View Full Version : DVDA4 and DVD Recorder Compatibility


David Jasany
December 20th, 2006, 06:59 AM
Several months ago people were having problems with some DVD recorders playing DVDs burned by DVD Architect.

Is this still the case? What brand recorders work OK? Which do not? I need the DVD recorder to play DVD-R disks.

Thanks.

David Jasany
December 21st, 2006, 05:53 AM
With no replies does it mean nobody is playing their DVDA burned DVDs on DVD set top recorders? Or is it that nobody is seeing problems?

Thanks.

Douglas Spotted Eagle
December 21st, 2006, 08:43 AM
The problem you spoke of in the first para of your post was an exceptionally rare problem and required a couple of components to be an issue.

I dont' know of many that are having any burn issues, we burn 5-100 DVDs from DVD Architect a day for rushes and distribution, and haven't experience any problems.
That said, we use off the shelf burners (many are from Walmart/CompUSA/Target because they're close) and we use either TY media, or white printables from Maxell or whomever else has them cheap when we run out from our primary bulk supplier of blanks.

David Jasany
December 21st, 2006, 08:59 AM
Thanks DSE. I'm happy to hear that whatever problem existed in the past with playing on DVD recorders is resolved. So maybe now I'll buy a DVD player/recorder. Of course I could wait for recordable BlueRay/HD DVD recorders...

Douglas Spotted Eagle
December 21st, 2006, 09:07 AM
I dont' know that it's entirely "resolved." You'll *always* find some media incompatibility from duplication on a desktop, that are not compatible with certain set top DVD players. That's expected. It's always been that way with CD's, too.
If you've waited all these years to own a DVD burner/recorder, I'd say "Jump on in, the water is fine" as it has been for several years now.

Jason Robinson
December 21st, 2006, 06:34 PM
My most recent client complained that she couldn't make a copy of the DVD (I allow that for my clients because it saves me hassle and provides negligible income). It was not encrypted and burned with DVDA as all of mine are (I never use a DVD copy program when I can just burn straight from the DVDA project). I tried (and succeeded using an image file) but direct "copy this DVD" didn't work. Hopefully my instructions worked for her (no feedback yet).

My only problems have been with burns done a greater than 2x. Some players just don't read them. Stick with 2x and they have the best chance of working.

jason

Dave Stern
December 22nd, 2006, 12:30 PM
I'd be surprised if a dvd recorder could not play a disk burned by dvda, e.g. that dvda authored a disk of some odd structure that the recorder could not play.

I did have one issue about 2 years ago with my sony dvd recorder (rdr-gx7..a few years old), where it literally choked and died on a disk, which I think I authored with dvda and burned in a sony burner (I used nero recode to burn it.. no idea why).

I had to send the whole thing to sony to even eject the disk and get the recorder out of it's endless loop and back to working state. they claimed to have done an internal mechanical adjustment ('contstant data input/output mechanical adjustment). I think their note back was something to the effect of whatever you did, don't do that again.

I suspect it was either a media issue or some rare combination of factors which has never repeated itself (dvda version 2.0!) I was using some generic disks, probaly some I bought as scrap or test disks. Although I bought from a reputable dealer, I think the ones I had came to be called the 'fake sony' disks (media code 'SONY' but I don't think they were). Needless to say, it was the last time I bought those.

That this is (was) a higher-end sony recorder (/player), may be part of the issue in that I think the sony's are a little more picky, and that other brands may be more forgiving of both media and other spec issues.

Bottom line..if you buy decent mainline media and use something known to be able to author disks in spec, I would not think that a problem would arise.

Hope this helps!

Raimo Repo
December 22nd, 2006, 01:41 PM
DVDA authored DVDs do not play in all recorders or DVD players and this has been a known issue and discussed in the SONY DVDA forum. On that forum, SONY reps said that a post would be issued when this "problem" was resolved. What I have found is that burning in DVD-R media will play in most units and simply burning the disc in DVD+R media plays in the rest of the units. No other changes were made to the burning process. So far, this has worked for me.

Dave Stern
January 3rd, 2007, 09:31 PM
DVDA authored DVDs do not play in all recorders or DVD players and this has been a known issue and discussed in the SONY DVDA forum. On that forum, SONY reps said that a post would be issued when this "problem" was resolved. What I have found is that burning in DVD-R media will play in most units and simply burning the disc in DVD+R media plays in the rest of the units. No other changes were made to the burning process. So far, this has worked for me.

hm.. well, I was surprised to hear about that. I did some searching on the DVDA sony forum and did find the related post:

http://www.sonymediasoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=4&MessageID=500341

The most specific info on there says its related to an unreferenced audio stream that DVDA creates which some newer players can't deal with, but that running the prepared files through PGC Edit (as in program group chain I suppose, google the tool it's free) will fix it. Not sure how that would be related to the type of media.

To be honest, given all the work that's gone into other sony products I'd be surprised if they let DVDA produce an out of spec disk (and even when vegas was owned by sonic foundry, it was very solid)..but who knows, maybe it's not a spec issue but something different or maybe how those references are done are not part of the spec (?)..hard to say without hearing from Sony on it..

but, in any case, glad you mentioned the posts so maybe this will help someone else at some point.

Declan Smith
February 15th, 2007, 05:59 PM
This is a problem I have had for a long while (1 year to be precise), and using PGCedit has totally fixed the issue I was having (see http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=61126)

Sony closed my case with no resolution. That's good service to loyal customers!

Anyway Thanks guys for your help.