DVD-R duplication issue.. possible region-related?????

[duckporn]

I am selling a DVD-R for a guy who made it himself. Has done it before so his DVD-R is all done properly. I have not copied DVD-Rs before however, only CDs.

Using Nero i have inserted the master DVD-R and selected copy disc, so it writes all the data to my hard drive and then asks me to insert a blank disc. So i do that, it write it, i insert it into my Xbox 360, everything plays fine (its a video not a game, but i only have a 360 for a DVD player)

Anyway, i sent out the disc to some people in america (i am from england) and a couple have said it doesnt work. I dont know if this is just the 2 who emailed or whether the rest havent received their copy yet. One guy said he has a lot of DVD-R players and it doesn't work for any of them. . . . .

I thought it might be because the disc i use maybe isnt very good (Ridisc Xtreme AAA+ with RitekF1 dye) but i doubt this would mean it can't play on any of the 4 players the guy tried it on.

So i think maybe it is region? The Master DVD-R is Region 0, and i did a straight copy, so will this keep it as Region 0 or will it overide it to Region 2?

Does anyone have any other idea what the problem might be? Another guy said it stopped playing through half way. Someone else said disc 1 (of 2) didnt work but #2 did....

thanks for any ideas

[ZippyP.]

Home burned disks are not region coded.

Could be:

- Pal/NTSC issue, most DVD players in North America cannot play Pal disks. They will work in a computer however.

- Bad disks, stalling/freezing indicates poor media.

[duckporn]

Ok thanks for your help.

The master disc was from north america, so i assumed it's in NTSC already.

How do i know if it is a PAL disc? thanks for your help this is really annoying me!

[redwudz]

You can open one of the VOBs with Gspot 2.60 and if it shows the framerate as 25fps, it's PAL. If it's 29.970fps or 23.976fps it's NTSC. Power DVD or similar players should also show the framerate.

But I would suspect a media problem or even a Nero problem if it is already NTSC.

[duckporn]

What do you mean a problem with nero if it is already NTSC? The DVD master is from the US so that almost certainly is, and ideally i want it to be NTSC on the copied discs.... don't i..? will this mean it won't work on UK/europe DVD/TVs ?

EDIT: i just checked with Gspot and the copies i am burning have come out at 29.970 frames. is that good or bad?

[cyflyer]

The fact that a disc played and stopped half way through, or one played and another didn't would suggest that its not a pal/ntsc related problem. If it was it wouldn't play at all, not half way through before deciding it was a differrent system. It sounds like a media issue. Ridisc/Ritek are the crappiest discs you could possibly record on, especially to send something important to someone abroad. Try again but use quality discs, such as those suggested time and time again by so many on this site.

[guns1inger]

is that good or bad?

Neither. It just means that it is NTSC. You have a choice. You can clearly label them NTSC with a warning that it requires a compatible player, or you can try to convert the material to PAL. Can you post a screenshot of the g-spot output so we can confirm if it is true 29.97, or 23.976 with pulldown ? I suspect the former, which makes format conversion a lot harder.

All you really need to do is use DVD Decrypter in ISO mode (Mode->ISO->Read) to create an ISO image on your HDD, then imgburn2 to burn the image to DVDs to make the duplicates. This method is more reliable than Nero. If you are selling them, make sure you use the best discs you can get - Verbatim or TY if possible. And test them before you send them out.

[FulciLives]

NERO is the worse POS for DVD Video burning.

Use ImgBurn instead. It works SO much better. In fact ImgBurn is the ultimate DVD Video burning program. Pretty amazing considering it is freeware!

A lot of people don't seem to realize this but the burning method used (which mostly comes down to the software used for burning) has a lot to do with the "quality" of the burn and the better the burn the more compatible the DVD-R will be.

For instance it is not unheard of for people to use NERO and have some DVD players be OK with it and other DVD players not play it. Do the exact same burning with ImgBurn and suddenly it plays back on all (or at least a lot more) DVD players.

Another factor when it comes to being compatible (meaning of course playback on a wide variety of DVD players) is the type of media used, i.e., the brand/make of DVD recordable used.

Sadly that is another fact that most don't know or understand.

In short when it comes to DVD-R media the only reliable media is Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim. Pretty much everything else is crap to one degree or another.

Since I live in the USA I cannot tell you where to buy your media or what "brand" per se because Taiyo Yuden is a supplier to many (not enough) companies. Brand "X" may be called "X" but they might use Taiyo Yuden whereas brand "Y" uses something different. Worse yet brand "X" may sometimes use Taiyo Yuden and sometimes may not. In other words until you make the purchase, open the package, and put the DVD-R in a computer (to read the MEDIA ID CODE) you really don't know what you are getting.

