How to test quality of dvd's?

[Buzzword]

I recently began converting a large quantity of vhs home movie tapes to dvd. I'm using two pc's to do this. I'm using Adobe Premiere as my capture and edit software (via a Canopus ADVC100) and Sonic MyDVD v5.2 as the menu editor. My disks are TY -R white inkjet printables. I'm using a Sony DRX-510UL and a Lite-On 16X DL as my burners.

The way I test the final dvd product is to play the disk on a Koss KS1100 player (a bargain player to be sure) and then fast forward through each chapter. I figure if it doesn't freeze up then it's good.

All was well until I loaded a previously completed dvd on the Koss to show someone and one of the chapter segments froze. I then doublechecked the disk by using a Sony dvd player which is hooked up to my tv and sure enough, it froze at the same place.

Now I'm not sure if any of my completed disks also have problems. What really concerns me is that people are paying me to do this and obviously I want them to be free of any errors. My questions are,

1. Besides fast-forwarding, does anyone have another way of testing the integrity of completed projects other than replaying the whole dvd in real time?

2. Can a cheap player like the Koss screw up a dvd?

[sacajaweeda]

Is your authoring app frame-indexing your video streams when it compiles? The freezing/hanging may be happening because you're placing a chapter point on an open/broken/incomplete GOP, which sometimes happens in PC captured streams (some apps drop frames to maintain audio sync, or from system instability) or when edits and cuts are made to the streams. Frame indexing adjusts from GOP timecode and allows for better frame accurate chapter point placement. Some players are more picky than others and stuff like chapter points that juimp to a bad GOP can cause them to hang up.

[Buzzword]

When I check all of Premiere's AVI output options I don't see one that references frame-indexing. Then again, I'm not an expert in Premiere so I can't tell if Premiere will even allow me to adjust frame-indexing.

Premiere's specific Compile Options screen has four choices which I've never touched: "Chapters", which is checked; "Comments" and "URL's" which are unchecked and "Export Blank Markers" which is checked. Do any of those relate to frame indexing?

[Buzzword]

One other thing, the chapter segment freezes about halfway through, so I'm not sure if the frame indexing would be an issue if I read your explanation correctly.

[sacajaweeda]

I misunderstood you then. I was assuming it was freezing when you jumped to a particular chapter point. If it's just freezing up while it plays then it's probably something else. You might try opening your file in VirtualDubMod and scanning it for bad frames. Is the spot it's hanging up at a point where you edited or merged the stream?

[Buzzword]

It's freezing up about halfway through the stream. It's an AVI file that was just trimmed on the front and back of the captured video in Premier and then imported into MyDVD as an AVI chapter segment.

I'll check into VirtualDubMod and see if it spots any bad frames.

[Buzzword]

Sacajaweeda, I have Womble which has an MPEG Video GOP Fixer option. I tried that to scan the stream and it came up fine. Is this the same kind of test you're describing for VirtualDubMod?

[sacajaweeda]

No, run it through VDubMod and scan it. If your file has bad/un-readable frames it will tell you and identify them by frame number for you. The GOP fixer in Womble's MPEG-VCR just checks for correct GOP structure.