DVD-Rs wont play on dvd Player (OS X)

[oquela]

I recently burned movies using (gasp....a PC w/DVDDecrypter/SplitDVD, a Pioneer A04, and Princo 2x media) and they work well on a Sony DVD player (regular player hooked to TV) but neither movie will play on my iMac G3 500 DV under OS x (It will play sporadically under 9.2.2, but with lots of stutter/pauses)

Under OS X, it recognizes the disks and the files, automatically launches the Mac DVD player, but will not autmatically start the movie. I get a black screen and it says "not permitted" and "system error" when trying to open the movie manually.

It is driving me CRAZY. The computer I love the most can't/won't play my dvd-r movies. Can anyone help?

[SCB]

Try the "Open Video_TS Folder" option from the file menu in DVD Player or try playing with VLC http://www.videolan.org/.

[oquela]

SCB,
Thanks for the info on VLC. I'm going to DL it later tonight and try it. As for using the "open Video_TS" option....no luck. That's what gives me the error message.

I think I figured out why the DVDs play everywhere EXCEPT my Mac. I think the DVD-Rom drive is region-locked, and will only play US titles. Perhaps the software (DVD Player is locked too) When I rip/burn DVDs using DVDExtractor, it automatically makes the IFO/Vob/Bup files region-free (or more specifically, it gives the ripped files ALL the region #s) There must be a way to change this annoying default.

There are firmware hacks for my drive, but I'm afraid to screw around with it. Kind of an expensive experiment.

I'll try your solution first. Thanks again!

[spudz2]

Hi there.. Your post is a few months old but did you ever get the discs to play? I'm having the same problem.. However I have some insight to it..

I have some DVD-R's that were backed up using dvd decrypter also but with ISO read and then ISO write.. These ones will play fine on the MAC G4 with DVD Player.. When there written back there region free and have no protection so that tells you that it's nothing to do with any region free coding or anything else becuase these ones play fine..

However any of the dvd-r backups that I have that are movie only with the extra's taken out will NOT play however.. I get the same NOT PERMITTED message.. So it's something about the IFO files it isn't liking.. I haven to found one single standalone or pc computer that would not play these but the MAC will NOT play them.. That really sucks too.. The ones that won't work were burned with NERO and some were reauthored with DVD Maestro and others were done without reencoding but just backing up the movie itself with either DVD2ONE or IFOEdit all on the PC..

Anyone else have ideas how to get these to work let me know.. I'm not sure if it's a NERO issue or DVD2ONE or IFOEDit.. But it's definatly one of the 3 I think...

Spudz

[TugBoat]

It just so happens I've been playing around with DVD2one for a few weeks now. The older version (1.02) gave me no problems, but the new 'Full Disk' version 1.1.1 has been hell on IFO files. Lottsa people having problems.... One of the easiest ways I've found to fix the IFO files is to run DVD Toolbox in VPC/RealPC/Softwindows and have it 'strip' the VIDEO_TS folder. After stripping the VOB files, it updates the IFO files and they work fine on my Mac. I just noticed that they released a new version of DVD Toolbox, note that I haven't tried the new version! You can find it Here . I was using version 0.10.2b, I have no experience with the new version. Man, I wish Kai would come out with the project he (Hopefully!) is working on, I'm getting tired of this PC stuff

[spudz2]

Well I have found a workaround! I personally use a PC but I'm just trying to help out my friend who has a MAC. Anyway I pretty much have figured out that the problem is nothing to do with the disks it's a bug in the DVD Player by Apple. At least version 3.2.. Obvously if all these disks play fine in dozens of standalones and every PC software dvd player the problem is not the dvd-r's but the Apple DVD Player v3.2 for OS X!

There are basicly 2 workarounds that I have found.. One is to boot into OS9 and use the DVD Player there and it will play these disks fine.. However we found that the sound was not the best for the most part.. Video seemed not bad however.. Not quite as smooth as with OS X but watchable..

