My kingdom for working DVDs!
 

Last year I recorded a high school play, delivered 40 DVDs... and everything was OK.
This year... not so much.

I put the play on a dual layer disc rather than split it up on to two (saves $, less ink and more convenient having 1 disc). I also shot it in 24p rather than 60i like I did last year.

Now I am getting reports that there are nothing but problems with the discs. Of course at my house, they all played fine. Of the 40 I delivered, only one student said her DVD was fine. So here I sit with 39 returned discs, going thru them and trying to figure out if the discs are defective. While going thru them, ONE of them froze up... so I just rewound/reversed it 3 seconds, played it, and it played fine. Very minor inconvenience.

So... what to do? I can't imagine that ALL the discs are defective considering they played fine on my player. But for 39 of them to be reporting problems? What gives?!

I shoot school plays as well and have never gone the dual layer route. Two things about going DL.

You talk about saving $, but isn't DL media more than 2X the cost of SL media? So you may have saved some time burning the copies (though maybe not - still may take the same amount of time to burn one DL vs. two SL).

How long was the play? I can get 150 minutes onto a single layer disk using Compressor. Plays don't make very heavy demands on MPEG encoding so I don't see any problem with image quality.


Mike.

My reasoning for going dual layer was to avoid printing lgraphics on two discs rather than one. I can't create a cool looking case, but I have an AWESOME printer and the quality is awesome. But the price and consumption of ink is a killer. That's one reason I went with dual layer.

The other was for convenience... just to have to keep up with one disc rather than two.

If the issue with the discs not playing is because they're dual layer, then I'm game on going back to a single layer disc. I just want to make sure that's the issue.

Is there the slightest possibility that these latest DVDs are all 24p as opposed to 60i like they were in the past? Last year there were no issues...

Don't see how 24p could have any effect. No matter what the source, it all ends up as MPEG2.

But it sounds like you are going to test that assertion since you are going to have to provide a pair of single layer disks (based on your 24p source) to your clients after all.


Mike.

I was figuring since it was all MPEG-2 that 24p, 30p or 60i it wouldn't make a difference. MPEG-2 is MPEG-2.

She'd like to try putting it all on two discs... so rather than 40 discs we'll have 80 total.

And she said she'd buy them.

I told her I was going to head to HHGregg to try another player as well.

The way I see it, if it were a disc malfunction, I'd gladly replace the discs. But the discs DO PLAY. However, they aren't playing on everyone else's DVD players. Of the 40 discs, only one or two aren't having issues.

I avoid DL at all costs. In fact, because of the bad experiences I've read here, I've never even tried burning DL disks. I find that my disks are more compatible if I burn them at 1/2 the speed they're rated for. For example, I burn 16x disks at 8x, and 8x disks at 4x.

After two years and thousands of disks, I've never had one complaint.

Check the packaging...

Are you using Dual Layer, or Double Layer?

DOUBLE layer... just checked.

Am I about to start posting on 'F My Life?'

If you're using a dedicated authouring system, and Verbatim Double Layer discs, the playback issues should be at a minimum..
Of course, the biggest issue would be with layer break, but other than that, i would guess your authouring/burning method would be the cuplrit...

You've got waaaay too many bad returns to blame the set top players for disc failures.

Use single layer Sony or TDK DVD+Rs and burn them at half speed with Bit Setting.

Keep your kingdom.

DL discs are much more sensitive than single layer. We have burned many dual layer projects and have had zero complaints using our method.

First of all, you must be using Verbatim 2.4X DL discs. They have proven to be MUCH more compatible than any other brand of DL media.

Second, only burn at 2.4X, regardless of what the media or burner supports. Dual Layer is extremely sensitive to errors on the disc and will skip if burned too fast.

Third, change the booktype of the disc to DVD-ROM using the bitsetting. This can be done using software that either comes with your burner or software that was designed to be used with your burner. For example, Plextor drives come with the Plextools software which allows you to change this. So regardless of which program you use to burn the disc, it will automatically change the booktype on the disc.

What the booktype setting does is tell the dvd player what type of disc it is. Some players are capable of reading burned dual layer media, but the manufacturer of the player didn't implement the support so that when it reads the disc, and the disc tells the player it is burned dual/double layer media, it just rejects it or has issues. If you force the disc to tell the player it is a DVD-ROM disc, it can avoid these problems.

So using the three suggestions I gave above, you should be able to create a DL disc that is compatible with just about all of your viewers. There of course are still very old dvd players that refuse to play burned media at all... those you can do nothing about. But skipping problems with your disc is a result of not following the suggestions I gave.

Thanks Jon! I'll follow your suggestions before pulling the plug on DL discs!