[Don Kimball]

Guys thank you so much for the tips. I shot an info mercial at an auto body paint shop, with no clip on mikes and limited resources. You can imagine how crazy the sound was there for sure. If you are interested here is my first rough draft of the production. This is before employing any of your helpful suggestions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKsgo7v38sk

Cheers!

Don

http://www.polytelismedia.wordpress.com

[Don Kimball]

Thank you John. I am thinking that I added service pack 3 and with it a new windows media player with new restrictions that do not allow DVD’s to play like the former software I had been using. I have remedied the issue by downloading a media player called VLC which seems to be adequate at this point. Many thanks for the reply!

Don

http://www.polytelismedia.wordpress.com

[Don Kimball]

Hi Nigel et al

Many thanks.

I went ahead and ordered this LG burner from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/LG-Electronics-GH22NP20-SecurDisc-Internal/dp/B001TOD5CQ/ref=pd_ecc_rvi_cart_1

I am hoping it will allow me to safely burn DVD’s reliably up to 8x.
I wouldnt want to burn faster as per the advise I have received here.

Interestingly enough the company I buy my DVD’s from, have my old Pioneer Burner (brand new and never used) for sale on ebay.

https://cgi.ebay.com/Pioneer-DVR-106D-DVD-R-RW-Writer_W0QQitemZ330519353047QQcategoryZ51065QQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp5197.m7QQ_trkparmsZalgo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D5%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D6555496674042436153#ht_877wt_932

Its been such a great burner its tempting to send the new LG back and order this one. However I am going with the thought that if I can reliably burn with the new LG quicker then it would be wiser to keep the LG. vs the stable work horse of the old model. Your thoughts are welcome on this one and of course once again I am very thankful for your time and fantastic advise.

Don

http://www.polytelismedia.wordpress.com

[Don Kimball]

Steve, Nigel:

Thanks for taking time out to offer your suggestions. I know most folks are busy with projects so your time is very appreciated. Here is my decision at this point based on the evidence I have gathered.
Given the burners age and potential wear (probably burned at least 1000 DVD’s over 7 years). I will move to purchase and install a new one. Having said so any suggestions? I will be looking for a simple work horse burner (Pioneer has been good to me for example) with no frills. One that will burn crisp video and quickly.

Thanks again!
Don

http://www.polytelismedia.wordpress.com

[Don Kimball]

Hi Steve:

These are excellent suggestions. I went into DVD Arch just to take note of the speed that I have been burning the DVD’s in question.
My burner is identified as Pioneer DVD-RW 106D 1.00
The default speed is 24.0.

I am certainly perfectly willing to drop the speed down to 4x. I did have a couple of concerns though. I have never to my knowledge changed the speed that I have been burning DVD’s since I have owned the computer over the last 7 years. The number of failed DVD’s I could count on one hand. So it leads me to think that there may be another issue.

To my embarassment I have never used a cleaner or had any maintenance done on this faithful pioneer burner over the 7 years I have owned it. Could it be that the DVD burner needs to be cleaned or needs maintenance? Also I know that to burn successfully you need a considerable amount of space on the drive. I am using an external drive with 17.5 Gig free space. Each DVD is about 3.5 Gig.

Any further wisdom on this one? I appreciate your kind suggestions.

Don

http://www.polytelismedia.wordpress.com

[Don Kimball]

Thats Awesome news Danny! Many many thanks!

Don

http://www.polytelismedia.wordpress.com

[Don Kimball]

Andrew

Such a simple thing but when you don’t know how to access it the job seems huge. With your kind and helpful tip I was able to create some really nice looking text I think. My whole hearted thanks and what would I ever do without CREATIVE COW!

http://www.polytelismedia.wordpress.com

[Don Kimball]

John:

A belated thanks for your suggestions. My favorite that you created was the vignetted look. However I wasnt sure it would quite fit what I wanted so I did a bit of experimenting based on some ideas I gleaned from watching a DVD created by another company.

What I chose to do was embed an animated preview complete with sound in the menu. I also changed the background color. Taking your advise I made 2 Menu’s and that allowed me to increase the font size making it easier to read. I am experimenting with two background colors. A more lead gray and more of a purple. Any comments or feedback which is best would be appreciated by any folks. Or any comments at all for that matter.

I hope to market this DVD soon.

Cheers!

Don Kimball
Polytelis Media

http://www.polytelismedia.wordpress.com

[Don Kimball]

Hi Mike:

Actually I had the proper region selected but the culprit turned out to be that Vegas in .mov render would not render/save to my external drive where I was trying to point the render. I have done this dozens of times with .avi files and there has never been an issue rendering to an external drive. .Mov files apparently are a bit more finicky so I simply rendered/saved the file to my hard drive and there was no problem creating a .mov file.

Now I have a new problem. When I use quicktime player the file shows up fine but plays haltingly. Stopping every few seconds and halting, then continuing until the whole file is finally finished.

It acts like a memory problem but then even much much larger .avi files play without an issue. It seems to be an exlusive problem with this .mov file and or quicktime player. Any suggestions?

Don

http://www.polytelismedia.wordpress.com

[Don Kimball]

I seem to be getting conflicting opinions.

1. No problem importing .avi files to final cut pro as long as they are small files in order to deal with fat32 issue.

2. No you cannot do that without a intermediate software that is designed especially to convert the .avi files to .mov.

Okay what is really the truth here. I would think this would be a common issue especially for those with Vegas wanting to share their video with MAC users.

Thanks

Don

http://www.polytelismedia.wordpress.com