Hi,

Unusual problem. A wrote a +R DVD for a friend. On my machine it plays back fine, on their DVD player it plays to a point then stops (about 17 min into the DVD). The next time they played it they managed to go further. Once even they managed to get to play all the way through but are unable to repeat this with any certainty.

I checked out their DVD player on the net which claimed that it did no support +R but all the others. So I wrote a -R DVD which they are unable to read at all. They are able to play back other movies and DVD's.

Any thoughts?

Used TMGEnc's 2,5 plus encoder and their DVD authoring package with Verbatum media written by a Sony DSU510a.

Cheers
Andrew

Could be several things:

1) The media
2) The player's compatibility to +R
3) The bitrate
4) The program that burned the DVD

etc...

The media in combination with the (PC) player can be checked here http://www.cdspeed2000.com/go.php3?link=download.html
The problems you reported, like playing a limited (and variable) time. relate to micro resonances in the disc/player combination and sometimes limited track reflectivities.

I would rule out the authoring or burning program since it isn't
happening at the exact same spot everytime, which you would
expect if that were the problem.

My first suspect would definitely be the media, but since you
also tested with -R (which it should support) I'm starting to
think the DVD player may not be 100% OK. Bitrate might be
an issue, but normally an authoring application should not allow
you to go over the max bitrate. Personally I would not push a
recordable to the absolute maximum when bitrates are concerned,
but others have reported no problems in that area.

Yeah you should try a different brand of media for sure but remember that there are many many players out there still that don't support recordable media.

So if the player doesn't support it there isn't much you can do. Sounds to me like the buffer is having problems with the disc, which could be a recordable media thing or poss a bitrate thing. Is your audio PCM? or AC-3?

Jake

Have you tried DVD+RW (although one of the less compatible formats, sometimes can work where -R/+R failed).

Apart from that, 7000 max bit rate and AC3 audio are good practices.

Seems to me that you came across a DVD player that isn't happy about recordable DVDs. When that happens, most of the times using -R or +R won't make any diference. There is a solution, but very expensive (for a non professessional user): a Pionner S210 DVD recorder wich uses 3.95 GB Authoring DVD-R media, the most player compatible DVD recordable format.

Good luck and best regards.
Arnaldo

I know this is an old thread, but there is one other thing to consider. Do not use a label (although not mentioned) on a DVD either. It would have similar results, but this sounds more like a media issue. Apple and Maxell are the best, easily obtainable media. Maxell is sold at WalMart.