Not all DVD Players are created equally, and I'm confused.

[Aaron Mayberry]

This evening I went to a clients house to figure out an issue he was having with his wedding DVD. During the reception, a friend sings "Don't Stop Believin". During the 3 minute performance it sounds like it's skipping on his Samsung blu ray player.

Things I know:
- It plays just fine on my blu ray player. I even brought to his house and used his TV.
- The blu ray disc plays Don't Stop Believin' just fine on his blu ray player
- 2 different DVDs did it (both +R's, one was single layer, one was dual layer)
- I used encore to build the DVD, Nero to burn it
- The Samsung blu ray player is only 8 months old and seemed pretty expensive

Anyone else encounter an issue like this? I never have...

Also, how do you protect yourself from these issues in your contract? The couple already said not to worry about it(they watched the same disc play fine my on my player), but I'd like to be covered in the future...

[Andy Saechao]

This has happened to me before. I would do one of the following:

1. Use a different brand DVD disc
2. Burn using a different software
3. Burn using a different computer

[Chris Harding]

Hi Aaron

Most definately don't use DVD +R disks!! There are a lot of machines that won't play them correctly!!
I always use DVD -R disks and have never had an issue with hundreds of wedding clients.

Chris

[Don Bloom]

What Chris said. Switch to -Rs as many machines do seem to have a problem with +R discs.
When I test play a disc I try it in 4 different players. Inevitablly, 3 will play it fine and 1 won't read it. Usually I know which one it is that won't read the DVD but sometimes I get surprised and it does read it fine so it must be the ghost in the machine.
To protect youself I do this. First in my service agreement T and C I include a phrase that reads: Not all DVD players are compatible with +/- R discs. If you experience any difficulty playing this DVD contact....Now that doesn't erase the problem but if they call me I will go over the problem they are having and try to come up with a solution. Remember we are talking about modern technology that can be quite tempremental. I've had clients tell me their DVD player is like 8 years old which isn't old in terms of life but is in terms of electronics. A new $25.00 DVD player fixed the problem. Hell, I bought it for them. I've had one situation where I burned a new disc and it played fine, the original didn't. Go figure. No real way to know, so switch to -Rs and keep on burning.

[Katie Fasel]

We had a problem last summer with one of our DVDs not working. Same as Don, we reburned them a new copy and it worked fine.

Since then, we've switched to Taiyo Yuden (spelling?) DVDs, definitely -R, and we burn using Toast at 4x. Since then we have not had too many issues, until just yesterday when a gift slideshow video for a friend wouldn't play in their DVD player...I know for a fact their player is old and so we had him play it in his PS2 and it worked just fine. It's a tricky situation...luckily it wasn't for a paying customer.

We test ours in 3 players before it leaves which is usually good enough for my conscience, and luckily we haven't had a wedding customer with problems...I feel like I'm jinxing myself just by having this conversation. I like Don's idea of having a T&C line about it though, just in case.

[Dave Blackhurst]

Since it's only one short section I'd suspect an encoding issue of some sort. Maybe hitting the max bitrate, which would cause skipping/stutter? OR it could be something with just the specific disk not working with the player. OR could be the authoring program...

[Gregory Lee]

I just burned a bluray disc which will not play in a client's blu-ray player. I used Sony Vegas 10 and DVD Architect 5.0. I tried different media including Verbatim, and even updated the firmware on the client's Sony bluray player, but no luck. The error message I get is "Cannot Operate This Disc". The instructions claim that the player can read BD-R discs. I read another forum in which others have encountered the same problem on this particular model.

Would you buy the client a new bluray player? (It works perfectly fine in my Panasonic deck)

Originally Posted by Andy Saechao

This has happened to me before. I would do one of the following:

1. Use a different brand DVD disc
2. Burn using a different software
3. Burn using a different computer

[Andy Saechao]

Originally Posted by Gregory Lee

I just burned a bluray disc which will not play in a client's blu-ray player. I used Sony Vegas 10 and DVD Architect 5.0. I tried different media including Verbatim, and even updated the firmware on the client's Sony bluray player, but no luck. The error message I get is "Cannot Operate This Disc". The instructions claim that the player can read BD-R discs. I read another forum in which others have encountered the same problem on this particular model.

Clean the player's lens with a lens cleaner? Don't know if it would help, but you may want to give it a shot.

[Michael Johnston]

Two words: Firmware Update

I have a Samsung Blu-Ray that did the same thing. Updated the firmware and it was fine.

[Gregory Lee]

I updated the firmware which didn't help. Didn't clean the lens; but I find it hard to believe it's dirty since they got it last month.

[Michael Johnston]

Have you updated the firmware on your Blu-Ray burner? I bought an external burner from Best Buy, bright it home, installed it, and burnt a disc only to find the menu buttons were not aligning right. When through four disc trying everything. Finally checked the burners website and found there was a firmware update it needed. Since then, everything works great.

I do also suggest NEVER using +R discs. Many DVD players won't play them.

[Gregory Lee]

I didn't need to update the firmware on my burner because I think I found a solution.

I used DVD Architect 5.0. This time, under Properties, Format, I selected AVC instead of mpeg2. (The video files were the same though (mpeg2). After I prepared the .iso disk image, I used a different burning software to burn the disk image (Powerlink Power2Go).

The disc now plays in the Sony S370. I'm not sure if this is because I changed the format option under properties or because I used a different software to burn the .iso.

[Michael Johnston]

I will say that when burning regular DVD's (no Blu-Ray) I DO NOT use the Roxio Burn software on my PC. Its JUNK!!! Instead, I found Toshiba had a generic burn program on my laptop I could use to create discs from image files. For some reason, when I use the generic software everything is fine but if I use Roxio, I have all sorts of disc that end up bad or won't play in a player.

[Aaron Mayberry]

Thanks guys!

I will hopefully have an update later this week!