DRU500a: Standalone playback probs

[Zaph]

Hi All,
I've searched the forums and can't seem to find this issue mentioned, so perhaps I'm the only one who has it.

I just bought a DRU500a, installed 1.0f firmware, created a 2gig DVD (collection of clips & home movies & stuff authored in MyDVD) using Nero (latest version).

I then burnt this onto 5 different brand RW's (3 +RW, 2 -RW).
Every one of these burns works fine in my PC (played in pioneer DVD drive), but all of them exhibit problems when played back on my standalone DVD player (Pioneer 717)

The problems they show are audio screeches and block noise in the image, slightly different every time it plays, and a lockup during one of the videos.
I then took the Sony +RW disk to a friends place, along with my PC and dumped the VIDEO_TS from my machine to his, at which point we burnt the Sony +RW with the same data on his Ricoh 5120 using the same version of Nero (same settings as I used).

The disc from the 5120 plays flawlessly on my standalone player...

So, this tells me that I'm having a problem with the burning on the DRU500a that is not the source material (same used on both burns) and not the media (same actual Sony +RW used on both burns)

Which leaves me wondering what I can do to try to fix the problem - has anyone else experienced these sorts of problems ? If so, are there ways to improve compatibility ?

Zaph

[donpedro]

Are you sure that both of you have same Nero version ?

See here : How can I tell if I have Nero 5.5.9.17.0 or 5.5.9.17.1 ?

[Zaph]

Are you sure that both of you have same Nero version ?

See here : How can I tell if I have Nero 5.5.9.17.0 or 5.5.9.17.1 ?

Yes, absolutely sure - I installed the same version on both, copied the update from my machine and installed on his. (I was specifically trying to reduce the number of variables)

Is there any software I can use to look at the burn quality on a disc ? something that could show the difference between the two burns ?

[somte]

What is the configuration of your computer?

[Zaph]

What is the configuration of your computer?

Athlon 2000XP
WinXP (with all updates from Microsoft)
Sony DRU500A burner
Nero 5.5.17.0 (based on the date of the .exe and the other forum thread)

I've been doing more tests - I'm pretty sure its a problem with the burn itself, I can burn twice and get two different results in terms of where the block noise occurs in the video, but I am yet to get a clean burn on any disk.

The machine that burn successfully was:
Athlon 1700
Win2k
Ricoh 5120
Nero 5.5.17.0

on the exact same disk as the 'bad burn'

maybe I should call it a 'weak burn' in that it plays fine on my PC and on one standalone, but not on the Pioneer 717, the same disk & data burnt from the richoh burner runs flawlessly in the Pioneer 717

Any hints would be appreciated - I'm kind of lost as where to look.

[MrDVD]

I have more or less the same problem. I use DVD Decrypter 3.1.3.0 to rip the DVD movie to my HD. Then I use IfoEdit 0.94 to create the DVD file structure from the extracted VOB files. Finally, I use Nero 5.5.9.17 to burn the movie.
When I play the movie on my Pc using PowerDVD XP everything goes fine. When I play it on my standalone DVD player I have problems with last chapters - they don't play at all, the movie jumps from chapter to chapter till the end.
I also used RecordNow 4.50 to burn the movie and I had the same problems.

If I use DVD Decrypter 3.1.3.0 to make an entire copy of a DVD movie I don't experience any problems at all on my standalone player when I play it.

I also had problems when I used DVD-R disc from INTENSO, but at that time problems where happening on both situation stated above. And back then I faced them both on my PC and standalone DVD player.

