DVD-R, The Plot Sickens

[wkulecz]

Well the Pioneer DV-311 I picked up form Best Buy played ~40 minutes glitch free of my first MSP6.5 5500 VBR SeqHeader=0 disk, nothing else has got past 20-25 minutes. I got too tired to watch any more last night so I may be premature, but if we can't blame Ulead I'm afraid the technology is just not there for playing in "most" stand-alone players despite the claims. To me, this a much bigger dissappointment, since if Ulead had screwed the pooch with the DVD plugin we could still hope for a patch that fixes things.

If you are willing to make disks and settle for whatever player plays them, you should be happy. But, if you are expecting to send/give/sell disks to people who've chosen their own players, expect nothing but headaches!

At Circut City the fisrt player I tested was a Pioneer DV-343, it played fine, but I only played ~ 5 minutes and since it lacked the zoom feature was eliminated from my list. If it 'd had the zoom feature, I'd have brought it home, and after inadaquately testing the majority of the other players incorrectly been here and on rec.video.desktop saying how great the A03 is, but the bundled software still sucks and is reason not to buy it unless you already have better encoding/authoring software.

Be careful out there!

After an exchange of private Emails with the nice fellow on rec.video.desktop who says his disks play correctly on his Sony player at both 4000 and 8000 data rates (he doesn't know if its VBR or CBR) but admints he's never tried other players, turns out he has a Sony 490tv system with a hardware assisted MPEG2 encoder. So I'm not sure what I'd learn from his disks.

I have two last hopes.

First, since the 5500 CBR played smoothly and the visible glitches were much fewer in number, less objectionable, and the worst seemed generally in the same spot on both APEX and Zenith players, perhps this is just where 5500CBR can't encode adaquately for brief periods on this source material. A 8000 CBR SeqHeader=1 mpeg2 is about finished rendering. I'll make a disk and report back latter, if it plays perfectly, making ~1hr disks at CBR may offer viable interchange possibilites for the time being.

Second, if 115 folks send me a DVD-R blank, self addressed return mailer, and US $5 I can burn 5500VBR or whatever CBR disks and you can check compatability and quality for yourself and I'll have my money back on the burner.

--wally.

[LuSiD]

An idea for a test.

The real question I have is whether it's the media at issue, or the data that’s going on it.

It would be interesting to see if a copy of a commercially produced DVD plays successfully, when homebrew content will not.

You could decrypt a commercial disc to test, or use an adult title, since they are rarely encrypted.

If the copy plays successfully, then we would know the blame falls on the current generation of consumer authoring tools.

If the copy suffers from the same problems you described, then we know the media is just not really compatable with regular DVD players.

[wkulecz]

DVD-RAM/R

Jerry Pournelles like it.

http://www.byte.com/documents/s=1421/byt20011003s0001/1008_pournelle.html

Different recorder from Panasonic. He claims his Hitachi DVD player plays video DVD-R and they looks great. But isn't Hitachi a co-backer of DVD-RAM? This might be about as useful as the Pioneer DV-311 playing A03 disks in terms of "compatability with most players".

Curious that the Hitachi player at Circut City was one of the quickest to glitch on playback with A03 test disks, beaten only by the JVC non-progressive model.


8000CBR SeqHeader=1 disks still have visible glitches on both APEX and Zenith players :-(

I found a repeatable glitch on the APEX that wasn't there on the Zenith and vice-versa, so I burned the same iso image to a "noname" $7 blank from Meritline. Neither glitch was there! But alas, others appeared in other spots on each player.

I don't see how it could be any worse for compatability. The Pioneer player hasn't shown me a glitch yet. To me this is bad news, as it probably means there is nothing really wrong with my Apple (and Meritline) media or MSP6.5 DVD authoring/encoding (which would hold out hope for a quick fix) but that the players people already have or will be buying this Xmas just won't be very compatible :-(

Unless this is a fluke confined to models sold only by Circut City, I think the A03 will die quickly. With a lot of PO'd people who discover this fact about claims of "compatability with most players " too late to get an RMA. I've only tested mine this thouroughly because of a rant by a fellow on rec.video.desktop shortly after I had ordered mine, and dumb luck that the Pioneer DV-311 didn't have the zoom feature.

Fry's had the Lacie version of DVD-RAM/R last time I was up there, hmm...

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

"on both APEX and Zenith players"

I believe I posted some months ago that I had received communication from APEX that their current players are NOT DVD-R compatable.

Dunno about Zenith.

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

None of the DVD players on sale at my local Best Buy have "DVD-R compatible" on the box including the Pioneer DV-311 which is so far the only thing I've been able to get my hands on that doesn't glitch.

