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Unreliable DVD’s
I’m at my wits end with burnable DVD’s. I’ve been through numerous internal DVD burners, a Lacie external burner, and an external Memorex burner. Regardless of the burner or brand of blanks that I use, the DVD’s I create are notoriously unreliable when I give them to clients.
Given the variety of burners, brand of media, and burning speeds I’ve tried with no discernible difference in results, I’m starting to wonder if DVDA2 could be part of the problem. Anybody know if DVDA2 is known to have flaws that would result in unreliable DVD’s? Is that even a possibility?
For what it’s worth, the best workflow I’ve found is to prepare in DVDA2, and then burn with Nero. That is the best procedure I’ve found, but it still results in unacceptable numbers of unreliable DVD’s.
I know that burned DVD’s are harder to play than pressed DVD’s, but surely the burnable DVD format must be working OK for somebody. If everybody’s experience was like mine, the format would have died years ago.
Any ideas? Please tell me DVDA2 is the problem!!!
Thanks.
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13 Replies
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The weakest link is the media. Have you tried a high end brand like Tayo Yuden?
Gary Kleiner
Learn Vegas and DVD Architect
http://www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com
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I haven’t tried (or heard of) Tayo Yuden blanks, but I’ll search some out and give them a try.
For what it’s worth, the best I’ve used so far (still problematic, but less so) have been Memorex ink-jet printable DVD-R’s. These have proven to be far superior to HP and Maxell DVD-R’s I’ve used, but in the last couple weeks I’ve had two clients who couldn’t even play the Memorex DVD-R’s.
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I agree with Gary on this. Any time I’ve seen a bad DVD, it’s almost always because it’s cheap no-name media. Stick with a good name brand like Tayo and you’ll be OK.
BTW, I never burn at the maximum speed. If it’s 8X media, I’ll only burn at 4X. I’ve been doing this for 4 years now and haven’t had one disc returned because it was defective. -
Alright, I’m ordering a stack of printable Taiyo-Yuden premium line 8X DVD-R’s as we speak.
Thanks for the tips!
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Also, watch you don’t encode the bitrate too high regardless if there is plenty of room on the disk or not.
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You mentioned a couple of clients who could not even play the DVD. What were they using to play your dvd? There’s a known issue with all versions of DVD Architect (through DVDA 4a) with an invalid reference to an audio stream in the DVD IFO files.
Some DVD Recorder/Players cannot play these discs until you clean up that invalid reference (suggested workaround is PGCedit). It appears most players will still play the dvd, it’s just certain brands/models refuse to play them (LG DVD Recorder/Players often get mentioned as not being able to play them until the invalid audio reference is fixed).
Regards,
George -
I should have mentioned that the issue is with versions of DVDA through 4.0a (both Studio and Full versions).
I’ve read on the Sony Forums that Sony is aware of the issue, and will be issuing a patch for DVDA 4 (not sure about earlier versions of DVDA).
Regards,
George -
I’d like to echo two points made in these responses…
1) don’t burn at anywhere near highest speed. I use Taiyo Yuden 8x DVDs that are encoded to allow me to burn at 12x – I burn at the *minimum* speed, which is 4x for these discs.
2) Don’t allow high bit rates. When the program is shorter than say 90 mins, it seems logical to increase the bitrate to fill the disc as much as possible. I now keep it below 6000kb/s no matter what. What prompted me to check this out was after playing a short-duration DVD I’d burned on a customer’s DVD player and seeing it pixelate. Their player has an analogue bitrate meter built in, and that triggered the thought in my mind. I re-rendered the program with a lower bit rate, and the resulting (half-empty) disc played perfectly.
I’m currently using Ulead DVD Workshop for DVD authoring/burning, but have DVD-A sitting on my desk waiting to install. So I can’t comment on possible bugs in DVD-A.
I used to burn at 8x, and was getting returns (e.g., 3 out of 135; 3 out of 103). The last two projects I’ve done were burned at 4x with a limited bitrate, and so far I’ve got zero returns out of a 37 disc run and a 42 disc run. Early days I agree, but the signs are good…
Having changed burners, shut everything else down on my computer, tried Riteks, Maxells and now Taiyo Yudens, I believe that the burn speed and bit rate were the causes of my woes.
Hope this helps.
Reg -
I am still using the cheap ProDisc inkjet printable discs. I have used well over 1000 of them and only had maybe a dozen or so bad, and they were all out of one single spindle. Plus I caught the defective ones before they ever left the studio. And I agree with the burn speed. I always burn mine at the minimum speed, I burn at 2X if allowed…depending on which burner I’m using.
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[Ted Snow] “Plus I caught the defective ones before they ever left the studio.”
Ted,
How did you do that, watch each of the 1000?
Gary Kleiner
Learn Vegas and DVD Architect
http://www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com
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