DVD Burning Problems - A03

[TheCodeMan34]

Hey everybody. I just picked up a Pioneer A03 along with a bunch of cheapo DVD-Rs. I decided I would consolidate my VCD/SVD collection onto DVDs. Everything was going great until I actually decided to play them back on my computer. On 8 out of 10 discs that I've made, atleast one of the movies (on some of them more) refuses to load under any DVD app (and I've tried a few). I have tried to copy the files off the DVD and get a data error (cyclic redundancy check). I did some searching and came up empty. It appears that on 90% of the DVDs I have created, the last movie file in the directory tree is corrupt. This occurs even though Prassi said the burn was successful.

So now I am stuck with many DVDs which only have half the files they could actually hold on them. I am guessing it is one of two things, either cheap DVD-R media or I am burning too fast at 2X. I will discount one of those tonight. However, I still have an issue with Prassi. If it tells me the burn was successful, then it should be.

[ozwaldo]

hi codeman i would say that its the media due to the fact that you said the media was cheap so i would be guessing the media is unbranded and the A03 will not burn unbranded media at 2x only 1x


ozwaldo

[JimJohnD]

If your software has a "Verify" function you should turn it on. This will make the program re-read the data and compare it to what should have been recorded. This WILL add extra time, but you will know right away if you have problems. Otherwise the software just says "yah I burned it". All the CD-R/W software I use has this function and I always turn it on as I usually delete the source data (recorded tv shows, no big loss...but) after I'm done.

[JimJohnD]

Almost forgot, here is a link to a freeware app.
http://www.webattack.com/get/cdcheck.shtml
There are lots of them out there but they all do about the same thing. Hope this helps if you still have your source files or just to check out what you've got.

[mikerios]

my 2 cents on the issue,

I use some generics ( Great Quality brand ) and they sometimes burn sometimes don't, even when I burn 100% and I go for playback, they play up to a certain point and usually about to the 80% to 90% mark and from there on they are not readable, at that point it locks up the drive or the home dvd player.

Since I now only use Pioneer, or Apple ( my current favorite ) media as my good burn stock, I no longer really trust the GQs ( they only burn at 1x ) as both Pioneer and the Apple burn at 2x with good success ( I use Nero ). So I suspect it's your media and not the burn rate ( though you can try kicking it down to 1x ). BTW I also upgrade my firmware to 1.68. I did this in attempt ( that and drive cooling since I have it in a mid atx case stuff full of drives and cards ) to bring down my coaster rates tremendously. I cannot say for sure that flashing firmware to 1.68 did more for my problem than media switching and the heatsink / fan combo I now use on the drive.

[kpic]

What are you using to author the DVDs? I have used Generic and Pioneer media and have not noticed a burning problem with them,if you want to talk compatibility and burning speeds (generic at 1x only) thats another story but they all burn fine. I think it is the way they are being authored.What is your setup?

[mikerios]

That's what I thought but I have nailed down my failures to be media specific. I use Ulead DVD Movie Factory or Spruce Up to author, all my burns are done in Nero 5.5.8.0. THe Apple ones do not fail ( they used to but that was due to heat issues which I have fixed ) and burn at 2x no problem. The Great Quality on the other hands have been a toss up ( I have since stopped buying them and use only Apple Media ) as some times they fail, sometimes they go 100 % but when I flip over the disc I see that a certain area of the burn towards the end is not uniform, and I know that part will not play back, a run through my DVD Players shows that I am correct, on those ones it plays back to a certain point and then stops or freezes the dvd player before it goes back to the main menu area. Even when it does look 100% I have one that seemed to stall on play back every so and so. So the Apple media has been trouble free so far.

As for my set up, I use DVD Decryptor for ripping, DVD2AVI for frameserving, the A03 for burning in Nero 5.5.8.0. My system in a iNTEL P4 2 Ghz 512 mb of 333 mhz ram 320 gb total on the system of hardrive space under Windows 2000 sp2.

[Anonymous65]

I got the Pioneer 104, and two different DVD-RW disks I have tried will not play at all in my Apex 660. Not a big surprise, it will not play many CD-RW disks eigher.

