Compatibility DVD-Writer and StandAlone Player Ended! HELP!

[Lynn Circle]

Until last weekend I had no problem creating DVD+R, DVD+RW, DVD-R, and DVD-RW which my standalone DVD player happily played.

Suddenly the DVD player began rejecting the disks I'd created and displaying DISK ERROR on its readout. When I checked the disks in my computer, some looked fine and played fine. Others appeared to be empty disks. But when I again tried copying files to one of these, my computer gave me this error "Files already exist. Replace?" even though I couldn't see them.

OK, I figured those may have been bad blanks, even though I was using Platinum 4X +R, which have been highly recommended for my NEC 1300A, and which have worked fine before.

To see if the problem was in my DVD player, I tested DVD's created earlier. All the formats played ok, so the change has to be in my computer. Yet the DVDs rejected by my stand alone DVD player were recognized in a generic DVD-ROM drive in another computer, and in a Sony DVD writer at work.

I've been using Roxio Six Creator Classic to put the files from my hard drive onto the DVDs. Is it possible something has gone wrong with the program, and that it is no closing the disks properly? My registry checks out ok, but I could attempt to restore the last backup I made of my system state.

All suggestions or comments either here or to lynnkcircle@netscape.net will be greatly and gratefully appreciated.

[fritzi93]

Lynn, the weight of opinion is rather negative on Roxio for DVD burning. You don't say how experienced you are. You also don't give any details on your procedure, but you could try this:

First, do the obvious stuff- defrag and use a lens cleaner, your player as well. Then get the latest versions of DVDShrink and DVDDecrypter if you don't have them already.

Open the DVD in Shrink. Go into preferences and set target DVD size to Custom and 4200MB. For simplicity's sake, choose reauthor and drag the main movie (biggest file) over to reauthor window. You can uncheck any unneeded audio tracks and subtitles if desired.

Click Backup and in the "Backup DVD" window that appears, change "Select Target Device" to ISO image. If you have a separate ROM drive and will be ripping from that, check "Launch DVDDecrypter to burn ISO image". Specify where to put the ISO. Click O.K.

With a DVD-ROM AND a burner, it's essentially a one-click deal. Put a blank into the burner before hitting backup, and all you have to do is take the burned DVD out when done. If using just your burner for both jobs, after Shrink is done, do this: Launch DVDDecrypter, click on Mode> ISO> Write. Put a blank in and hit DVD. That's it.

The reason for setting DVD size to custom is in case the blank media is dodgy on the edges, not uncommon. You could even set it as low as 4G, lower isn't likely to help. Creating an ISO and burning with DVDDecrypter is hard to screw up and will be guaranteed compliant with DVD specs. In addition, it's all freeware and the programs are lean and mean, no dubious proprietary junk.

If the above doesn't work, you may have a hardware problem. But I bet it works, does for me. Good luck.

[Lynn Circle]

Thank you. I do use both DVD Decrypter and Shrink, but the Beta 3 version of DVD Shrink doesn't give me the options you suggest. I'll have to try to find an update, I guess. Also, I've generally used "Auto", except in a few cases where that gives a larger result than will fit on a DVD. In that case I've simply run it again.

And I have NOT defragmented my hard drive for a while. In fact, what I was trying to do was to clean off some old files on my hard drive before defragging on Saturday, and that was when I ran into the problem.

So, when I get home the first thing I'll do is look for an update to Shrink .. and then defrag my hard drive. I'll post here if that solves the problem.

And thank yoiu again!