The 2nd and best workaround is to use a different freeware DVD Player.. It's called VideoLan and runs under OS X and it works awesome! So my buddy is now using this player and no more problems.. It even plays Divx and other files.. Here is a link where you can download it and you can find out more info about it if you go to the root of the page...

http://www.videolan.org/pub/videolan/vlc/0.5.2/macosx/vlc-0.5.2.dmg

Spudz

[Steve4467]

I found the same problem with a friends G4.However,was it luck or the fact that one of my backups had an empty AUDIO_TS folder in its structure that allowed it to play. Check your file structures!

[AntnyMD]

It just so happens I've been playing around with DVD2one for a few weeks now. The older version (1.02) gave me no problems, but the new 'Full Disk' version 1.1.1 has been hell on IFO files.

The first disk I tried in Full Disk mode refused to play back in WinDVD, but worked flawlessly on Apple DVD Player. I have yet to burn it to DVD-R but will do so this evening. I find that if the VIDEO_TS folder is accepted as compliant by Apple DVD Player, the files are compliant.

Subsequent disks done in Full Disk mode and burned to DVD-R gave no problems and play back just fine on my standalones and in my computers.

[TugBoat]

Oh I've been able to get DVD2one 1.1.1 to work, it's just that I had to jump through hoops. Version 1.02, which was movie only, gave me no problems except when trying it on unencrypted files. Even 1.1.1 apparently has problems with files that were NEVER encrypted. Read this and this. Why DVD2one 1.1.1 hates my IFO files I'll probably never know. I have a feeling that a lot of the problems there are cause by the IFO files.
As for the other post saying there's a bug in DVD Player 3.2, well, I've NEVER found a Commercial DVD that wouldn't play. All the 'compliant' DVDs I've made (100+) with Toast work just fine. I'll admit Apple's DVD player is picky. When I had those cheap DVD-Rs that the Pioneer 105 was burning holes in, they would merely skip or display blocks briefly on my two stand alones, DVD Player 3.2 would freeze or crash. Having holes in your disc is not exactly compliant. I believe his problem was a combination of a picky Player and Nero, read this about Nero.
Oh well, back to fighting IFO files.....

[spudz2]

Well I beg to differ on the fact that the Apple DVD Player does not have a bug.. Maybe it's not a bug but they could easily bring out a fix for it.. People would like to be able to play there DVD-R's on their MAC's I'm sure with out a lot of trouble.. Also NERO is not the problem because I'm using an older version of NERO that does not have any of the DVD compliant problems that the later versions had.. I know cause I've burned tons of them and no problems on any players..

Also just to prove that it's not only these type of disks even devices such as Panasonic Home DVD burners produce disks that the Apple DVD Player won't play.. Here is a usenet post I found that proves this...

------------
From: Martin Hellman (hellman@stanford.edu)
Subject: Mac not playing Panasonic DMR E30 DVD-R


View this article only
Newsgroups: rec.video.desktop
Date: 2003-01-18 12:10:22 PST


Ken Rutherford,

On Dec 26 you posted a msg on this newsgroup that mentioned you were having
trouble getting Apple SuperDrive written DVD-R disks to play on a PC DVD-ROM
reader and vice versa. Have you figured that one out?

I ask because I just got an iMac with SuperDrive and it won't read DVD-R's
burned with a stand-alone Panasonic DVD recorder (the DMR E30) which play
just fine on my PC and all the DVD players I have in the house (3 of them,
all of which are supposed to be DVD-R compatible and seem to be). The funny
thing is the SuperDrive reads the data on the DVD-R just fine. In fact, I
used it to copy the DVD-R I'd burned with the Panasonic and it played fine
on my DVD players -- but not the Mac's DVD Player. The Mac doesn't seem to
understand that this disk (which has been finalized) is supposed to play.
When I bring up Mac's DVD Player and hit PLAY, I get "NOT PERMITTED" in the
Player's window.

Many thanks for any help you or anyone else can provide.

Martin
---------------


So there you have it.. Anyway I'm not too worried about it now as the DVD Player VideoLan I gave the link for plays all the DVD perfect and it some ways is better then the Apple DVD Player and it's FREE too so you can't ask for much more then that...

Spudz

[AntnyMD]

First, don't believe everything you read on the internet.

Secondly, that guy posted all over the internet last December, and it turned out he wasn't finalizing his Panasonic DMR30 discs, contrary to that post. The idiot.