But, the Apex have problems playing DVD-R's also. I have only tried the unbranded disks, and they play fine for the first 1 hour and 30 minutes or so then starts to skip forward for a few minutes until it just stops. I have not tried any other brands yet, and would like to know if Pioneer and Apple DVD-R's are still the best?

[mikerios]

Skittleson-

Yes if you are doing critical DVD-R burns Apple o Pioneer is theway to go. Interesting that the Apex wil not play DVD-RW. One reason I got my 2nd DVD Player, the Pionee 440 was to avoid playaback hassles with the Apex and I wanted semi long term reliability. To that end I am glad I got my 440. Both my Sony and my Pioneer playback DVD-RW, but he added bonus is the Pioneer is not as picky media wise or format wise. I just came back from a computer show last Sunday where I brought some of the notorius Princo DVD-Rs, as I figured for $1.65 each how could I go wrong. I only brought 10 of them. First 2 burned nice at 1x ( they will not do 2x ) and playabck perfect. I also picked up a neat little device that converts my A03 to firewire to lower cpu utilization durng the burns, a neat little device for $50.00.

[jerry62]

fyi, i used some cheapo off-brand blank dvd-r's and had no problems burning or playing the dvd on my Apex AD-600A, and my Apex AD-1100w. Actually, my original 600A had the DSL-600A drive that I exchanged with a cheap Pioneer I got off ebay (the original 600A drive had known issues, unlike the 710A in some AD-600A models). But the 1100w is stock. I used the DVR-A03 and Nero.

I will post the cheap dvd-r information later if i can recall...

[jerry62]

I also picked up a neat little device that converts my A03 to firewire to lower cpu utilization durng the burns, a neat little device for $50.00.

I'm curious as to how this is possible, and how firewire would do better?
I've only tried firewire for direct video capture (no relation to the dvd writer), and have always found issues supposedly based on how fast the drive can write, even though my drive is spec'd up to snuff from what i've read.

[mikerios]

go to http://www.caloptic.com/fwint.html
there are the converters ( and you must have an exsiting firewire card/ or port as it rides as a host of the controller with a pass thru ).

But what I saw was intersting. His set up at he computer swapmeet wasa p3 450 and only 128mb of ram under Windows 2000. He had 5 external drives converted this way ( all of the optical 3 were LG DVD Roms and 3 were Pioneer A04s ) and 2 more opticals on the computr plus 3 hardives. All of them ( except for the boot drive ) had the converters on them. He then proceded to rip one DVD , Burn in Nero to one of the A04, playback a move from Another A04 and do a 15 mb hadrive to hadrive transfer at the same time to take the cpu utilization at 90 %. But if he just burned, the cpu utilization never rose about 7% or so. As he did each task you could slowly see the cpu utilization creep up as each task was added. I was truly impressed. The firewire conversion is tolower cpu utilization and eliminate buffer under runs since all transfers are across the firewire bus, though it has higher thorughput than ata 100 / 133, at least the bus alone will not slow down the transfers when you have more than one task going one at the same time like the IDE bus will. This alows you to view movies and burn at the same time without the coastering. I have yet to install on my A03 but am very eager to lower the coaster issue ythat I sometimes had.

[Master_Hiram357]

Hello Everyone,

Today I bought a DVD+RW/CD-RW It's a Sony. The program that cam with it to copy DVD's is called " B's recorder Gold " . I have the following Programs : Clad DVD XP 1.3, Ifoedit09, Vobedit04 and I can 't find the Smart Ripper at no sites.
My question is real basic, How can I take the write protected codes off a DVD movie and record the movie on a blank DVD ?? I've tried with the programs I have and none of them work except Clad DVD XP1.3 but after this process is over my program that comes with my DVD burner(B's RecorderGold) won't reconize the files to burn. I was told but Darrow that all I need is The smart Ripper(Can't find), The Ifoedit09, and the program that cam with my DVD Burner.....but I have the next best thing and somethings wrong. I have windows Xp. Can someone assist me in learning how to copy DVD movie's ?