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  1. Member
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    I’d be grateful for some advice.

    I recently bought a JVC DR-M10S (UK PAL version) as my first DVD recorder, mainly to convert my VHS tapes to save space. Apart from being VERY complicated to use and unable to index discs with anything other than a plain white-letters-on-blue list, it usually seemed to work fine with very good picture quality.

    However, the discs do not playback reliably on other DVD players/recorders. Typically, the playback slows or stops and starts at frequent intervals, sometimes refusing to play beyond a certain point. This does not often happen on the original machine nor when played back on my PC, though it seems to happen occasionally with all DVDs including commercially pressed ones on any player or computer.
    The machine does not appear to be faulty. Can anyone offer any advice please?

    Would the following be likely to help?
    - Using DVD+R discs instead of the 8x DVD-R discs I’ve used so far. The manual does actually say (small print on p6) that DVD-R may not play properly on other machines. Is this a deficiency of the machine or with the DVD-R format? If the latter it seems odd they are still made, more so that they now seem to be the predominant format.
    - Using higher or low compression. Does high compression work better in that there is less data per unit time to process, or is low compression better because the machine has less decoding to do?

    Many thanks.
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  2. What brand of discs are you using? Those kind of problems are usually media.
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    "PCLine". It's the house brand of PC World, a big chain of computer stores here in the UK.
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  4. If it's the same as it is in the US, house brands are crap. Try Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim discs.
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  5. Member oldandinthe way's Avatar
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    You have a Japanese branded recorder. Most Japanese brand equipment works at its best with Japanese brand media. Hence the recommendation of TY or MCC (Verbatim).

    JVC probably has a list of "approved" media for your recorder. It is unlikely they have checked the operation of any media not on that list, and unfortunately given the nature of DVD as a media, the unknown is unlikely to work to its maximum reliability.
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    Thanks, folks, for your advice. I'll try Japanese brands - Verbatim or, indeed, JVC's own, shouldn't be hard to find. I've not seen TY over here yet.
    Two other questions, if I may:
    1. Do you think DVD+R discs would be more adaptable?
    2. If I dupe the (many) discs I've already made onto a better brand, are the dupes likely to be better?
    Thanks for your indulgence and help.
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  7. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by oldandinthe way
    Most Japanese brand equipment works at its best with Japanese brand media. Hence the recommendation of TY or MCC (Verbatim).
    I have no idea where this 2006-era myth started from. But it's categorically false.

    Not to mention MCC is not Japanese media, never was. It's from Singapore or Taiwan (and India in more recent times).

    Good media is required, period, regardless of where the discs or machines are made.
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    I thought I should update on my previous messages for anyone else has the same problems as me.
    Regarding the jumping on Playback, my dealer advised me that this was a common problem with playback on older DVD players. Apparently they don't process fast enough to keep up with the data stream. He doubted if it was any fault with the recording or the blank discs.
    Now, I've tested this on several different machines, and it seems to be true. For instance, an old Cyber Home skips on many discs including some commercially pressed ones and an old but upmarket Toshiba skips on some of my home-made discs but never on commercial ones. By contrast a new Daewoo DV-900 plays everything perfectly, as does my JVC.
    On the related issue of suitable discs, I was unable to find any DVD-R 8x or less in the shops so I asked JVC about upgrading their software. They "regretted" that was not possible - so I told them what I thought of thier customer service.
    However, my dealer reckoned the deck would record on 16x anyway and sold me a pack of JVC 16x discs with a refund promise and they do indeed work fine! They even play back quite well on the old Cyber Home with only slight slowing and speeding up, so the advice above about brands seems to hold - thanks.
    Re my last posting, this machine only records onto DVD-R blanks of course, so one of my questions was rubbish.
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  9. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    JVC-branded discs are crap, WFKA media, just awful stuff.

    Your dealer, quite frankly, is talking out his ass. What he said makes no sense whatsoever. The statement "don't process fast enough to keep up with the data stream" is pure nonsense.

    Again, you need to use good discs. Try VERBATIM or TAIYO YUDEN media.
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  10. DVD players having trouble playing commercial pressed discs usually just need a reader lens cleaning. When it comes to burned discs, the blank media used is the key. In terms of burn quality and DVD player compatibility, Taiyo Yuden (available online, not in retail stores) is the best available, period. Brand name and retail store discs are a crap shoot, with some being total garbage.

    Just Google "Taiyo Yuden" and find a reputable online media store to get them from. The issues you describe will all but disappear.
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  11. Member oldandinthe way's Avatar
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    Lordsmurf

    This so called "myth" earned its basis when there was only Japanese writers and they only worked with Japanese media. You and the other old-timers explained this by identifying other media as "crap media". Of course these makers didn't bother to provide write strategies for other than Japanese media, so the liklihood of other media working properly was small.

    Today, most DVDwriters are made in places other than Japan and amazingly, many of these writers can burn this "crap media" without problem.Of course, they have write strategies for many more media types, the ones the Japanese support plus others made in their own countries and those of their competitors. Amazing what competition can do.

