Reasons for skips in DVD's

[squash_pro]

I have a business where I film school performances and put them onto videotapes and DVD's. Occasionally my customers have problems playing the DVD's due to momentary skips or freezes. I'm trying to figure out how to minimize these problems. I have read the past forum messages and it sounds like the skips can be due to several sources:
1. Bad media: bubbles or other defects in the coating that cause the DVD player to have trouble reading the data on the DVD.
2. Too high bitrate.
3. Too low minimum bitrate.
When customers call with problems, I try to figure out how to get them a DVD that works. However, it isn't clear to me which of the possible problems is the likely culprit. My questions are:
1. Are there other problems that can cause skipping?
2. Are there some particular symptoms that allow one to diagnose the problem so that efforts at a fix can be productive?
3. What media have folks been most successful with? Is there a media that is really good, even though it may be expensive? I've been using Ritek 2x media which has been pretty good compared to some other media I have used in the past.

By the way, I use Adobe Premiere to create my videos. I export the projects using the Ligos MPeg Encoder and build my DVD's using DVD-it Professional Edition. I burn the DVD's using Prassi Primo DVD. All responses to my questions will be greatly appreciated.

[Craig Tucker]

I have found labelling discs can also cause them to skip and freeze. Particularly towards the end of the disc. I think the main culprit though is low quality media. I think the general opinion by a lot of people on this forum is that Apple produce one of the best DVD-R media although pretty expensive.

[bugster]

If these DVD's are going to a wide range of customers, you can expect them to have a wide range of DVD players. In this case the skipping/pausing they are experiencing could well be due their DVD player and your media not 'getting alon' shall we say. There is no surefire way of ensuring that any burnt DVD will play 100% perfectly on any particular DVD player. Bad discs, compatibility issues etc will always rear their ugly head. About the best I can suggest is ask each customer for the make/model of their DVD player and using this sites DVD players list and other resources find the best media match and encoding parameters you can.

Of course you could always have your DVD's pressed professionally, if your customer can afford the price!

[SLK001]

If you are trying to make money with these transfers, then I can't believe that you are not using the highest quality media there is. Brands that have been certified by Pioneer, for instance - and Ritek ain't one of them. Most likely, 99.99% of your problems are media related. Try switching to Apple DVD-Rs, as Craig recommended, or Pioneer brand, or my favorite, Verbatim. These are all quality brands and have been certified. (BTW, the certification process ain't easy to pass - that is why so few vendors are certified.)

A video with a bitrate too high CANNOT be authored by any decent authoring package.

Too low of a bitrate? Just how much are you trying to cram on a disk? But a too low of a bitrate won't give you skips and freezes (just a lot of macroblocks).

[q1aqza]

SLK001 says it all.

[squash_pro]

Thanks for the quick replies. I'd like to try "certified" media. Is there a list of certified media somewhere? I am using Pioneer DVR-03's and DVR-05's to burn the DVD's.

[SLK001]

I've seen the list, but I don't remember where. There may be others that I overlooked, but the vendors that have certified DVD-R media includes:

1) Pioneer
2) Apple (mostly made by Pioneer)
3) TDK
4) Maxell
5) Matsubishi Chemical Corp - (Verbatim)
6) Taiyo Yuden

There may be others, but I've only used #1,3,4 and 5 disks. Ritek was once considered by Pioneer (and was even included in a non-released firmware version 1.31), but they failed to meet consistent quality requirements, so were rejected.

I have a DVR-A04 burner, so I am only interested in 2X blanks. I also routinely burn up to the maximum on my videos (the max burn so far was 4,704,255,144 bytes - and it worked perfectly). As I said earlier, I use Verbatim for most burns.

[cplevel42]

I'm just going to chime in to defend Ritek. Even though they did not pass Pioneers Quality requirements, they are still very good for the price. I have using these for a couple of years with no problems at all. I have been using a firmware upgrade that makes the Ritek G03 1x discs burn at 2x. I have made well over 70 with the 2x upgrade and have not experienced any glitches, freezes, or artifacts. I never try to sqeeze more 4.3 gig on these because I haerd that freezes may occur. At any rate Riteks are GREAT at around $1.00 a disc.

Some tips:

1. Turn off Virus scanning and fire wall (unplug modem) when burning.

2. Make sure ultra DMA mode is enabled on the secondary channels.

3. Turn off all other programs running in the background.

4. Make sure that your memory (RAM) does not have any errors - run scan disc Choose "automatically fix errors" and reboot.