If something special beyond physically reading the DVD-R media is required for "compatability" then claims of "plays in existing players" are totally bogus. Many claims have been made that "only the first generation players are incompatible" -- these spit the disk out so its easy to tell.

www.vcdhelper lists most APEX models as "compatible" but as I've said, I'm finding most players are "compatible" for from 3-35 minutes before the glitches start. This makes finding a "compatible" player much more difficult. "Normal" people don't even know about DVD-R let alone being astute enough to demand compatability with it.

I'm not interested in finding a player that plays my disks, after finishing an edit I usually never want to see the damn thing again :-)

I'm interested in making disks that play in DVD players that people already have. The A03 generally can't, it would seem.

--wally.

[Dr Mordrid]

It may be Pioneer's fault and then maybe not.

Most of the decks out on the market TODAY are a generation behind what you can burn. Remember the days when it was a real search to find SVCD compatable DVD decks?

We're in the same situation now, but with a different format. By this time next year I doubt it'll be an issue as new chipsets for DVD decks arrive with support for the new burners.

The model changeover is typically around the first quarter.

Dr. Mordrid

[mynx]

The problem with current and older players not playing the newer options has been happening all along. When the first dual layer disks came out, (Matrix & Something about mary) lots of DVD players came into service because they didn't play correctly. The same goes for video CD's. It wasn't common because they aren't common here, but many players won't play them correctly. Next came CD-R's, many players will report no disk if a CD-R is put in them. The problem is that until the format is released to the public the other manufacturers can't test it in their products. Once they, do they then need to figure out how & if the unit can be upgraded to play it. Usually it's a bios upgrade to the player, which can only be done at an authorized servicer.

[Dr Mordrid]

"Usually it's a bios upgrade to the player, which can only be done at an authorized servicer."

Which presumes the deck has flashable firmware. Not all do.

Dr. Mordrid

[wkulecz]

VCD & SVCD

If you think VCD and SVCD is somehow settled, I don't think y'all have much exposure to various DVD players.

I've an SVCD disk encoded with TMPGEnc using Doc's suggestions and burned using Nero 5.5.

Plays quite nicely in APEX AD-1500, clearly better than the VCD encode of the same DV clips. Also plays nicely in WinDVD 2.3 (once you start it manually) on even a lowly AMD K6.

Looks like crap in Pioneer DV-311, if I'd not seen in played back in the APEX, I'd have thought TMPGEnc had the field order wrong or something.

Playing with VCD and SVCD is one thing. DVD-R at $6+ a blank is something else.

Its been fun, but don't get into this unless you've money to waste.

If you're only making disks for yourself and are willing to buy from a rather short list of players go for it! (my wife rejects the DV-311 for its pityful remote control and lack of zoom feature, I'm over-ruled no matter how good its DVD-R playback is :-)

Otherwise, forget about it.

--wally.

[wkulecz]

Typo! Its Pioneer model DV-341 not 311!

At least I was consistent :-(

Sorry about the screwup, in case you are looking for this player.

--wally.

[mynx]

Dr. Mordrid: On the models that don't have flash upgradeable bios the IC is simply replaced. This was the only way with most of the early players.

[Dr Mordrid]

Agreed, presuming the company offers one.

ex: from my contacts with APEX a DVD-R update for their products is less than unlikely.

Dr. Mordrid

[Jkun]

Very Confused - all working well here

I'm confused here... we're using a Pioneer A03 writer to make cheaper test discs (authoring discs are more expensive than general discs, as are the burners, and for most testing purposes, authoring discs aren't necessary)

We play those discs on many different brand DVD players (Panasonic, Pioneer, Sony, Denon...)

No glitches here! I strongly suspect your MPEG Encoder and/or authoring software is more to blame.

Tmpeg for instance is horrible on the compatibility with DVD MPEG2. I ran a test on my cheapo DVD.master hw encoder - which it turned out produced great MPEG2 but had serious problems in the mux department - and as a comparison also ran it through tmpeg for mux/demux steps. The result was many errors reported by the Philips DVD verifier. BBmpeg was much better for mux/demux (but still errors).And that's just for the MPEG stream.

I asked the guys in DVD testing dept. about influence of authoring sw on DVD errors. In pro DVD productiosn there are very few if any MPEG errors, all errors come from the authoring sw. Very very poor authoring sw is all products by Sonic Solutions (MyDVD, DVDit! and the professional versions). Very good are Daikin Scenarist and Spruce Maestro (never tested SpruceUp but I think it will be much much better than Sonic DVDit!)

When I did that test on my DVD.master card, someone suggested I use a sw called PVAstrumento to demux the stream, then have it muxed by the authoring sw. Did that, perfect results (Spruce Maestro; will try SpruceUp soon, as I need to find it - it's been discontinued thanks to those Apple losers)

J-kun

[wkulecz]

What are the prices of these "good" authoring softwares? I rest my case.

The A03 is incapable of writing to authoring media. Says so on the box, but I've not tried since the disks are quite a bit more expensive.

