Having issues with back-ups of movies 2+ hours

[silvertongue206]

I'm not sure if this is a media issue, or my writer. I operate on my plextor 712a which i've owned since july of 2004. Never any problems with it. Well, I've attempted to make back-ups of a couple of my foreign flix (still region 1; back-up because i travel a lot and don't want to damage the originals on flight), but the last few have been skipping towards the end of the flick, usually after 2 hours and 10 minutes, or more. I use prodisc +r media (8x), and I write them at 8x. I've attempted to write one at 4x to see if that would help, but the skipping remained. I don't have these issues with standard movies, or even movies that may exceed the 4.7gb amount, and need to be compressed (due to menus, not so much length). I understand prodisc has been shady with their quality lately, so i've already decided to begin my journey with ty's. however, i don't want to get those and have the same issues. can anyone tell me if this is happening because of crap media, and not the burner? much obliged in advance.

[guns1inger]

I'd be surprised if the length makes a difference. If it is a media issue, then any movie that fills the disk to the outer edge should show similar problems.

Can you briefly tell us your process (steps, programs etc) to see if anything pops up.

[Nilfennasion]

I have had a similiar issue with some DVDs. I will share with you the problems/solutions I had and how well they've been fixed:

1) Lousy media. In the first case, I simply switched to +R media and the whole situation eased by about 90%. On top of that, the Media ID of your discs (don't just go switching brands willy-nilly... sometimes two brands will have the same Media ID) often factors into backup quality.

2) Power supply. The place I am living in now has, without a doubt, the biggest joke of a power supply I have ever seen. I have lived all up and down the Eastern coast of this country, and I have found that DVD players can be very tempermental about the stream of power going into them. I don't know how much this applies to burners or portables, but the short story is that making sure your power is smooth and reliable (power conditioners can help there) goes a long way.

3) Burning too much information onto the disc. Another solution that got rid of most of the remaining problems I had after solution 1 is reducing the data size of the disc. Small bit of education here - despite what manufacturers tell you, those discs DO NOT contain 4.7GB of space. In reality, it's about 4.35GB, and of that, I generally try to use close to 4.20, leaving the remaining .15 empty. The results tend to play back a little more smoothly.

Hopefully, one or more of these tips will prove useful to you.

[jimmalenko]

Sounds like media based on what you've given so far IMO. Depending on what software you're using, you could set the target output size to about 4GB and let DVDShrink, DVD2One or whatever you're using hit that target size. This should keep you well away from the outer edges.

[silvertongue206]

first off, thanks for the quick response, peoples. i think it may be a media issue...i stumbled onto a sticky in the media section of these forums which lead me to believe that that may be it. to give some details of my process though; clonedvd is the program, 8x +r media burned at 8x, and uh...as far as media being filled to the outer edge, i'm sure it happens quite often, as the quality of a back-up sometimes drops to as low as 55% (and surprisingly still decent). i'll look into setting the limit at 4gb's when i get home, and see what that does, but is there a way to look at the media id's without programs such as dvdinfo, etc? maybe with nero (i have nero ultra v. 6.0.1/2...something), or maybe the plextools professionals program that came with my writer?). I planned on ordering some yuden's from rima or something, as i've heard nothing but good things about them...hope i'm on the right track...

[Nilfennasion]

DVDDecrypter will also show you the MediaID of a given disc.