Hi,

Made a DVD using Vegas 4.0c and DVD Architect 1.0c. The DVD contains 3 film clips ( about 10 minutes each ). And three slideshows ( I imported a bunch of pictures on the timeline in vegas, added a default transition and a soundtrack, rendered as MPEG 2 dvd/pal ).

DVD burner is an updated(new bios) Pioneer A04 DVD-R.

On my home(standalone) DVD player ( a four years old Pioneer ) I can watch all videoclips OK, but the slideshows "stutters" and hangs ( even though they are just videoclips as well... )

On my brothers internal PC DVD player(realmagic cinema), only 2 video clips works, If we try yo play the rest, the computer freezes.

When I produced the MPEG files I used the DVD Arch profiles from Vegas when I genereated the MPEG files. DA didn't complain on the files ( ie no re-compressing reported ).

Just curious, is this kind of problems common? Should I get a better(?) burner? I will replace my old home DVD with a KISS DVD player(that does MPEG2/DivX and Webradio) ...but even though the discs my work at my home, I'd like them to work everywhere possible.

Best Regards,

Lazze

Sweden

I suggest trying different types of media. DVD-Rs are very iffy on all players. Some say DVD+Rs are better, but truth is all recordable DVD media have issues with different players. It's unlikely that it's a problem with your burner or software.

Old link but still covers the pitfalls of recordable media:

http://www.dv.com/features/features_item.jhtml?category=Archive&LookupId=/xml/feature/2002/labarge0702

Jake

Hi,

I've used a Pioneer A04 to burn over a dozen original DVDs with Pinnacle Studio8.5.21 and replicate them to perhaps 150? total copies. Although individual DVD-R units have issues, this model is proven. Have you checked your IDE configuration? My A04 dislikes sharing its IDE bus/channel with any other device, slave or not.

Are you using DVD-R or RW ?

"....and replicate them to perhaps 150? total copies."

Duplicate not replicate. Big difference.

Jake

The words are nearly identical unless a cellular biologist is involved.

From MSN dictionary:

-----------------------------------
du·pli·cate

transitive verb (past du·pli·cat·ed, past participle du·pli·cat·ed, present participle du·pli·cat·ing, 3rd person present singular du·pli·cates)

1. copy something: to make an exact copy of something


2. repeat something: to do something more than once, especially unknowingly or unnecessarily

-----------------------------
rep·li·cate

verb (past rep·li·cat·ed, past participle rep·li·cat·ed, present participle rep·li·cat·ing, 3rd person present singular rep·li·cates)

1. transitive verb do something again: to do something again or copy something


2. intransitive verb be done again: to undergo a repetition or reproduction


3. transitive verb biology copy cellular or genetic material: to reproduce exactly an organism, genetic material, or a cell

Ok dont say I didn't try and help you or someone else. If you replicate a disc it is totally different to duplicating it.

A replication facility will use the DLT to cut a glass master and make stamping masters.(Some replicators first verify the DLT formatting and check for spec compliance) The replicator will send you check discs made from the master, some may charge for this. Once you approve the check disc then they will carry on with the run.

Duplication is basically writing the info to disc like from a home burner as oppose to stamping. You can get duplication towers that can write several discs at once. But will have all the downsides of recordable media as you would expect.

Replication has many advantages over recordable media which I wont go into now, maybe others will. But if you replicate from DLT you can get away with higher bitrates, get higher compatibility and can have things like copy protection on the disc.

There is quite a bit to this topic but I hope things are a touch clearer, dvdland has it's own dictionary I'll find a link,

Jake

Lars, I have had great results with low level DVD authoring software and a Pioneer 103 burner, except when using paper labels or 4X media, bought in error. I think the main culprit in poor performance is data rates that are too high. Hollywood can go above 9 Mbps but burned disks should stay around 6-7 for best compatibility. I don't know the Vegas bundle so I can't tell you where to set your data rate but I'd be surprised if you couldn't. I also don't work in PAL, where the DVD spec allows MPEG2 audio, which it doesn't in NTSC - although I've read that some players will handle it. You mention using profiles to write your MPEG2 files. Is it possible that some were built at higher data rates than others? This might explain why some play more reliably.

David Hurdon

Hi,

Thanks all your your valuable input!

I believe my pitfall is to high datarates. The files are between 8 and 9 mb/sec.

Will re-compress the media and burn a new DVD.

Replicate and duplicate -> Maybe the follow up to the film "The sixth day"( don't really know the english title... you know the A scharwarzneger movie )

Best regards,

Lazze

Yep the 6th day.

It usually is bitrate, brand or just the fact that dvd-r isn't supported by the player being tested. Hope everything gets sorted out,

Good luck,

Jake

The max datarate is 9.8 mbps. That is the absolute maximum
(if you want to stay compliant). BUT, in my experience a lot of
older and or cheaper players have trouble with very high bitrates.

Also keep in mind that this is the TOTAL bitrate. So that includes
video, audio, subtitles etc. Personally I wouldn't go over 8 mbps
to stay safe....

Not quite. Total is 10.08 Mbps.

Thats why its great to be able to encode 2-pass VBR as you can set the min, max and avg bitrate. Also another bandwidth saver is using dolby streams instead of PCM audio.

Yep keep the avg bitrate down but if you've got VBR then you should be able to encode movement and other things at higher bitrates as long as it doesn't peak for too long/high you should be ok, especially if you have AC-3 audio.

Jake

Indeed, I typed the number a bit too fast. The video can be a
max of 9.8 mbps. Total max is 10.08.... My bad.

LOL :) I replied a bit too fast my bad,

Jake

Jake,

Thanks for the industry buzzword rundown. I'll be sure to differentiate between the two words when I make a video product.

Hi,

Re-compressed my avi-files to Mpeg2 -> using PCM ( wave ) sound.

Lowered the bitrate to 7.5mb

Burnt to a 3M DVD-RW media

Everything works like a charm on all DVD players.

Once again, thanks for your input!

// Lazze

Lars,

So do you think the solution was the lower video bitrate or
using PCM sound? MPEG audio, as mentioned before, isn't standard. Some players, particularly older Sony PS2's, are
picky about the MPEG audio bitrate. Since I've had the DVD space, I've used PCM audio for all of my disks, and so far,
not one of my friend's DVD players have refused my DVD-Rs.

Hi Gints,

My guess - and that is purely a guess, is that using PCM sound was the mayor problem.

Doing a bitrate analysis of my previous produced video MPEG2 files showed that the bitrate stayed around 5mb...with just a few "tops".

What surprised me the most was that my old home Pioneer dvd player could handle a -RW media, a very positive surprise I might add!

// Lazze