    The urban myths are that all of the major brands of media being sold at big box retailers are "crap", that media should be burned at half their rated speed, that ancient drives can succesfully burn media which are rated at higher speeds than they are capable of reliably, and that hacked firmware actually provides a proper write strategy for media on ancient drives.

    As for dvd scanning which is used as a justification for labeling some media as crap. Only a limited number of drive brands scan. Not surprisingly they include drives which are "picky" about media. And the scans from such drives show poor results from the disks they write. According to various postings on this and other forums, drive brand to drive brand comparisons of scan results for the same media show significant differences.

    As for MCC I identified it as "Japanese Brand" media Mitsubishi Chemical Company is a japanese brand.

    There is also some potential of truth to the dealers speed issue which probably could be investigated. The level of compression on written disks (after shrinking) might lead to retrieval higher amounts of video data than an older player can handle. A
    DVD9 compressed to DVD5 can deliver data at double the rate that the commercial disk can, there could be a bottleneck.
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  12. Video Restorer lordsmurf's Avatar
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    Sorry, oldandintheway, but you're pretty much inventing everything you just said. All that "Japanese for Japanese" mess holds no truth. The very first Pioneer 103, for example, had entries for PRINCO and RITEK, neither were Japanese, and both were crap.
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  13. Member oldandinthe way's Avatar
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    Think what you wish but the much of the media rated poor or failed on the media reports are non Japanese brands on Japanese branded drives.

    The bulk of the reports which have to burn at lower than rated speeds are Japanese branded drives, and most of the rest are ancient drives which don't support the media.

    The VSO report backs up the anecdotal information in the media reports.

    Anyone who has been in the electronics industry for enough years, knows about the levels of cooperation among Japanese companies and the interlocking ownership which has contributed to the Japan Inc appellation. To think that the classic Japanese collaboration would be absent from an area which has historically been unreliable - writeable optical media, is self delusion.

    Entries for and approprate write strategies are too different things. Various web sites are full of hacks to add entries for media to firmware by changing the mediaid on some type already in the drive. Afraid it takes more effort to create a proper write strategy.
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    Walsallian, I'll try and cut through some of the fog (and misinformation) that seems to have appeared here due to a number of differences between the UK and the US. For blank discs, you will probably never find any that are branded as Taiyo Yuden, but they are out there. They make the discs for a number of manufacturers. hence the advice that regularly appears on here to look at the brand name first and then look to ensure they were made in Japan. This doesn't always work in the UK. I needed some discs desperately on a Sunday so bought a pack of Vertabim only to find that they were CMC MAG code and absolute rubbish. Avoid like the plague any own brand (PCLine, MRDVD, etc) discs a buy on media code. www.svp.co.uk are a good supplier who quote media code as well as brand name.

    Ignore the advice, or don't bother asking for it in the first place, of dealers. Unless you find an enthusiast who does know his stuff, most of them haven't a clue but will give an answer that will sound plausible to a member of the public.

    Older players start to get picky when the lens gets dirty through use and a build up of dust. Put a disc cleaner through it and it should then be back to normal. Brand name (expensive) players are often far worse for playing back burnt discs than the cheapo 25 quid from Argos, tesco or wherever players. DVD-R has greater compatability than DVD+R (around 97% to 93% of players).
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    Wow, thanks top everyone for the advice!

    I had Googled for Taiyo Yuden but was concerned (a) that the online shops offering it here in the UK were ones with which I was unfamiliar (b) they were generally offered Unbranded and (c) that that there were web-sites warning of crap imitations of the brand, eg
    http://www.cdr-zone.com/forum/about2711.html
    http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/dvd-r_media_report.cfm

    So, with no branding, unfamiliar stores and the fake warnings, I felt as though I was on a garage forecourt with a man in sheepskin jacket saying "Yeah, guv., it's a genuine Rolls Royce all right. They don't put badges on 'em no more, and the Trabant look is very fashionable." The more recent postings helped over that concern.

    I was about to buy Verbatim which are easy to buy and cheap in the UK, so thanks for the advice over the UK ones and the tips re storess. I'll snap up some 8x Taiyo Yudens right away from SVC: BigMaggot seem only to have 16x already.

    I won't buy an other JVC product in the light of their disregard for their customers.

