More lies from the marketing dept! (DVD-R)

[wkulecz]

The Pioneer 4.7GB DVD-R disks are *not* 4.7 Gigabyte they are 4.7x10^9 bytes (~4.37 real GB) which makes them significantly shorter when trying to get 2HRs on a DVD-R. Unless there is something in the DVD format that gets higher capacity for video than for data (hopefully the case by analogy with audio and VCD) it looks like my 4.48 real GB and 4.61 real GB encodings from projects a bit under two hrs will need to be redone at a lower rate if data capacity == video capacity.

There is not much of a manual, but this disclaimer is *only* visible upon opening the box and not on the DVD-R media packages I've examined seperately which clearly state 4.7 GB. I have Apple and Pioneer media, Pioneer says "DVD-R for data 4.7GB), Apple says DVD-R 4.7GB media. Both say for "General Use" I know the A03 won't use Authoring media and there is some very small print on the outside of the box saying so.

Now I've got to decide to continue to install it and hope for the best, or return the damn thing for a refund.

The outside of the box says:

Write 4.7GB DVD-R and 650MB CD-R/RW 650 MB is the data capacity of a 74 min CD-R, (audio data 44100 samples/sec x 2 chan x 2 bytes/chan * 60 sec/min * 74 min / 1024^2 = ~746 MB). So is DVD video recorded in a different format like CDDA that makes the disks significantly larger than their data capacity?


They are promoting 2Hr of video per disk, but no where on the A03 box or DVD-R media is any video capacity statement made.

Another factoid if you are thinking of getting one, is the drive needs to be mounted horizontally. Clearly states "vertical mounting not supportted" on the outside of the box. I hate vertical CDROM drives but some folks want them this way.

--wally.

[wkulecz]

Ulead's MSP6.5 plugin seems very slow, been going almost an hour on a ~1hr 8 min NTSC-DVD mpeg2 and its still "slicing VOB files" step 6 0f 8, needs over 2X the diskspace of the mpeg2 file size for storage of god knows what. and I haven't even got to the test burn which at 2X should be ~35 minutes (times 2).

OTOH Sonic MyDVD is reason enough to not buy a Pioneer A03 :-(

This stuff is at the "dancing bear" stage, don't even think of any of this as somehow replacing your VCR anytime soon!

If you are thinking about an A03, I'd say don't. Get the new HP DVD+RW and if its as bad, we can at least we can have the satisfaction of perhaps saving some other poor sucker a chunk of change and a lot of hassles.

I won't even mention how easy it is to waste many hours encoding a project to the NTSC-DVD template and then not having the DVD plugin accept it because its too big!

--wally.

PS didn't get too much further along before "generic error form drive".

Next I started to create an "image" to burn with Prassi, I'm currently amused by the status that says: Creating DVD (step 7 of 6) Writing DVD UDF disk image. A 2.74GB mpeg2 produced a 2.76 GB image file. I'll find out in a couple of hours if Prassi can burn it sucessfully.

[wkulecz]

Success, of sorts.

Finally created a DVD-R.

Used MSP6.5 DVD plugin to create image file (this was awfully slow). Burning in DVD plugin gave some kind of non-helpful error message during the test.

MyDVD was more trouble than its worth. Fired up Prassi (also in the bundle) and after a bit of stumbling around the help files got it to accept the *.iso file from MSP6.5.

Test burn went OK, Real burn completed successfully. Disk play in another computer's DVDROM drive with PowerDVD 2.55 like any commercial DVD. Also played in WinDVD2.3 but all is not perfect as the seek bar in both PowerDVD and WinDVD failed to work.

Its late, the real test will be tomorrow when I go to Circuit City to shop for a stand-alone player that plays this DVD-R.


This stuff is definitely not ready for prime time.

--wally.

[wkulecz]

Circuit City didn't have their DVD player demo setup working :-( but they weren't busy and were cooperative, YMMV, and let me move various players from the dispaly area to a place I could hook them to a 36" TV.

I didn't try them all, but three out of four was successful. Pioneer 343 was first and it worked great for DVD-R VCD and SVCD on both CD-R and CD-RW. But it lacked the "zoom" feature which is a requirement since we both hate the "bandaid" viewing of windescreen DVDs.

Next was the cheapest, APEX AD-1500 also played everything and MP3 as well. Some user interface stuff I didn't like but for $99.95 I got one for the computer room since it was also physically amoung the smallest.

Phillips 711 didn't play DVD-R at all which was a surprise.

Finally I looked at a Sharp DV-740U. It also played MP3 and all my disks. It had a very simple remote and was amoung the most "intuitive" players I've seen. It was only $149.95 so I got it to replace the Toshiba 2109 in the living room that won't play anything homemade :-(

Basically I came home with two DVD players that for a tad less than I paid for the Toshiba, that play everything! I don't have a DVD-RW to test, but unless RW gets cheaper than DVD-R I've no plans to use them beyond experimenting with the authoring software features. (I've ordered one, but not arrived yet).

Hope y'all have found this interesting.

My preliminary conclusion is the A03 is a pretty solid burner, but the software needs a lot of work before I'd advise "normal" people to try it. 5500 VBR encoding is not good enough for a very good quality zoom, so I doubt I'll reduce the rate to get more playing time.


--wally.

