DVD authored… player “seeks” a lot…

[Douglas Spotted eagle]

I’d first recommend the easiest route; try different media.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
VASST

Certified Sony Vegas Trainer
Aerial Camera/Instructor

[Gilles Gagnon]

Thanks but I’m using top notch Verbatim media which was recommended to me by experts on this forum (more $$ than the cheap stuff).

ANy other ideas?

[Joe Mantaratz]

This is not an easy answer because there is an abundance of DVD players on the market not to mention older ones which you might well be using. Each one of those can have their parts made from any one the varied vendors and so on.
The first thing I would do is to burn the discs at a lower setting to help avoid errors. Some DVD players are more tolerant of disc errors some are not. My kids DVD player will play anything it seems while those same discs will not play in my home system and in fact could not play in the screening room I booked on their system.

All that means is that there was an incompatibility that the player could not handle. A DVD has more than just your video on it. It tells the DVD player a lot more than just that. This is often the cause of some of these errors. For ex: in a batch of 100 discs I will usually see a few that burn just fine and then will not play or have problems. All burned at the same speed, on the same system and checked in three different systems. The seeking problem could be anything, try the easy things first.

[Bob Peterson]

I never burn at more than 4x. I prefer the slowest possible speed.

I also recently detected read errors on my favorite burner. I was a bit shocked since there were no error messages, and am wondering if it placed similar errors on the DVDs which were burned by it in the last few months. A new burner corrected the problem.

I detected the problem while “ripping” audio tracks from CDs. Sound Forge was producing clicks and static on material from brand new CDs. I found long square waves in the locations where the spurious noise was located. The same CD, when processed on another drive, produced pristine audio.

BTW, it certainly would be nice if DVDA would verify a disk after it is written. That would detect a problematic burner.

[Joe Mantaratz]

That would be nice indeed. Ideally it would be best to burn the mast in DVDA and then check it. Then use that in a duplicator that has the built in check. Actually there are better ones that will use the prepared files.

[Gilles Gagnon]

Thanks for all the informative feedback.

I will burn my next DVD at a much lower speed as suggested.

Joe, which duplicator do you recommend I use the DVDA prepared file with?

[Stephen Mann]

Burn speed: midway between the min & max works very well for me. Never, ever burn a DVD at the highest available speed. Also, if your max available rate is unusually low, like 4X on a 16X DVD, then your player doesn’t recognize the media and probably needs a firmware update.

Verbatim Media: Are you sure that those DVD’s in the Verbatim box were made by Verbatim? Consumer-boxed media is a commodity market, and you don’t know which manufacturer’s DVD’s were put into the box unless you examine the mfg data using DVD Identify or similar software.

Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com

[Joe Mantaratz]

That’s great but a bit too late once you have opened the package. Not to mention they could be a mix.

[Mike Kujbida]

[Joe Mantaratz] “That’s great but a bit too late once you have opened the package. Not to mention they could be a mix”

I beg to differ as a reputable store will take care of you.
A co-worker recently bought a spindle of Verbatims from the local Staples store.
After a few failures, he ran DVD Identifier and discovered that they weren’t what they claimed.
He took the remainder back to Staples (a receipt is a big help here), explained the situation and got a full refund.

[Joe Mantaratz]

Really that is good news Mike… My point was really aimed at the by the time you have opened gone home burned, checked it is late. There is no way to avoid that step all together to be sure. Could you imagine Mike running a check on 500 discs then finding some different ones and going back to the store to start all over again? Boy is that not a fun idea. If I have a large order I send it out but if I have time I will save the money and do it myself. Thanks Mike for the tip…should actually address this with the company and ask for remuneration and more.