    Thanks again,

    Ian
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  16. Member
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    PS,
    Cleaning the lens on the older machine is obviously advisable - indeed that is probably the main cause of the original problem mentioned. I already oneof those proprietory lens cleaners and the stuttering is reduced after use but not eliminated. I'll take it to a shop to have it cleaned - though given yor collective view of dealers I'm not sure that's wise...
    Ian
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  17. I've got a DVD recorder from 2001 that's never had the lens cleaned and still works like day one, and it's seen heavy use. Unless you smoke or your house is really dusty, you shouldn't need a lens cleaning.
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  18. Member
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    I thought I should give feedback having tried the Taiyo Yuden discs.
    My reply is delayed as the DVD player was generating loud crackling noises which were recorded onto the discs. This took a while to sort out but it is a known "issue" with this machine and appears to be OK now.
    The Taiyo Yuden discs have not prevented the slowing down / speeding up problem, even after repair and lens cleaning.
    This still occurs on my older DVD player, perhaps not quite as much as with the earlier discs but it is not good. I'm waiting for feedback from two other people who had problems with my discs, one of whom found that some of my discs would stop at certain points and refuse to go on.
    I'll report back when I've heard from them.
    I just wish Video tapes weren't so bulky and liable to get written off by getting tangled up, then I wouldn't have to bother with all the problems of DVDs!
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  19. That’s an interesting post by [Walsallian]

    What seems to be said is, I’m right back where [I started]

    My DVD are Liteon/ilo units
    A -- 5045 , two RHD04, two 5005 and a R04
    Disks burned in any had problems playing in each other and other named units’

    The easiest thing was Blame the disks
    I was using mostly Verbatim +RW and +/-R along with Maxell and Memorex etc
    The disks giving problems were the Verbatim +RW [Made in Japan]
    So lets blame the Disks, that’s easy, --
    To make a long story shorter I replaced all the units DVD drive with PC drives
    Liteon 1693s, 1673s, 1633s, 832s All are working excellent and I do not have any problems. The disks will play in any machine and I have used many different ones. The Verbatim +RW are all working, fine and many have been erased and reused
    I can only guess that the orig,]. Burners were not correctly burning the disks.

    It seem that whenever a problem arises the response is,-- Different firmware, Disks, or what Walsallian had received.

    To which [lordsmurf] replied

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    Quote
    "Your dealer, quite frankly, is talking out his ass. What he said makes no sense whatsoever. The statement "don't process fast enough to keep up with the data stream" is pure nonsense.
    ------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    I could not agree more, -- Lordsmurf also said on another thread [Bullshit] I also agree

    All to often this is spewed out by salespersons to sell, or by them and a service dept to get rid of you, Like "its the Disks Or Frmware"

    The preference for a particular machine is an individual choice, Hopefully on what looks good [the picture] and is right for your needs
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  20. Member
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    Not quite back where I started. The Taiyo Yuden (and the 16x JVC discs) both play noticeably better on my older player than the PC-Line ones I had been using. So thanks, this seems to go along with much of the advice you've given particularly from oldandintheway - and including that from and my much maligned dealer!

    They only slow down occasionally and so far have not stopped on the older player. But I will know better when my son and a friend (the latter away till the end of the month unfortunately) tell me how the newer ones work on their older machines as they had even bigger problems with the early discs than I've had.

    I don't get this problem with my new Daewoo player or (of course) the JVC DR-M10S on which they were made.

    This does raise another angle though. The discs I've given away are duplicates of the originals which I ran off on my computer, usually on the same media as the originals (ie Taiyo Yuden for the new ones, PC-Line for the old ones). I'd naively assumed that a digital dupe would be identical to the original. But if the discs were substandard, as we agree cheap own-brand stuff is, then presumably a duplicate on the same brand would accentuate any problem? Which would explain why the give-ways made and duped on cheap media caused more trouble than my originals.
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  21. Are you doing disc-to-disc "Quick Copy" duplication on your computer? That could be some of the problem.

    I have found that DVD-R to DVD-R duplication using that method to not be very reliable. The duplicate discs sometimes do not play very well.

    Try ripping (copying) the entire recorded disc to your computer's hard drive first, then burning the duplicates from the hard drive (not directly from the recorded disc).

    And yes, cheap lower quality media definitely tends to have more problems.
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    Yes, I copy directly from one disc to the other.
    It's odd that it would be better to do it as a two-stage process, I'd have thought that would double the likelihood of problems. But if it works, so be it.
    To transfer the data to my hard drive, I assume I'd open the DVD drive number folder, Select All and drag the files on to somewhere on my hard drive? Or is it more complicated , like extracting .wav files from a music CD?
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  23. Originally Posted by Walsallian
    To transfer the data to my hard drive, I assume I'd open the DVD drive number folder, Select All and drag the files on to somewhere on my hard drive?
    As long as the DVD is not encrypted (copy protected) that's all you have to do, yes.

    I use Nero Express to burn the contents of the VIDEO_TS folder to my DVD-R copies, but any DVD burning application will do. Some people like to use the image file burning method instead.
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  24. Member
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    I'm afraid I never have solved the above incompatibility problem and have decided to give up on bulk copying my video tapes until a reliable replacement for VHS is introduced.
    Yes. video tapes take up a lot of space and very occasionally they get tangled up in the player but I have many now 25 years old and they seem fine. Generally, they are very compatible between different machines, easy to use and reliable.
    Home-made DVDs, on the other hand, frequently fail in the act of recording leaving you with an expensive coaster and much wasted time. They cannot be relied onto play once you have recorded them, and often won't play on any other machine than the one that made them.
    So, long live VHS! Perhaps sometime somebody will find a reliable replacement for home video - but it ain't DVD.
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