[wkulecz]

UPDATE

I'm off to Circut City to return the Sharp player. This one glitches (freezes) badly and a couple of times locked up and had to be unplugged to get going again. I' won't try another as it can't send both AC3 digital and analog audio output at the same time. The reason I need this is not important here. I couldn't have missed these problems if the demo unit had showed them.

I see a few "video mosaic" glitches in the Apex on very careful watching (you'd miss 'em if you blinked) I'll be checking the original mpeg2 5500 VBR file and DVD-R disk with computer playback software to try and figure out if its a problem with the encoding or the APEX/DVD-R combo.

I'm about to start a 6000 CBR encoding to see if that offers better stand-alone player performance/compatability. I'm open to suggestions as to the best MPEG2 setting for stand-alone player performance as long as I can get ~90 minutes to a disk I can live with it, otherwise I'll eat the restocking fee and return the A03.

As I said this stuff is a long way from meeting its marketing claims and definitely not ready for mass-market sales.

I waste my time and money trying this stuff so you don't have to.

--wally.

[BrianP]

Regarding the 4.7 GB capacity...

I looked around the web to see if there was any mention of the true capacity of a 4.7 GB disc, but found nothing.

In fact this is from HP's website:
"A large 4.7GB capacity will store up to 133 minutes of high quality video and up to 3 hours of 'VHS' quality video."

I was planning on getting a DVD writer this fall but now I'm not too sure. But then again, if most of the problems arise from the software, if the price of the hardware falls further, I could afford to buy slightly better authoring software...

[wkulecz]

follow-up

DVD authoring software updates are not cheap. Full versions are more than the burner costs at current prices!

Sonic MyDVD is reason enough to not buy an A03! I've never seen such a pooly designed and buggy user interface. Crashed when correcting a Typo in a "text button" -- totally random behavior when trying to choose key frames for thumbnails, totally hit and miss, no preview when choosing -- randomly quits letting you change the key frame until you save the project or in a couple of cases until you delete the button and re-create it. Its transcoding appears to make TMPGEnc look fast.

Hopefully the HP will be bundled with something better, if not forget about it! I'm serious.

To continue the saga of player compatability, its hard to be sure if the problem is with the DVD-R burner/media, or 5500 VBR encoding from MSP 6.5, or the DVD plugin authoring which is why I'm trying to make a disk with only the bundled software from DV type 1 files.

I returned the Sharp player, what is really distressing is I put the DVD-R disk back into the Sharp I demo'd at CC and played the sections that choked the one I had brought home, damn thing played perfectly. I didn't try another Sharp player because of the either or Analog/AC3 audio output issue.

Next I tried a JVC played about 5 minuted then glitched badly-- freeze frame then jump ahead a couple of seconds, play normally for 3-10 minutes and glitch again. After three gliches I gave up on this one. Then I tried the next higher model JVC with progressive scan (usless for NTSC TV display) and it appeared to play perfectly, but I didn't buy it becuase the zoom feature wouldn't remove the pan/scan Zoom Xn screen overlay -- lame!

Hitachi was next, accepted the disk played a few minutes then glitched. Dissmed it. Not the glitches are not in the same place on different players so its not a "bad spot on the disk" gross encoding error.

Growing weary I last tried a $200 Zenith DVD2381 progressive (Pioneer, Panasonics and Sony's all seemed to lack zoom which is a requirement for my wife and I, we hate the 2.35:1 letterbox of comercial DVDs!!!). Met my zoom and audio needs and growing weary of watching battlebots I saw no glitches in 30 minutes. The one I brought home I've watched the ~1hr 8 min DVD-r twice and no glitches although there are a few "video mosics" upon perhaps too close of inspection. The APEX 1500 seems to have more both in frequency of occurance and visual severity. These could be problems with the 5500 VBR encoding, but since they are aren't in the same place on the two players its damn hard to tell. These may be tolerable to most folks becuase if you blink you could miss most of them. Some don't repeat when reversed and replayed, others do. I'm building a list of times where the repeatable glitches are in each player to see if I can make some sense of this.

I'll have more to say after MyDVD makes a disk, if it doesn't play in my two players I'm returning the A03 on Monday.

--wally.

[Karen St Martin]

The difference in capacities could be due to the data DVD using error correction and detection codes while the video DVD does not. Just a thought.

[wkulecz]

Yes that's my thought, but the MPEG2 handling in MSP6.5 seems broke fo mpeg2 files larger than 4GB :-(

I was expecting the DVDplug in would take the ~4.4 GB ~1hr 55 min file and turn it into an ISO DVD image that is a bit bigger than 4.7 GB on my hard drive that gets streamed to DVDdisk media like VCD and Audio. Didn't work that way, didn't work at all -- VE and the DVDplugin both choked when trying to load the file it had just created :-(

The MyDVD software just doesn't work. I downloaded an update after a ridiculous registration proceedure and downloaded something that now is Sonic DVDit! LE. After installing it seems to have lost the option to transcode *.avi unless I "upgrade" -- fat friggin chance! So now I'm letting it "author" a disk on RW media
using the smallest of my 5500 VBR MPEG2 files (~25 mins) from MSP6.5 Not sure what this will tell me as if the problem is like Doc suggested in another thread that SeqHeader key was not set (or cleared) by the MSP6.5 update that might be why I'm getting the video mosaic glitches on playback in stand alone players.

If you were thinking DVD burner for Xmas I'd look for something else right now.

I'd really like this technology to work, but the software is clearly holding it back to the point I can't really tell if the DVD-R burning technology is any good or not.

--wally.