Roxio Media Creator Suite 10 Stange Results

[DB83]

Personally, I have no time for these suites but I have just come across a dvd authoured in one which does puzzle me.

The suite takes a series of MP3's and the then creates a dvd with menus (each Album is a menu and each song a selection from that menu). Well that, in my eyes, is the theory.

I checked the dvd and all the files are there - vobs, ifo's etc. I put it in one player, which recognises it as a dvd-r, but refuses to play it.

Put it in another player and it plays.

Put in a PC-player and it plays.

So my first question is why a player, which will play dvd-R's, should refuse to play this disk. I repeat. It is a proper DVD with all the files in place.

The second puzzle is that the playback on those players is not as I would expect. There is a main menu - Artist and Album. They can be selected. But when I try to select any individual album there is no selection and I have to scroll through each album during playback to select another one. So the menus do not work. I assume, of course, That they should.

Anyone have any experience with this suite so that I can point the user (not me) of this in the right direction.

[Bjs]

1: The make and model of the player which has issue with disc
2: The dvd-r media code would be preferred rather than brand name

Without these it can be difficult to say why but I'll give you a point to start from.

Load the dvd-r in pgcedit and in the left pane locate the menu. You'll need to dig through at least the first few screens of the included menu and find out if number of frames are equal to the format ... ie ... pal no less than 25 frames for a still menu

If this is not the case it may well be the player which dose not play the dvd back can not handle the menu structure if single frames are used ... the menu will need to re-authored to make it compliant.

Second it's possible the dvd-r is a brand the player has difficulties with ... change media brands ... verbatim is preferred.

Third ... make sure its PAL format for uk

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Now for the more complicated part ... the menu navigation.

"expected" is a term used by too many users ... yes they can do it ... but rarely dose it happen.

While in pgcedit take a look at all titles ... you'll need to confirm if each album contains cell's equal to the number of tracks or if the title has a single cell. By the sound of it there's a master "artist's" menu with albums but no sub menu's for those album's ... if that is the case the menu can only be fixed properly by re-authoring a replacement menu. If the sub menu's do exist then it's an issue with dvd nav commands which can be fixed in pgcedit but you'll have to rip the dvd to hard drive in order to apply and changes.

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Finally I suggest that the roxio product be discarded ... it's possibly one of the lowest rated products and conflicts with other applications if on the same system.

[DB83]

Thank you for your reply.

I am afraid I cannot answer your first two questions right now precisely. The player is a high-end SONY dvd-recorder with HDD but I have mislaid the manual so can not tell you the model number. I no longer have the disk except to say it was 'white coated' probably for printing. Not a lot of help I know.

What I did not mention in my original post was that the user, my father who bought this suite without any recco from his son, showed me another disk. This one was authored as a MP3 data disk and my Sony played that one will no issue. So on that basis I do not think the player has a media problem.

I take on board what you said about cells. The menu structure for the dvd was a list of tracks followed by a 'Play All' Button, a 'Shuffle' button and three navigation buttons one 'left', one 'up' and 'one 'right'. Selecting an album, the first track is somewhat highlighted but when you hit the down button one your remote it takes you straight to 'Play All'. So I guess that that this menu is just one cell.

Some time tomorow I will be visiting my father and take a closer look at this POS just to see if there are more variations available in the authoring process to do what I would expect it to do had I been authoring this myself.

If he still has the 'beer mat' I will also take it way for some forensic examination.

[DB83]

Just to close this one down as far as I am concerned although I would still welcome comments about this.

Took a closer look at the program at my dad's. The program has several 'smart menu' options - 'Artist' and 'Album' were selected (maybe a default). You could also see a preview of the main menu and both of these could be highlighted - just as I had experienced in the final dvd.

There were also two 'tracks' options so I selected one of these. That option now also appeared on the main menu.

Now rather than click 'burn', there is also an advanced option where you can change options such as disk type (PAL or NTSC) or the sound type(ac3, mpeg etc). The advanced option also allows you to preview sub-menus and now I could see that the tracks were also highlighting for each album as I would expect.

So in for a penny, I clicked 'burn' and approx an hour later (a dozen or so albums) I had a dvd.

Tested this in a few players and all is as I would expect - full control over song etc. selection.

Now you will recall that the first DVD would not play in my Sony so I had little hopes for this one. But it worked a treat. So there still remains a mystery of why the first DVD would not play although it is fine in other players and, before you ask, it is exactly the same 'nameless' media.

As for the program itself, I have some caveats. One needs to select 'tracks' from the smart menus to get full control. But that adds another, somewhat superflous, item to the main menu.

Also, following ferther feedback from my father, if you select 'burn' from this wizzard, the program does NOT create the dvd properly ie No control over track selection. You only get full control when burning in 'advanced' mode. That seems to be a major bug in the software and may explain why my Sony rejected the first disk. Right now, I do not really care for this since it is not a program I will be coming across again (well not until my dad has more issues with it)

[neomaine]

Whether you consider Sony a 'high' end or not, the fact remains that Sony players tend to be the most picky about the media and formats they play.

[Cauptain]

Finally I suggest that the roxio product be discarded ... it's possibly one of the lowest rated products and conflicts with other applications if on the same system.

I agree. I bought a Roxio Game Capture harwdare, its come with "Creator2011 lite version".

Mate, never work for me. I need search for some softwares to record withou problems. The edition part is ridiculous (no "FIT to PROJECT" simple option its have).

The hardware failure with 4 months. No refunds.

In next try, all minus Roxio any suite or program.



Claudio

[p_l]

I had over 500 posts on the old Roxio Videowave forums in the early 2000s and had even earned the rank of "guru," all just trying to get Roxio to recognize and fix the infamous audio sync problem, or at least find a workaround. After exhaustive banging of head against the Roxio wall, the only "workaround" was eventually to go with the competition's software, in those days early versions of Vegas for editing and Ulead DVD MovieFactory (version 1!) for authoring.

I've never since had the inkling to go waste my time trying Roxio again.

[Cauptain]

I had over 500 posts on the old Roxio Videowave forums in the early 2000s and had even earned the rank of "guru," all just trying to get Roxio to recognize and fix the infamous audio sync problem, or at least find a workaround. After exhaustive banging of head against the Roxio wall, the only "workaround" was eventually to go with the competition's software, in those days early versions of Vegas for editing and Ulead DVD MovieFactory (version 1!) for authoring.

I've never since had the inkling to go waste my time trying Roxio again.

This year (2011) I gave a great support with the launch of RGC. After 600 posts I was banned because was tired of excuses from staff for software and hardware problems/faults.

But they did not delete any post of mine, because even today serves as reference and at least a 5 / 10 people contact me via e-mail to solve some problems.

Its normal from Roxio. No stress anymore.


Claudio