Can't explain skipping: Same Bits/Different Media/vice versa

[mzellers]

I recently created DVDs of two of my daughter's choral concerts. I burned several copies of each on several different blank media.

I got a report from my daughter's choral teacher that one disk played fine and the other was skipping. So I went over to her house today and we tried several other copies of the same DVD until we found one that worked on her player.

Here is a table summarizing the behavior:

Choral Concert: K-Hypermedia -

Choral Fest: K-Hypermedia - , GQ - , Optodisk -

Here is how DVD Decrypter (may it rest in peace) identified these media:

K-Hypermedia 1-2.4X:
Physical Format Information (ADIP):
Disc ID: CMC MAG-R01-00
Book Type: DVD+R
Part Version: 1
Disc Size: 120mm
Maximum Read Rate: Not Specified
Number of Layers: 1
Track Path: Parallel Track Path (PTP)
Linear Density: 0.267 um/bit
Track Density: 0.74 um/track
First Physical Sector of Data Area: 196,608
Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 2,491,711
Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 0


GQ: Great Quality 8x
Physical Format Information (ADIP):
Disc ID: SONY-D11-00
Book Type: DVD+R
Part Version: 1
Disc Size: 120mm
Maximum Read Rate: Not Specified
Number of Layers: 1
Track Path: Parallel Track Path (PTP)
Linear Density: 0.267 um/bit
Track Density: 0.74 um/track
First Physical Sector of Data Area: 196,608
Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 2,491,711
Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 0

The media that worked was:

Optodisk:
Physical Format Information (ADIP):
Disc ID: OPTODISC-OR4-00
Book Type: DVD+R
Part Version: 1
Disc Size: 120mm
Maximum Read Rate: Not Specified
Number of Layers: 1
Track Path: Parallel Track Path (PTP)
Linear Density: 0.267 um/bit
Track Density: 0.74 um/track
First Physical Sector of Data Area: 196,608
Last Physical Sector of Data Area: 2,491,711
Last Physical Sector in Layer 0: 0



All copies of the disk were made by burning an ISO image created by DVDAuthor (see my other post in this group). I used the Verify option, so the computer was able to verify that all the bits on the hard disk made it onto the DVD.


All of these disks play just fine on my two standalone DVD players (a Philips 741 and a Sony DVD+-RW recorder).

My bet is that I did something wrong in the mastering, but I can't quite explain the same bits on different media failing, yet the "failing" media works ok on other bits.

Is there some tool that I can run to predict if the disks I burn may run into compatibility problems?

Thanks,

Mark Z.

[non-linear]

Did you try other players? I had a problem a couple years ago with an old RCA DVD player, where I had a disc that I authored that had digital breakup on the same spot when burned to different media. It played fine in all other players I tried, so it was the player.

[bugster]

Yes, some players just don't play well with recordable media of any type or quality, especially older players.

[mzellers]

I just remembered something. The Choral Fest (the one that only worked on one particular brand of media) I recorded with variable bit rate. The Chorus concert (which worked on the K-Hypermedia disk) I recorded constant bit rate.

I think it may have something to do with what the player does if it fails to read a block from the disk. Perhaps the older player was overwhelmed by the VBR stream and wasn't able to recover?