Am I Hosed? DVD Home Movies Won't Play in StandAlone Player

[rkr1958]

I have a Toshiba SD2800 Stand Alone DVD Player and I'm using Sony's DRU-500 DVD+/- RW Drive to create VCDs, XVCDs and DVDs Home Movies.

I create my edited home movies in AVI using Pinnacle DV Studio 7. I then use TMPEnc Plus to encode them (either VCD, XVCD or DVD). I author my VCDs and XVCDs with menus using VCD-Easy and burn them with Nero. They play very well in my Toshiba SD2800. In fact, I'm very pleased with the quality of the XVCDs I make.

[Note: I replaced my old CD-RW drive with the DRU-500 drive this past weekend and verifed that VCDs and XVCDs burned with this drive using Nero and play well and they do.]

Anyway, I created my first DVD movie from MPEG-2 DVD-quality files encoded using TMPEnc Plus. Here are the specifics of different things I've tried and the results.

1) Used Sonic MyDVD (package with the DRU-500a) to author and burn the home DVD-movie to a Sony DVD+RW disc. Played it in the Sony DRU-500a drive using WinDVD -- played well. Would not play in NEC DVD-ROM drive in my computer. Identified it after a while as an audio disc. Got a disk error when I tried to play it in my standalone Toshiba SD2800.

2) Used Sonic MyDVD to author and burn to Verbatim DVD+RW disc and got the same results as 1.

3) Used Sonic MyDVD to author and burn to FujiFlim DVD+R disc. Plays well in both DRU-500a and NEC DVD-ROM drives but I get disc error when I try to play it in my Toshiba.

4) Downloaded Demo version of Ulead DVDmoviefactory. Used that to author and burn to Sony DVD+RW with same results as in 1 & 2.

5) Used MyDVD to author the movie to hard disk and used the method describe in a earlier thread *for all who use nero, and dvd wont play in your stand-alone* ==> which makes the the DVD UDF1.02 compliant. Used that method and Nero to burn to Sony DVD_RW and Verbatim DVD+RW discs. Plays only in the Sony DRU-500a. However, when I put in my Toshiba it "plays" blank screen with no sound but identifies the disc as a DVD.

6) I downloaded dvdbitsetter and tried to use that on an already burned DVD+RW. I couldn't get that utility to work on the disc or even recognize the bit setting on the DRU-500a drive.

Is there anything else that I can try? At a minimum I would like to be able to get home DVD movies on DVD+R discs to play in my Toshiba. In the best of all worlds I would like to get them on DVD+RW discs to play. Any help would greatly be appreciated.

[Nolonemo]

I have a Toshiba 3805 (that would be the 5-disk progressive scan version of what you have). I burn DVD-Rs and all have played with no problem on the set. I am using cheap media, not sure of the brand (Primedisk?)and a Pioneer 104A burner. The set is picky about Memorex DVD-RWs, though. Try burning to DVD-R and see what happens. BTW, the Toshiba will play VCD but not SVCD nor (I think) XVCD.

[ghoster]

might try downloading ifoedit95 to auther the dvds that way and then burn them using nero. thats how i do it and the results are awesome. i also have the sony dru500a.

[rkr1958]

Try burning to DVD-R and see what happens. BTW, the Toshiba will play VCD but not SVCD nor (I think) XVCD.

I tried playing a DVD+R (Fujifilm) media and that didn't work. Could it be the media? Or the program (MyDVD) that I used to author and burn the DVD+R. BTW: I just noticed you said "DVD-R" and not "DVD+R". Have you tried DVD+R media? First chance I get I'll go and get some DVD-R media and try that. [Wasting a DVD+/- R disc is much more expensive that wasting a CD-R disc ... about $3 a pop versus a few cents.]

I've successfully played XVCD's authored with CBR of 3000 kbps. I've been very please with the results. Of course, I've had NO success in playing SVCD's in the Toshiba.

might try downloading ifoedit95 to auther the dvds that way

I'll give that a try. Could the program I use to author (MyDVD vs ifoedit95), with everything else constant, affect whether or not a DVD+R or DVD+RW disc plays in my player?

[rkr1958]

DVD-R Format (with MyDVD) did it! It's great to have a DVD write that supports both DVD+R(W) and DVD-R(W) formats. One last thing I want to try is DVD-RW, but I don't have too much hope that that format will be compatible with my Toshiba SD2800. Thanks you two for all your help.

[musher70]

the structure of ur dvd might be missing empty AUDIO_TS
folder, that is needed for compaptabilty for more home
players, some authoring programs dont include it,before u
burn dvd, make sure it is there,my sony wont take any disc
without the emtpy folder.....the VIDEO_TS folder has all
relevant data, try using ifoedit to check sectors also might
help....

[rubberman]

I have the Toshiba sd1200 player and was having problems playing dvd-r but figured it out. I used Nero and burned using the DVD-rom(udf) mode and every DVDR i burn now works. In the past i used Nero dvd-rom(udf/iso) mode and it never worked so switching to the UDF mode made it compatible with my DVD player.