DVD burning/compatibility

[JonH]

I have made several -R DVDs over the past month and gave them to several people with a variety of DVD players. They seem to work on most players okay, but once in a while they will pixilate(?) and then play fine after restarting. I'm using imation 4.7 -R media (100 for $89).

My questions are
1. Does the rated speed on the media itself affect its viewing?
2. Does data rate or audio rate (or type, such as AC3) affect the ability to play all the way through without a hitch?
3. Is my Lite-on burner inferior and possibly the source of these glitches (bought it for $79 at Best Buy)?
4. Does a complex menu with music cause problems (using MF3).

I'm pretty new to this, so any kind of advice would be appreciated. This forum has helped me a lot, by the way.

Jon

[a_h]

Pixelation is often caused by suboptimal burning of the dvd. I read regularly that burning at 2x or even at 1x helps a lot - or using high quality media like Verbatim DataLifePlus.

Data rate and type (ac3, dts) is standardised and should not be a problem.

AFAIK Lite-on makes pretty decent burners, so I wouldn't expect problems here - just always update your firmware.

Never heared that complex menus (what do you mean with 'complex' - the menu consists always of images and videos, or am I wrong?) make any problems.

Hope this helps you a bit, cheers Hannes

[JonH]

Hannes,
Thanks for the reply. I'll try burning slower and get some higher quality media when my imations run out.
I guess I wanted to be sure that the data rate didn't matter. I've burned mpegs with kbps rate ranging from 5000 to 8000 using both constant and variable rates.
Jon

[Brian Ellis]

I agree that slow burning improves reliability. I always use 1x. However, about a year ago, I bought 5 blank DVD-R from each of several different makers. I hate to tell you this, but I got 0/5 useable ones from Imation. They were a waste of money as far as my burner (Pioneer A03) is concerned. I got good results (5/5) from Verbatim, Pioneer and, above all, because they are a cheapie, Creation (made in Greece). Several others gave me 3/5 or 4/5.

Forbye, I use Imation CD_RW very well.

[JonH]

Thanks, Brian. I've been looking at Verbatim and other brands on the internet and there seems to be different kinds of -R disks within brands.
Which specific Verbatims, Pioneers or Creations should I look for? Also, any suggestions on where to buy them?
Jon

[JonH]

Another two questions in addition to the above. Is it correct to assume that copying a low quality disk (like an imation) to a high quality disk will be futile or would the high quality disk play better regardless of the source disk?
Also, there are a lot of verbatim disks. Are the datalife ones good to use. I want to make master copies with something good. Here is what I'm looking at:

http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/default.aspx?edc=326038

Thanks.
Jon

[wkulecz]

My experience with "pixalation" or video mosaic breakup is that its the player that is not really compatabile with burned media. In every case the disk has played fine on a player that officially supports DVD-R or DVD+RW like the Sony NS-315. Futzing around with the fine print of burning the disk may or may not "fix" the problem, but IMHO is largely a waste of time and money.

In other words, every disk I've burned that passes Nero's verify has played flawlessly on a compatable player, been hit or miss on players that don't list DVD-R or DVD+RW compatability in their owners manual.

Non-compatable players do seem to do a little better with 1X DVD-R or 2.4X DVD+R media and burns than with the higher speed disks -- but I'm not sure I've enough data to really claim anything.

Sometimes DVD-R plays but DVD+R doesn't or vice-versa. Expect more of the same headaches when Dual Layer DVD+RW comes out :-(

I burn at 4X (soon 8X when the media is available at decent prices) and if they don't play I'll swap a DVD+R for DVD-R or vice versa, but beyond that, I've warned the client up front that they may need to buy a new compatible player.

If your burn was good (ie passed verify) then if you copy it on a compatible reader and burn to different media the data should be the same when written to the the alternate media if your burning system is not broken. I've copied a DVD-R to a DVD+R for a player that worked with DVD+R but not DVD-R and was successful.

--wally.

[a_h]

If your burn was good (ie passed verify)...the data should be the same

I'm sorry, but that's not true. Burned media generally do reflect lower beam intensity than industrially made (pressed) media. That's true for cd and for dvd.

A nonoptimal burn (usually too fast in the case of a cheap medium) leads to a low quality disc in the following aspects: possibly high failure rate (every pc-dvd has rather good error correction which need not to be the case in standalone dvd-players), high jitter (length of bits varying too much, so data cannot be read reliably) and various others.

Have a nice evening, Hannes

PS: if the format itself is a problem, the disc shouldn't be played at all, or am I wrong?

[wkulecz]

Compatible readers are designed to deal with the lowered disk albedo and maintain adaquate S/N ratio. "Older" players may or may not work depending on the design tolerences.

The data is digital, if the signal to noise ratio is sufficient for the burner to read it back correctly on verify, any compataible player should also read it correctly. Players not advertising compatability with burned disks are a crap shoot because they cannot deal with the lower reflectivity (albedo)

Burning a 1X disk at 2X or higher is always a crap shoot. Nero 5.5.10.54 doesn't seem to let me do it.

My is experience is that I've not yet encounted a disk that passed verify that would not play correctly on an advertised compatible player.

--wally.

[a_h]

Hi Wally!

You got a good point! What about a compromise? Let's say, he shall go out, buy high quality media (verbatim DVD-R?), burn them at lower speeds and verify them? ;-))

Cheers, Hannes

[JonH]

Another question for all of you. My imations aren't marked in terms of burn speed. When I use MF3, my burn choices are MAX and 2X. Is there a way to override this to ensure 1X? Should I at least make sure I buy 1X speed media?
Thanks.
Jon

[Brian Ellis]

Funny, I have the choice between Max, 2x and 1x with 2 x DVDs and Max, 1x with 1 x discs.

[JonH]

I checked again. Without a disc in the burner, I get choices of 4X to 40X and Max. With an Imation disc in, it's 2.0X and Max only. Could this be due to my burner -- Lite-On, or the disc?
Also, can't select 1X with MF2 either.

Jon