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New to Encore, weird DVD problem
I’m having problems with a DVD authored in Encore and then replicated (by Discmakers). Hoping someone here can help.
This is not my first DVD, but it’s my first built from Encore. I’m also new to replication, which is why I went with Discmakers.
I burned the disc from Encore, then tested it on several computers and my old DVD player. Everything worked fine, so I sent it off for replication. After getting the discs back, I pulled one as a sample and tested it. It works fine for me.
Nevertheless, now that I’m distributing them, at least one person who has received a copy is having navigation problems.
The DVD has seven chapters, each of which is its own timeline within Encore (an m2v and ac3). The disc’s properties are:
— First Play is set to the main menu
— Override is not set
— Title Button is set to the main menu
— Main Timeline is not setThe main menu has a button which invokes the “play all” playlist, containing all the chapter timelines.
It also has a button for a submenu, allowing the user to pick a specific chapter timeline. Each chapter’s timeline has the next chapter’s timeline as its end action.
Now that I’m starting to distribute the DVDs, I’ve heard back from 5 people who have watched it. Four people commended me on its quality, the fifth commented that the content was good but the disc does not start at the beginning.
For this viewer, most of the time the DVD starts on the fifth chapter. Occasionally it starts on the third chapter. The viewer had to press the ‘menu’ button on his remote control in order to get to the main menu and watch the entire disc.
The inconsistency about the starting chapter makes me wonder if this is a glitch rather than something I did wrong in authoring the DVD.
Also, when the DVD starts incorrectly on a chapter, after the chapter is finished the DVD turns itself off. Again this puzzles me, because each chapter timeline has the next chapter as its end action.
Questions:
1. Is the lack of a Main Timeline for the disk a problem?
2. Could the lack of an AUDIO_TS folder be causing this problem? (The viewer’s DVD player is 4-5 years old.) I authored directly to disc, and Encore didn’t create AUDIO_TS.
3. Is it possible to have a bad replicated disc? I had assumed replicated discs would have more consistent quality than duplicated — am I wrong?
Any other thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!
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4 Replies
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hi arthur,
your main problem is the first-play “menu”.it is necessary for replicated DVDs to have a track as firstplay (mostly a disclaimer or FBI-warning), to keep the resume-buffer of the DVD-player happy. otherwise the disc will do strange things like you have right now. the best position to have this track within VTS1, but as within you can´t organize your VTS you need to add this track as the real first track in your DVD-project.
just place 3-4sec. black picture with silence AC3 into it, and set it to first-play, afterwards you can jump to your menu.
the AUDIO_TS-folder is necessary for proper playback, so don´t care about it.
cheers
danny
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Thanks Danny!
Didn’t know that about the first-play track.
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Hi Arthur,
You mentioned testing your DVD on several computers – I would most definitely test on a set-top DVD player like most of your customers will use, in addition to computers.
Certain issues that may not show up in a computer software player or PS3 will show up on a standard set-top DVD player, so make a practice of testing away from the computer that you made the DVD on.
I also was unaware of any First-play requirement, but there may be some confusion about “replication” versus “duplication”. I believe replication involves a glass master, while duplication is just making copies.
Thanks
Jeff Pulera
Safe Harbor Computers -
Thanks Jeff.
I actually did test the DVD on a set-top player (mine) before getting it replicated. The DVD worked perfectly.
I was able to test my friend’s problematic DVD player yesterday. It apparently doesn’t work properly.
(I tested it with multiple commercial DVDs. It always ignores initial menus and goes straight to the first track it finds on the disc. It also automatically turns on the first subtitle track.)
Nevertheless, my DVD was faulty in that it didn’t ‘fail gracefully’ when the player wasn’t behaving correctly.
I’ll correct this in the next replication order. Meanwhile, I still have several hundred discs remaining from the first order, and I’m wondering how many other DVD players will act like this one did. Not many, I hope.
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