[lonnie137]

try dvd x copy

[8dragon8]

Hey Zaph,
I got the same problem like you last month when Dell shipped my Sony DRU-500A. I have searched all over website for help and most of them said Nero 5.5.9.17 can do the job but no one said that Nero can not close the DVD+-R at the end. I then used Roxio CD Creator 5.3.2 Platinum to close the coaster DVD by press IGNORE button. 3 out of 5 DVD+-R using this technique were working in any stand alone fine but took a while to load the DVD.
I then use the software came with it call RecordNow and upgraded to the RecordNow DX for free. I use SmartRipper to rip the whole Movie DVD to hard drive and use Veritas RecordNow DX to record to DVD+-R and it work perfectly like DVD-ROM. Remember DVD+R is not work with the old stand alone DVD player. If you want to copy a movie that greater than 4.3 GIG then you need to use DVDXCopy to split the content into 2 DVD. So far I don’t have any problem with this drive yet and it saves me lots of money.

[Zaph]

Hey Zaph,
I got the same problem... If you want to copy a movie that greater than 4.3 GIG then you need to use DVDXCopy to split the content into 2 DVD.

Actually, I'm not ripping DVD's here, I'm burning my own home-movie content from my DV cam.

Some more info from more tests:

Verbatim DVD-R bombs out during the burn (known problem I think) - BUT the video it did burn plays flawlessly on my standalone...

If it wasn't for the fact that data burnt on the Sony+RW disc from the Ricoh also played correctly I'd have said it was a media problem, but having the Ricoh burn better on the Sony+RW that came with my DRU500a makes me think it's more likely that the burner just doesnt do good burns...
But, nobody else seems to have this exact same problem so I'm going to keep trying things and see if I can fix it. (hell, maybe I should rip one of my DVD's just to see if that works!)

[MrDVD]

I have already used DVDXCOPY and I had no problems with it. But as you probably know we cannot get out of unwanted audio tracks and subtitles. And as I am backuping Zone 2 DVDs this makes a lot of a difference, if we don't care about loosing the extras.

[donpedro]

For everybody... He is NOT making copy of commercial DVD.

Zaph, it looks very strange. I wonder if your drive can be faulty ? One, last recomendation that I have for you is (you are not going to like it) re-install you WinXP. I am not sure if it is the best think to do, but I never installed "latest" drivers from vendors. I am using only what WindowsUpdate web site gives me and I never had any big issues with my Sony drive.

[Zaph]

For everybody... He is NOT making copy of commercial DVD.

Zaph, it looks very strange. I wonder if your drive can be faulty ? One, last recomendation that I have for you is (you are not going to like it) re-install you WinXP. I am not sure if it is the best think to do, but I never installed "latest" drivers from vendors. I am using only what WindowsUpdate web site gives me and I never had any big issues with my Sony drive.

Thanks Donpedro,
Unfortunately I'm not prepared to reinstall WinXP right now.. I have a couple of other options worth trying - one is to put the DVD burner in a second machine which has just had win2k reinstalled on it (but I can't leave it in that machine)
The other option is to try the trial of Ulead DVD Workshop and see if VBR works better (it seems the other stuff I've tried is all CBR) - but that isn't really the issue since I know that the data itself can be burnt properly on a DVD... I just wish there was some way of comparing two burns to see if there were errors/differences

Update: I've just done a test Rip of a DVD movie, and the entire movie played without flaw - yet I still can't get my home-made movies to play cleanly (or other downloaded clips, etc). This is really weird... Does anyone around here use the DRU500A for anything other than ripping ? If so, have you had much luck ?

Zaph

[donpedro]

Yes, I am using it to burn my home video with Studio 8 (authoring). I tested small 10 minutes footage and it worked. Since it is taking too much time to edit my clips... my bigger project is in future.

[onyx666]

hi

i have exact the same problem.
I burn with a pioneer a05 and the disks i tried are pioneer and princo .
But what is very strange that some of the disks do not have the problems every time i play it.

I play them on a pioneer dv-444.

Can it be a heating problem from the player ?

[RoopeT]

I would try to make an image with Ifoedit+imgtools and burn with DVDDecrypter. I haven't burned any video-DVDs with Nero (and haven't noticed any playback problems with good media)

[onyx666]

i use dvd decrypter to burn
i tried one disk with dvd gear pro and it looks like this one is good but i am not sure because next time i play it it might be bad.

I think the problem is the player because it does not consequently play the bad parts