Newbie-DVD copy freezing, is it media, ripping, or burning?

[Yankee666666]

I just burned my 1st 2 movies to DVD+RW using DVD X Copy Platiunum for 1 and DVD Shrink+Nero for the other. Both of them freeze and/or skip during playback and 1 even freezes and skips like 5 mins forward. I want to know what I can do to fix this. Any opinions are very welcome. Thanks

[Phil Thomas]

It could just be that your standalone doesn't like DVDRW's.

What media are you using and what is the make/model of the player.

[Yankee666666]

It didnt play well in my DVD Writer either. Memorex Dual 8X4. Media was TDK DVD+RW I tried 3 different disks with same results

[dafreak]

try slowing down your burn speed to 2x or even 1x.

[Phil Thomas]

Try using a good Ritek disk (not an overprint), instead of the DVDRW's.

The symptoms you describe are typical of bad media.

[Yankee666666]

The REASON im using RW's is because im new to this and dont want to start chucking away DVD+-R's. I thought TDK is at least decent media. I just bought some Maxells and Verbatim -Rs. How do i know its not the rip that was bad?

[Phil Thomas]

Well ... when you rip a disk, the program you are using has to be able to read every bit of data. If it cant, it will stop and give you a read error.
It's pretty unheard of to have a bad rip, without knowing about it.

Media issues on the other hand, are very common, as are compatibility issues with standalone players. Like I said it may just be that your standalone doesn't like DVDRW's.

At the endo f the day, the only way you will know for sure is to chance one of your DVDR's. .......... Go on be a devil

[Yankee666666]

lol ok i will try that now. I WAS going to try Smartripper to try ripping it again, but I will take your advice and bust out the -R lol. I will let you know how it goes. Thanks for your help. We newbies would get nowhere without people like you.

[Phil Thomas]

No probs m8 .... if you get a coaster, you can call me names if you like

[Yankee666666]

What do you suggest I burn with? Ive read people have had problems with Nero. I was thinking of trying CopyToDVD. Whats your opinion.

[Yankee666666]

im SO lost. I burned with CopyTODVD and then test it using WinDVD and it freezes and got pixely at one point. Then I take it to my StandAlone DVD and it looks perfect so far, EVEN at the same exact point it got pixely and froze using WInDVD. Whats the best way to test a DVD without watching the whole damn movie?

[Phil Thomas]

OK ... CopytoDVD should be fine, I use that without problems and it can be simpler to use than Nero.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that the disk works fine now on your Standalone Player, but not on the Burner in your PC.
If so, this may be down to other reasons (i.e. Player software, System Glitches, Compatibilty, Memory etc. or maybe a problem with your Burner drive itself.
What I am getting at is ... try to keep this issue seperate for the time being and stick to the original issue i.e. "Is the burnt disk good".

The easist way to test is to play the movie in your standalone player and skip through the chapters, playing a few seconds of each chapter, to make sure it's ok. If you are able to see the end credits, that's usually a good enough sign that alls ok.
There are disk checking utilities out there, but these can only give you an indication of a faulty burn ... the only way you really find out, is if you watch the film.

Let us know if your disk plays ok on your standalone and give us a bit more information on your system specs and we might be able to advise on the PC issue.

[proxyx99]

Depending on the player try finding out (links on the left) what makes your player happy -R or +R. You can try -RW as well. RW issues are quite common if you player is not very recent. Btw. burning 2-3 test disks is not a big expense considering the benefit of "knowing for sure".

[Yankee666666]

UPDATE: Everything is fine now. I burned a Verbatim DVD-R and it worked great in my standalone DVD but not on the computer using WinDVD. Unfortunately it doesnt play in my Portable DVD even though it supposedly takes DVD-R. Im going to try a Maxell DVD-R and maybe it will like that media better. The RW did work flawlessly on the portable and the normal DVD. Thanks for everyones help!

[Yankee666666]

UPDATE: The Maxell was AWESOME! The DVD-R copy looked BETTER than the original! It it was a DVD9 compressed using DVD Shrink with just the movie no extras. The TDK DVD-RW copy looked very light and wouldnt play on my portable DVD, but the Maxell was just WOW!