I recommend that you just create a "prepared" ISO file on your hard drive and then do the actual burn to disc using the free utility ImgBurn.

ImgBurn will usually gives you an excellent burn -- and the Verify feature will even check the burn integrity.

Nothing can, of course, guarantee that every home-burned disc will burn on every disc player. But using a quality disc (like Verbatim) and software that verifies your burn will definitely improve your odds greatly.

There is nothing wrong with your media, and sounds like your burn process was good whereas you did one set-top player test.

BUT that is where you did go wrong with the process - never ever release to a blind client without testing in a variety of set-top players- at least 4 or 5 - I test in 15.
You also did not indicate several things - was it autoplay - ?- single movie-?- or multiple menu-? - Format was Mpeg2 or AVCHD on the disk?
Get your client's player info.

As said above, get the info the client's player asap. I wouldn't be surprised if it was a DVD player.

Thanks for the suggestions. I tried four different kinds of blu-ray media on two different burners in the two players I had available and they all worked flawlessly. I contacted my client and found out he had a Sony player similar to mine.

I suggested he try putting in a commercial Blu-ray disc, and then reloading the burned one, as I remembered that sometimes my player has trouble switching between playing DVDs and Blu-rays and that always seems to help (I think it's changing lasers or realigning it or something.) That fixed the problem for him.

Restoring laser sensitivity balance inside the player is what is going-on. While two consecutive player performance factors of the same model might lead one to conclude that it is firmware for their line- I doubt that.

Usually this is the earliest symptom of aging (read that moving off of spec over time) of the laser and indicates if you care, it is time to replace with a newer better performing set-top unit.

Having had mixed results with BD-R my confidence is low and reminds me of the first days of the DVD-R/+R formats.

There is the already described scenario of a disc playing, but also the one where the disc starts and then stops at some point well into the video. (This was my experience at a test screening I did.)

I agree that if the opportunity presents itself we, as disc publishers have a responsibility to test a burned disc on multiple devices. What is a good explanation to a client, who has the non-compatible player.

A new player could be bought, with the same results. This type of scenario influences my continued use of BD-R for video.

- Chad

I've been using DVDA since Version 1.0

In all these years I author the discs with DVDA, but NEVER burn with it. Too unreliable. Instead I use the free ImgBurn.
That's ALWAYS reliable.
John

Instead I use the free ImgBurn.

I have also had more consistent results with ImgBurn than DVDA. Do your authoring in DVDA, and "burn" to an ISO master (choose ISO instead of your burner). Then use ImgBurn to burn from the ISO to the physical disk.

I have burned 100's of Sony branded DVD-Rs this way, with only 1 coaster - which ImgBurn identified for me. I stopped getting returns 3 or 4 years ago, which is about when I started using ImgBurn.

John, just curious - is there some way I can quantify that the results I could get from ImgBurn would be better than what I get with DVD Architect? The only measure I have now is that I have two Sony blu-ray players, and if it plays on them, I assume the burn was good. By this measure, everything I have burned in DVDA has worked.

So, is there a way I could take a disc burned with each program, and see if one is "better" than the other? I assume that "better" might be measured by something like error count...

I'm not sure what others have seen, but for me the unreliability of DVDA for burning has been in areas of incomplete burns, burner locked in burning mode infinitely - hardware interface issues such as not detecting max speed properly. If the burn completed and closed properly the DVD or BD worked as often as with other burners.

I don't use DVDA because I want to quickly get the disc out and QC. I'd be surprised if you find a difference between a successful DVDA burned disc and one from IMGBurn, but it will be interesting to hear what you find.

+1 from me for DVD build or BD iso from DVDA and then burn with IMGBurn.

The anecdotal "evidence" that burns are better - is well very close to hogwash! OUCH!!!

You can easily quantify the error rate of any burn from any software by submitting the disc to play in special firmware equipped readers with software from Nero and others easily available. This quality control check should be done on a reader that was not the burner.

The problem with reviewing this approach - is that all burns are most dependent on the media and the burner....imaging software makes little difference - so here's the way to look at this.
Process 1:
Burn disc media A on burner A with any software (DVDAPro -ImagBurn, Nero, Adaptec Roxio, whatever) = all burns committ consistently.
Process 2:
Burn disc media B on burner A with any software - all results will be different from Process 1 consistently - why? because of the media.

There is nothing to "quantify". Go by the experience of others. I test my DVDs on five different DVD players from old models to new models before I sell them to customers, and I have acquired my opinions through years of trial and error and through the advice on this and other similar forums from others. I am sure the others who posted inconsistent results with DVDA did it the same way.

The notion that warnings have to be issued to customers who own older players I don't buy. The type of DVDs, the burn speed, the authoring software, all of it is best determined through trial and error. If you are making these for only yourself and they play on your Sony player then don't worry about it. If they are for the general public then go by the opinions of those who have been there done that and forget "quantitative analysis".

"It is well very close to hogwash! OUCH!!!"

John

I use both DVDA and Imgburn from time to time. I have never had a problem burning with either of them that I recall.

I always check the soft errors of my burns, previously with Kprobe, but these days with Nero DiscSpeed and a LiteON burner as a reader. Any variability I see I attribute to the disc itself (and possibly the burner) but not the software.

As a (former) engineer, I prefer quantifiable facts rather than gut feelings.

As a (former) engineer, I prefer quantifiable facts rather than gut feelings.
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No one said anything about "gut feelings" Peter. Repeated Trial and Error.

John

Yes, you can quantify burn success after burning to predict whether the disc has a good chance of playing on a a variety of platforms. It is a process, that while cumbersome, is exactly quantitative.

Gut success is exacly anecdotal as I have already stated.