are not recognized at all.

These players play the intro with no problem, and advance to the main menu with no problem. The player hangs at the main menu when trying to select a chapter to play... I have subtitles, but they are off as a default. The preview in DVDA works 100% ok.

So, in 95% of the players were they tested - the same disk works fine - but on just a few ones (all less than 4 years old players) the above happens.

For me it sounds like the project structure is somehow not compatible with these players, causing problems. I have checked everything, all links and options are just fine. Unfotunately I don't have more info about the make or model of these players...

The project was burned with DVDA 4.5 and mpg2 files rendered in Vegas Pro 8.0b.

Any hints about what could be wrong? Where should I continue to investigate? I WILL remake the DVD in DVDA 5 and see if it helps. Was this an known issue in 4.5?

Christian

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Comments

musicvid10 wrote on 12/8/2008, 10:10 AM
What bitrate is the video?
Some players will choke on 8-9 Mbs material and give the kind of behavior you described, even though the bitrate is within DVD spec.
If you encoded at a very high bitrate, you might try 6 Mbs (average VBR) and see if it works better on the customer's player.
I haven't heard of menu structure problems with the DVDs we've produced with either version of DVDA. A couple of times I had to burn DVD-R rather than +R for folks with much older players, something about the book type.

Another possibility is your media blanks -- if you're not using Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim, as many here suggest, burn a couple and see if they work better.
TOG62 wrote on 12/8/2008, 10:50 AM
A couple of times I had to burn DVD-R rather than +R for folks with much older players, something about the book type.

Quite a few players will fail unless the booktype is DVD-ROM. Some burners (LG, Lite-On) can set the booktype of a DVD+R disc to DVD-ROM. In my experience this then gives very good compatibility. Unfortunately, DVDA does not allow this - so it's necessary to author in DVDA, but to burn in another application, such as Nero or ImgBurn.

Mike