is my film too short for dvd player to read?
 

I've just burned a dvd of a 4 minute film without a menu. It won't play in my neighbor's dvd player, but plays in my computer fine. Trying to troubleshoot the problem. I seem to recall something about dvd players not being able to read really short films on the disk. Is this true, and if so what can I do about it? Also my burner is 8x, should I try to burn at slower speed, if so how do I do that? Anything else I should think about? Thanks!

Using Maxell dvd-r, which according to videohelp is compatible with a Pioneer dv250 player. Vegas and DVD Architect.

Also... I burned the dvd using recommended standard settings, like 6,000,000 cbr.

Maybe the DVD player does not like DVD-Rs. See if you can bit set the disc to DVD-ROM (to make it appear like a pressed disc).

It could be a number of things.

1. I've heard that sometimes DVD players don't like DVDs without menus. You could try adding a menu.

2. Yes, you could try burning at a slower speed.

3. It could be the DVD you used. You could try a different brand/format.

4. As you mentioned, some DVD players don't like DVDs that don't have enough content on them. Some DVD authoring/burning software can add filler to the disk so that the DVD will play.

5. Or who knows, it could be something else...

As the last Chris said already it could be a number of things. For your question I think his point #4 is the trouble shooting tip. Just add time to it in any form.
Many DVD players are finicky. Have you tried it in other players besides your computer and your friends player? Some media work better in some players than others. Have you played other dvds you burned in your friends player before? The more specific you are the more specific this community can answer you.

You might see if the DVD player in question is on this list:

http://www.customflix.com/Customer/Compatibility.jsp

Thanks for the responses. This is the 1st dvd I've burned... ever. So with that in mind....

As I said, according to videohelp, this particular player should have no problem with dvd-r. I realize that's no guarantee, but I suspect the problem is something else.

So just add some black after the credits to lengthen it? Any idea how much extra time I need? Like what's the minimum length that should work, if anyone has experience with this? I mean, sure I could add an hour, but then I'm looking at hours of rendering for a 4 minute movie.

Meanwhile, I'll try some of the other suggestions as well.... THANKS!

For highest compatibility you need at least 1 GB of data on the DVD. I don't know if matters what kind of data it is.

what brand of burner did you use? is the dvd-r made-in-japan maxell? there is a lot of phony maxell out there right now.

are there both audio and video directories at the root of the disc? that can be an issue for some players.

Did you use Nero to create the disc? Nero has a bug with files under 8 minutes. It will burn the lead-out across the whole disc and not stop.

Having had problems like this before, for really shorts, I had other footage. You could put a hard return before it and not have it linked on the menu if your software allows.

I frequently use Nero to burn 5 min DVD and when it has finished to burn the files it spends some time doing something about high-compatibility borders.

An upgrade of your software could solve the problem maybe ?

This is something we should know about... has it been resolved yet? I am using version 6.6.

Nope. Fragged one this week. Actually have to power off the computer to regain control of the drive. The disc will still play in my settop, but I will not even guess that it is compatible. I only use Nero writing an ISO to -R media on a Pioneer 107.

Reading my message again, it seems I forgot to say that my DVDs play well anywhere as I give the DVDs to clients and none have complained.

I just checked and my Nero is 6.3. So I am not up to date myself ! ;)

Okay, here's where I'm at. Burned another disk with a menu and 30 min of black at the end, over 1 gig of data, and it still won't play in my neighbor's pioneer. But I took this dvd to the store and tried it in several other players, and it played fine in all of them. I'm trying to burn another one at 2x instead of 8x, see if that one plays in the pioneer player.

BUT NOW I"VE GOT ANOTHER PROBLEM!

Using DVD Architect, when preparing to burn I now get this error:

"there is not enough space in the temporary file folder for preparing the dvd"

What is this talking about? The prepare folder, or some other temp folder that DVD architect uses? There is plenty of room on my hard drive, I tried putting a prepare folder in D which has 3.5 gigs free, and then in F which has 80 gigs. C has about 3 gigs free space, fwiw. These are partioned on one drive, btw. I also did a search for temp folders on my computer, and didn't find any with huge amounts of data to delete. So I'm baffled as to what's going on here. My project size is now 1.9 gig, since I also rendered to higher quality, 8,000,000 cbr.

Also, related to using Vegas, when I rendered this one, I ended up with a .mv2 file instead of mpg. What's the difference? Or maybe this is a question for the Vegas board, but I mention it here in case it has relevance to my other problem.