Hey guy's,
I got a good opportunity to get a some videography buisiness at a large sports facility. Basically taping games and selling DVD's to anyone that wants copies. This could be upwards of 15 to 20 per DVD image.

Recently I realised that my DVD burner stinks and is terrible at producing consistent quality (very jittery with random stops and starts).

I am not sure if this is a problem with the burner or the image is being rendered bad? I use pinnacle which is a cheap software and on a PC that is over the minimum spec requirments...but not by much. Because my hard drive is maxed I use and extrenal 500gig attached by firewire.

I need something that I can depend on be pretty fast etc. I want to stay fairly in expensive but I also know that I get what I pay for in most cases.

I am looking into a new PC and Editing software but I am thinking that can come later if I get the correct equipment to dub the DVD's.

Your suggestions/comments please.

There's a lot of things that could be causing the problem...

What kind of burner is it? (what speed are you burning at?)
What kind of blank disc's are you using?

You say your PC is just over min specs....how old/slow is it?

Have you checked your PC to make sure no other programs/spyware/other crap is running in the background?

I've recently come to the conclusion that there are a lot of finicky DVD burners out there. The burners on both my laptops have effectively packed up after one and two years of light use.

Two recommendations might help. First, get a new external burner. I just bought a 16x Sony USB unit that screams and has burned about 20 disks in the last few days without a single coaster. The 16x speed will also help you get your products completed more quickly than older, slower units.

Second, if you have the facility within your software, rather than burn to DVD disk try burning to DVD folders or DVD image. This way you'll be able to play the DVD files to see if they are OK or if you're having problems rendering your files out of the nle. If they play without problems from your hard drive, then your DVD is probably the culprit.

Hope that helps.

Can I play a DVD image before burning it? I had assumed that I could not?

You can use software such as http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/announcements.php

This allows for a virtual DVD Rom to mount and test the images with your regular DVD Viewing software.

Another option is VLC media player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/), which can open and play DVD image files directly.

Another option would be to get a stand-alone DVD recorder...as long as you don't need to do any editing.