Fact is, A03 is nowhere near delivering the "compatability with existing players" as promised. I'm not saying there are not models that work -- I have one -- but most don't play the disks without glitches. You may be willing to ignore 2-20 glitches per hour, I'm not.

When I got my first CD-RW in '96 audio cds made in it played in every CD player I could find. It fact its only recently that I've started encountering audio players that won't play CD-Rs or are maybe insisting on a code built into the more expensive "audio CD-R" blanks. I'm sure that I'm not the only one who was led to believe that the "standards" were supposed to make DVD-R have the same properties. I'm willing to accept enough slop in the standards for mistakes in the first generation of players, but not with what is in the mass-market channels now.

If your audience hasn't yet bought a DVD player and will pay extra for the model you recommend, or is willing to throw theirs out and buy another, then DVD-R will be great. The playback quality of the disks I made is great -- if you overlook the glitches. This is a show-stopper for me. YMMV.

FYI, none of the Panasonic, Pioneer, or Sony players I've seen have the "zoom" feature that my wife demands in a living room player since she hates the 2.3:1 aspect ratio "band-aid view" of letterbox on 4:3 screen. If all commercial disks had both views this would be moot, but they don't. As far as I know, Denon isn't available around here.

If the $90 APEX AD-1500 played A03 DVD-R without glitches I'd say VHS is dead. If every player costing as much or more than the $160 Pioneer DV-341 (not 311 as I'd been typing eariler) played them I'd pronounce VHS as in need of last rites, but if a bunch of people buy A03's for Xmas and send out a lot of disks to friends and relatives in January, I'm afraid the backlash may condem us to VHS for the forseeable future :-(

--wally.

[Jkun]

A03 OK, not sw

Wally, I really am sorry you have such problems, but you're not being fair towards the A03 or the format.

Like I said before, your problem lies more with your MPEG encoder and/or authoring sw, not the drive, nor the media (I didn't claim it could write authoring discs, btw, we have Pioneer authoring drives for that).

You cannot blame the 'messenger' (i.e. DVD-R, and the writer) for the 'message' (your wrongly encoded and/or authored discs)

Yes, Maestro is expensive. You can either get a cracked version (if your conscience is OK with that), or you can get the cheap version from Spruce - SpruceUp. It's still available if you search for it. Try locate a hack and try it out, to see if things improve. Try other MPEG encoders as well (BBmpeg, Tmpeg, try hacks or demos of commercial encoders to test).

Also, your 'zoom' feature is something that's supposed to be in your TV, it's ridiculous to demand it to be in every DVD player. So you're already limiting your choice of DVD players to a handfull, and then you complain not all of those play DVD-R. And on the basis of that you judge the DVD-R compatibility of the entire DVD player market??

I own a A03, and know of many people that do. All our discs are fine and play fine on our setups. Yes, some players don't play DVD-R. They were made before the format was approved or the manufacturer is a cheapskate and thinks he can do without because only few people have burners yet. Pity, tough. Formats evolve, can't stop progress. Since it's a hardware issue (laser reflectivity) it can't be helped. You said previously you would look at the Panasonic burner. The format and discs are the same as the A03 - this won't solve your problems, nor will the DVD+RW competitive format. It's what your putting ON the discs that needs to be changed.

If a player starts playing and does well except for some glitches - that player is DVD-R COMPATIBLE! The glitches are caused by encoder (most likely buffer allocation errors) or authoring sw (bad muxing). If it spits it out right away - incompatible. Simple as that.

DVD-R never promised 100% compatibility anyway, and you will find that there are at least some guidelines and testreports. Whereas the DVD+RW camp claims near 100% compatibility and has absolutely no testreports to base this on. Again, here the consumer will be the beta tester (as with DVD-R, to a bit smaller extent - welcome to the wonderful world of PC peripherals)

I agree that it sucks if you have an incompatible player, and that your audience will not be happy if they get such a disc. But then, this is not a commercial format intended for distribution either.

Apex is a piece of crap, as are most other cheap Chinese players. Most of those use standard PC DVD-Rom drives, who are built as cheaply as possible with the bare minimum support of the DVD specifications. Have a glitch? Tough, you got what you pay for.

Most brand DVD-Rom manufacturers are announcing new models with DVD-R compatibility specifically mentioned (note: no DVD+RW in most, as the DVD+RW camp consists of manufacturers that make burners only, not ROM drives...)

BTW, Pioneer standalone players are very nice players - they swallow anything, like SVCDs up to 4 Mbit and such. But that also means they are pisspoor testing players Better select Sony, Panasonic or Toshiba for that, they adhere more strictly to the specifications.

I do hope you find a solution to your problem by changing software. Should you decide to abandon, please be warned you'll face exactly the same issues on Panasonic DVD-R or HP/RicoH/Philips DVD+RW drives.

Bar one thing: are you sure your A03 isn't defective? Have you tried exchanging it or tried a friend's drive with your DVD imgae file?

J-kun