I allways sit out the complete dvd at the client to be sure it plays right, you did the right thing going through all this effort. It makes the client feel you care and don't consider them easy money. It might have cost you several hours to redo everything but surely you will gain extra clients out of it.

Another good point can be earned with the client if you simply buy them a new DVD player - I read about this practice some place here on this forum. They are now down to under $50 (I have a $28 Philips that plays just fine) and the client will be quite impressed.

I have been thinking about that but the problem is often that they bought a dvd player years ago when they were quite expensive and they don't want a cheap replacement, even if it will solve their problem. Their argument is then that all movies they bought or hired play fine. Another thing to consider is that this could get around quickly resulting in other clients demanding a "free" player as well.

First hand experience, my 2 cents-

Not all players will play DL dvd's-- mainly older versions. We bought a cheap 20 dollar player from wal-mart and it played the disks fine while our older more 'expensive' one didn't.

I've had MORE success using APPLE burned Dual-Layer disks (-r?)= I'd say 98% success vs 60% with PC.

Here's my theory on her story:
She's SHARING it-- it works on some and not on others, meaning not everyone has the same dvd player...The sharing would explain the scratching etc from being passed around...

Here's a very late thought to throw in the ring:

I have actually bought $25 to $45 DVD players that will play my single-layer printable, Taiyo-Yuden or Fuji DVD-R discs perfectly and given them to nuisance clients. After proving that our discs work fine on a cheap new machine, they usually apologize and pay me back for the machine.

I agree, DVD-R are much more "universally compatible" with many many players as compared to +r. Also, I find Taiyo Yudens the absolute best blanks on the market. Their watershield glossys are fantastic.

Anyone had experience with authoring a DL disc and sending it off to discmakers or another reputable replicator and having problems in the finished replicated DVD-9 disc? They will except a DL master disc and will replicate that way in lieu of DLT tape. They claim that whatever is on the master disc is what will come out. I guess my real question is, is the problem that everyone has with DL disc the dvd player compatibility or the media itself? Will a replicated disc from a DVD+/-DL disc have the same compatibility problems?

I doubt it. They are complaining about the media, not what is on it, if you are following the spec.There is a small chance that you might be bumping up against the MPEG-2 bit rate ceiling (9800kbps) in which case the DVD player might skip a beat, but other than that I would suspect the media.

Does anyone have the source for this compatibility difference ? I once saw to be a source that showed a nearly insignificant difference between +R and -R, although for a while, some DVD manufacturers (notably Philips) would reject either -RW or +RW .

The ability for a +R to behave as a DVD-ROM by setting its booktype should make +R much more compatible in older players.

I had a lot of trouble with DL, either +R or -R until I settled on a good writer. My Sony, NEC and , worst of all, a SATA Plextor 755A all had trouble producing a DL without errors during verification. I've had zero trouble with write errors using Verbatim DVD+R DL on a BenQ DW1655 and DW1670 as well as a decent write speed at 6x. Now, playing that same disk on various DVD players is another story.

As for your bride's manhandling of your disks, it is entirely possible that the DVD player is killing it (caught in multidisk changer) or that she is storing the disk on a surface that is causing scratches, both of which aren't active damage. So, she blames you. I used to think it was ok to keep a DVD on paper on my table until I lost a very important disk.