Need help on DVD setup

[Rob Neidig]

Hey, I feel your pain. I’ve been at DVD now for almost 8 years and compatibility problems are still very frustrating.

There are a number of things that can cause discs to not play in various players. Cheap media is one of them, but the Verbatims you mention I believe should be fine. I have heard some good, and some bad things about burning with Toast. I’ll let others who have more experience with that software chime in there. I will ask, though, if you make sure you have both a VIDEO_TS and an AUDIO_TS folder that you burn? Even though the AUDIO_TS folder is empty in a a DVD-Video title, some earlier DVD players experienced playback problems when they did not find an AUDIO_TS folder present. Of course there are a number of things that can go wrong in authoring. I’m just assuming that everything there is done correctly. How about your bit rate? Bit rates above 6.5 or 7 mbs can cause playback issues on some laptops, particularly older ones. And some real cheap DVD set top boxes just never have played DVD-Rs very well (again especially older ones). And finally, the burner. That very well may be a problem. There are lots of cheap burners out there these days. And while it’s not necessary to have one that costs $16,000 like the first DVD burner I used, I still think Pioneer makes the best burners (they started the whole burner thing after all). You might check into their products – either the 108 or 109 I think is the current version.

Hope this helps. Have fun!

Rob

Rob Neidig
R&R Media Producttions
Eugene, Oregon

[Tc]

Thanks a lot drumrob. I do use both the audio and video ts folders when using Toast. I have found that Toast is a little more reliable than burning straight from DVDSP. I do try to keep the bitrates at a maximum of 7. I do know that older players just can’t handle the DVD-R’s, but my main concern is the laptop issues. The Mac laptops can normally play them back using VLC, but when they just use Mac DVD player it causes a lot of artifacts and playback problems. It just doesn’t seem professional to say “make sure you use VLC when playing back.”

I’m going to look into those burners you suggested…I really hope that is all it is, but I am just wondering (not looking an inexpensive gift horse in the mouth) but are they more a prosumer burner or do post houses use them?

Thanks a lot for replying to this drumrob and I must seem like the dumbest actual “dvd author” ever, but I’m just trying to keep this gig and all of your help is really appreciated. I’m glad I stumbled across this site.

todd

[Llll–kia]

Hi Todd

I don’t know if this is relevant but footage that has been shot on video (interlaced) always looks fine on a TV but on computer monitors can look a bit jagged when there is motion in the shot. This is to do with the refresh rate of your computer screen, the fact is that you are actually playing back 50FPS in PAL or 60FPS in NTSC because there are two fields to refresh for each frame. As I understand it the computer monitor refreshes slightly faster than the footage and causes a coming effect on the picture. If you look at an encoded video that has originated from a progressive scan source i.e. film or HD you will find it plays back much smother. I don’t know the exact technicalities of this but I think because each refresh of the interlaced fields are derived from the same frame but split into two somehow it does cause the same lagging/coming effect. Sorry if my explanation is a little unclear maybe someone else could explain it better

[Cathy Gurvis]

I am a bit green with DVD Studio Pro. I have attempted to burn a disc a few times and I keep getting the following: “the disc you inserted cannot be used for burning. Please insert acceptable DVD recordable media.” I am using a DVD+R….

Any suggestions?

thanks.