My Pioneer DV-C503 Won't play a burned DVD-R

[OccamsSpork]

Hi all. As the title says, I can't get a burned DVD-R to play on my (admittedly old) Pioneer DV-C503.

I am attempting to burn a DVD of My Little Pony episodes for a friend's daughter, And the video and audio work fine for a minute or two then it makes a buzzing noise and freezes. You can still fast forward and it will work again for a few seconds before freezing again.

I authored the DVD with DVDStyler, and the first time I authored the disc, everything worked except the video, which continually scrolled like there was no vertical hold. A cursory google search brought up a thread on this site, which said to stitch the video files together and try that, so I used Videopad to do so, and now I have the current issue. Anyone know how I can fix this? It's getting fairly irritating...

[Baldrick]

I would try author and convert with a different software and see how it works. Try for example dvd flick or avstodvd.

It might also help to try another dvd-r brand or try dvd+r media.

[jman98]

Players don't last forever, no matter what consumers believe, so it could simply be going bad. Most DVD media sold in the world is crap. The odds are your media is crap. The only reliable and consistently good media available in the world is Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim (anything EXCEPT their cheap crap "Life" series is top notch). You could try better media, but you may have to buy it online. You could also try reburning it to a lower speed - NOT greater than 4x. A lower speed burn might help with bad media.

However I am troubled by your description. It seems to indicate that your main problem may be that you made a PAL disc when you needed to make NTSC or vice-versa. You're going to have to investigate the settings that you used in DVDStyler. Unfortunately you have chosen to not tell us where you live. That's OK as I don't list my real country either, BUT I have said many times here that I live in the USA. It is very relevant for us to know where you live because if you live in the USA or Canada then I suspect your real issue is that you created a PAL format DVD without realizing it. But your media probably still sucks anyway and likely isn't helping matters.

[OccamsSpork]

jman98:

I do live in the US as well, and no, I did not burn it in PAL format, as I know the resolutions are different. My guess is that the original disc I burned was burned as progressive scan, hence the weird scrolling (this old dvd player is not progressive scan capable). I know my DVD player is good, because it will play most bought dvds and any cd. This is really my first time trying to play a burned DVD. It's quite possible that the media is to blame, the dvd-r's are memorex, but they come up in imgburn as cmd as...something. I have had good success with Taiyo Yuden media before for just backing up files, but I really can't remember what they are rebranded as here.

Baldrick:

Thanks, I think I will try avstodvd rather than DVD flick based on the descriptions on this site of both programs. I know a little about AVISynth which avstodvd apparently uses. I have used it a bit before, but I'm no good at scripting with it, so a good frontend like that might work for me.

Thanks to both of you!

[jman98]

Memorex is pure crap and always has been. Even back some years ago when most of the name manufacturers were using first rate producers, Memorex was still using the worst and cheapest.

Your DVD player should really not care if the DVD is progressive. If it's set up properly that should not be an issue. I suggest that you install either MediaInfo or Gspot and open one of the large IFO files under VIDEO_TS on the DVD. That should tell you if it's really PAL or NTSC. You really should confirm this as your problem has all the warning signs of a PAL<->NTSC mismatch.

[OccamsSpork]

Yeah, It's all NTSC. The media may be crap, but it does work to an extent. Now I have the video working fine, but I have to figure out how to sync the audio right. Without making more coasters.