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Discs burned with encore skipping and playing poorly
Lately ALOT of DVD discs I’ve burned with Encore play terribly on DVD players. It’s wierd in that the discs have no scratches, sometimes play perfectly then all of the sudden start skipping so bad they are either unwatchable or freeze up all together. Sometimes (rarely) these bad DVD’s play fine too, but most of the time they skip (always at different spots, no apparent pattern).
Example #1:
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Burned a DVD. Watched it in my car DVD player, it worked fine. Immediately took it out and played it in a friends DVD player and it started skipping and freezing. Tried it in my car DVD player and it was skipping too. Tried in various DVD players after this and it worked fine maybe 10% of the time.Example #2:
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Burned two identical DVD discs. Watched first one in my home DVD player. It worked fine. Tried second one in my car DVD player and it a different home DVD player and both skipped so bad it wouldn’t even play. Tried it in a PC DVD drive and it played fine. Then tried the 1st DVD in a PC DVD drive. It played video fine, but audio was skipping. Tried it in a second PC DVD price, this time the menu video skipped but audio was fine. Started playing the main video and it was totally fine.I guess the moral to these examples is there are no apparent patterns other than the discs are real inconsistant, can work fine one second and be garbage the next. Is it a burn problem? Software problem? Burn drive problem? DVD-R disc problem? The discs I used are: TDK DVD-R, 8x, 4.7 GB & Memorex DVD-R, 8x, 4.7GB.
What could cause this?
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3 Replies
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i hear ur pain, I am having the same problem but I use different disks and mostly DVD+R. there seems to be a complicated relationship between the burner, the media, and the end-reader, whatever that may be. CDFreaks website is a great place to read all about it, as is The Firmware Page. Here is one techie article I just plowed through:
https://www.cdfreaks.com/article/113
but none of this really helps us, poor content creators. We just want a technology that works, all the time, anywhere. Unfortunalty, there are not very many technologies that can boast that.I had a thought once to test DVDs, or at least the masters, using NERO test tool, but even that software was not consistent. By the way, it seems that Lite-On drives get high marks for burn quality, so we have about 6 or 7 of them here. Still, problems exits. I had one the other day that just died after about 6 months of service.
Anyway, it would be nice to read an article on bulletproofing the burn process….
jigs -
Use better blank media. Memorex is useless. TDK has been very good in the past, but I have heard reports of a loss of quality in their products recently. Maxell has been reliable, but a recent report implies that they are getting their latest batch of media from low-quality suppliers.
Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim seem to be the most consistent and reliable high-quality media.
Burn speed can affect the finished disc as well. I recommend burning at no more than half the rated speed of the blank media.
Keep in mind that reading a burned DVD is much more difficult for any DVD player than reading a commercially-pressed disc. It is the nature of the beast.
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have to type this out again now, as the site didnt remember me… grrr
Try other media for sure, as quality is a big issue. A company like TDK can and will use dyes from various sources such as CMC or Optodisc for example, and the qualtiy of the dyes vary hugely.
Verbatiim typically use Mitsubishi Chemical Corp or Taiyo Yuden dyes, basically pretty much the best.
You can download a tool that will scan your media to see the brand and also the make of dye, which can be pretty useful actually. Itr is free from here:
https://home.scarlet.be/~ping3828/downloads/dvd_identifier_430.zipAfter that, try burning your final masters at 4x only, which will be CLV burning (constant linear velocity) which means 4x from start to finish. This will make your data much more reliable and therefore readable afterwards.
Hope that helps!
Dominic Osborne
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Director & Head of Visuals
Eight Eyed Sea Bass Ltd
http://www.eighteyedseabass.com
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