DVD Playback Question

[Aanarav Sareen]

[Wes] “What is the best way to burn multiple copies of a 2 hour DVD?”

Well, that could be your problem: 2 hours. Pixelation is usually caused due to extreme compression and sometimes the quality of the media. However, most freezing problems occur due to inferior media. Would you happen to know where you got your blanks from? A lot of retailers try to pass off the cheap stuff as TY and that causes quite a few problems.

The best solution would be to burn the footage on a DL disc, considering the duration of the project.

Burn speed, on the other hand has little or no effect on the quality of the disc. I can see no difference between a disc being burnt on my old Plextor 4x burner and in my new NEC burners @ 16x.

[Wes Kane]

I am not having pixelation problems with the video itself. The video looks good. It’s the video that freezes and breaks up when playing back in some of the DVD players. I am using TY from a local distributor, not a retail store. The are an authorized dealer and actually sell a wide array of media to the local news stations and agencies in town.

I am using a Pioneer A05 burner, burning at 4x.

What is an DL disc?

Thanks,

[Jeff Bellune]

Wes,

When you burn at higher speeds (8x, 16x, etc.), the laser and the media have to be in perfect synch or the data won’t get recorded correctly. If there are any glitches during the burn, most new DVD players (but not all) have really good error-correction circuitry that can get past the burn glitches. Older players can have a tough time with the glitches, as well as having difficulty with the new, high-speed media itself.

Remember, a burned disc is very different from a replicated disc. The commercial DVDs that you get at Best Buy have all been replicated, and will be compatible with every DVD player, new and old. Burned DVDs, on average, only have about an 85% – 90% compatibility rate with the installed base of existing DVD players.

I would burn 8x media no faster than 2x. My personal preference. I recommend 4x when using 16x media. I burn my older 4x media at 1x. Perhaps you detect a pattern here? 🙂

-Jeff

[Hector Melendez]

My experience haven’t say that.
I have burned more than 1,000 PRODISC with no problem at all. All burned in a duplication tower to maximun speed (8x)
The first 200 -300 were burned from a Panasonic E-20 master and lastly the master comes from a Encore 1.5 at 8x.
Inclusive I made 30 DVD’s duplication of 2:40min… YES! I wouldn’t belief if I were not made by myself. I used Ulead WorkShop for Encode this dream. The video looks good at that compression…

SO… check in Encore your settings. Look if the bitrates are between 6-8
(expand in project tap all the way to right) I set it to automatic encode. Check you don’t have more than one timeline. (Happened to me)

[Wes Kane]

Jeff,

Thanks for the info. I use 4x, so burning at 1x makes sense to insure playback. What is a good method on dubbing a larger amount of DVDs? Say under a 100. Are those towers good to dub multiple copies? And if so, is 1x the best burn speed to dub on them. I don’t want to wait around for 100 DVDs on a 90 minute video burning at 1x.

Thanks,

Wes

[Jeff Bellune]

Hi Wes,

For runs under a hundred, I use multiple burners and GEAR Pro Professional edition . For runs larger than that, I would bite the bullet and use GEAR Pro Mastering edition and send a DLT off to a replication facility.
-Jeff

[Jeff Bellune]

Sorry. I forgot to mention that I first create an .img file from my Encore project and then use GEAR to burn the image to multiple burners at the same time.

[Wes Kane]

Jeff,

Thanks for the input. I will look into the Gear Pro 7.0. What kind of burners/towers do you reccomend? (ie: Pioneer, Sony, Panasonic, etc)

Thanks,

Wes

[Jeff Bellune]

I would stick with the short list at the top of this document. It’s for Encore 1.5 but Adobe used it for their 2.0 compatibility list. I have used the Pioneer 106 and 107 and the NEC 1100 burners with no trouble. I now use the NEC 3520 DL burner in tandem with the others and it works well with both 1.5 and 2.0.

[Wes Kane]

Jeff,

Thanks for the input. I will be sure to use those at the top of the list. I take it you are involved in production? What do you do?

Thanks,

Wes