Is it the media or Software?

[BouncedGranola]

I've successfully burned DVD slideshows with Nero VisionExpress and they played on my standalone DVD players. I've now successfully burned a DVD video (using the same media as the slideshow) but I can't get them to play on my standalone players. I captured the video via firewire using Sonic MyDVD. Nero's Capture process would hang often. I then used VisionExpress to Author and burn. Disk burns with no errors and plays great on my PC. I've read many post regarding similar problems and most of them state the same thing---try different media. Can it still be the media if it worked with a slideshow? This project will play somewhat on the toshiba DVD but only the last few chapters never from the beginning. The Samsung usually states disk error and won't even display menu page.

[BouncedGranola]

I've also tried different burn speeds, still not resolved.

[dxj40c]

You may not want to hear this but I think I know what the problem is.

I had the same problem, burned DVDs played fine on the computer, but the Pioneer standalone would spit them back out, the ones that didn't eject would freeze at chapter beginnings.

The solution was to buy a new standalone that specifically says it will play DVD+R/RW discs, in my case it was a Sony (the only ones in the store that had a label that said it would play the + format).

Those disks that were once ejected now play without a hitch on the new player. Even the ones on the real cheapo disks.

[BouncedGranola]

Yeah I've considered that, but since I'm a novice at this--I don't fully understand why a DVD slideshow works but DVD video doesn't.

[BouncedGranola]

It's not the media. I'm not sure what I did so if someone could explain, that would be great. Using Nero VisionExpress I wrote my DVDVideo (captured from Digital Cam and Edited in Nero) to my hard drive. I open and copied into TMPGEnc where I had to write again to my hard drive then I created and ISO image and Burned that to a DVD +R. This disk works great in my standalone DVD players. What is an ISO Image? Why did this work rather than the Burn in Nero? And did I do some extra steps that I didn't need to do? I already had spent time cutting and editing the video in Nero but in the future I will continue to use TMPGEnc but I need a step that allows me to capture and edit the video then add the edited video to TMPGEnc.

[garryheather]

An ISO image is a description of an authored disc. Basically it's a stonking great file that tells the recorder and burning program HOW to create a disk, that is not tied to a specific authoring package. An ISO image should be compatible with any application that supports the import of such a descriptor.

It's a bit like making a cup of tea. No, it is, bear with me on this one. If you know how to make a cup of tea and then someone sneaks in to your house during the night and takes away your old kettle and puts a nice new, cordless one in it's place, you still know how to make a cup of tea because the principle of operation is the same, and on the whole, a kettle is a kettle.

As far as your computer is concerned, an ISO image is like the kettle. There are some MMC instruction sets between the ISO and the recorder, but it cuts out all the differences in authoring programs and any quirks these may implement, and narrows the playing field somewhat.

In short, it's like a map of a disc, and it describes what data goes where.

Now why didn't I just use that analogy before... ?