To be safe stick with Verbatim DVD-R (always the same thing unlike other companies) or buy Taiyo Yuden DVD-R direct. Yes you can buy Taiyo Yuden direct but I don't know where you would in the U.K. so maybe someone else can help you with that. The only "clue" I can give you is that you will need to buy it via a website because if you walk into a store and say, "I want to buy Taiyo Yuden DVD-R discs" they will blink at you and probably call the police OR in other words they won't know what the hell you are talking about. Now there are many websites located in the USA that do sell Taiyo Yuden DVD-R discs direct so I am sure there are some U.K. based websites that do the same. You just have to find one. The other option of course is to buy Verbatim DVD-R discs at a retail store. Assuming of course Verbatim DVD-R is the same in the U.K. as here in the USA (but I am pretty sure that is the case).

Now you may be saying to yourself but I always use NERO with brand "XYZ" and it plays A-OK on my equipment but that is faulty logic. Just because it works for you doesn't mean it works for everyone. There are all sorts of different model and makes of DVD players out there.

All of what I have just said has been well documented on this website.

On last note ... I might as well bring it up now ... some people get real angry about the negative NERO burning comments I and other people make. I will say that it is possible to get NERO to work "correctly" but it seems to be pot luck. Many think this has to do with the fact that NERO is constantly releasing "bug fixes" and "updates" and the level of burning seems to go from OK to BAD to OK to BAD and back and forth with each "update" which makes using NERO very unreliable. It really is best to just stick with ImgBurn which has proved itself for ages now.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[duckporn]

Wow thanks very much for all your help guys.
The disc that stopped half way through was apparently due to damage in shipping, as the case got all mangled.

I heard that ritek were the best for the price range, so i used them. I have since bought some 'titanium' datawrite because they got 9.0/10 from customers on another site which, apart from TY was the best rating any media got.

However, i have heard the rumours, and i will be switching to verbatim next time i buy blanks for this project, unless you highly recommend ditching the datawrite titanium NOW...?

I will also burn the ISO and use that software, thanks very much guys, you may well have saved my bacon, i was seriously considering having it glass mastered just to make it simpler...

[FulciLives]

A friend of mine (well a friend of a friend) almost went out of business when he switched to selling his stuff on VHS to DVD ... all due to issues with poor DVD-R media.

He nearly went out of business because of complaints and returns etc.

Then I told him about Taiyo Yuden and it totally turned things around for him.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[duckporn]

Point taken. I guess i'll have to bite the bullet and go to TY! The problem is, as its a double disc that means its going to cost me £1 per sale, which is about 25% of my cut, instead of previously 5%. But i guess quality comes at a price.

thanks for all the help

[duckporn]

I have found a place to buy TY at a reasonable price, but they offer 8x and 16x. the 8x uses TYGO2 and the 16x TYG03 now i dont know much about this as you can probably tell, but intelligence tells me that 16x is for the impatient, and thus buying the 8x which has probably been around longer and given TY the good rep they have, would be the smart move for me as i am intending to burn video to be viewed on TV to as high a quality as possible.

One other question - is the burner itself important? I'm using the crappy one i got with my PC (which i got from ebay )

[FulciLives]

I burn 8x DVD discs at 4x and I burn 16x DVD discs at 6x

You probably could burn the 8x DVD discs at 6x though.

I don't like burning more than 6x because then the burn isn't "constant" ... you get the speed going up and down ... up and down ... I just can't see that being good. I've heard it called "ramping" like over the span of burning it gets faster and faster but each time it gets faster ... right before that ... it dips big time ... then shoots up in speed. If you burn at 6x or slower then it burns at a constant speed the whole way.

Most burners will think they have gone to heaven when you feed them Taiyo Yuden but I do seem to recall there is a brand or two that actually don't like them. I forget which those are but you can't go wrong with Pioneer or NEC DVD burners.

There is a simple program you can download that will tell you the make/model of your DVD burner. Look in the TOOLS section. I forget the name of the program but it should be somewhere in the TOOLS section.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[duckporn]

Thanks, well according to image burn its called "Aopen DUW1608/ARR"

I just burned one in 8x and one at 4x and wow the difference on nero quality checker thingy is very clear. 4x from now on! But i was wondering whether i should buy 8x or 16x TY... i guess 8x is the safer option?

[FulciLives]

I think they are both as good although some think the 8x are better.

I think the real trick is not to go over 6x burning speed.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[duckporn]

Edit: Never mind, sorry! TY working all is good

[duckporn]

Errr.. I just finished writing and checking 2 TY discs, and then compared it to 1 of my DataWrite Titanium checks.. have a look at this:



Can anyone explain that? I thought TY were sposed to be amazing! all 3 discs written at 4x

Whatever, the discs work so i don't care - what i care about is how compatible they are, and i assume TY are the most compatible?