now I'm really desperate - please HELP

[jeremypps]

ok, I think I'm giving up and throwing this f*@#&$ing pc into the litter bin.
the problem is: every dvd I record has errors in it.
i mean, I don't get any coaster, but every disc I play, movie backup or home shooting, has some problems, like strange pixelation in just a single frame, and it repeats 9 or 10 or 20 times in the whole movie.
sometimes my standalone player even hangs with the image freezed.
if I try the disk in another player and search for the same frame, I can see some noise but it keeps playing.
I posted another thread in the dvd to dvdr section, but this time I decided to post here because I have problems even in authoring my own dvds.
now specs and steps.
athlon 1800 xp, mb gigabyte, 512 mb ram.
primary ide: quantum 30gb master (2 partitions), ibm 40 gb slave.
secondary ide: sony dru500ax master, liteon dvd-rom slave.
pci raid controller with maxtor 60 gb disk.
os: windows xp home.
dvd backups: ripping with smartrip, processing with dvd2one, recording with nero on princo, magnex, tdk and verbatim disks at 2x.
home shooting: editing with pinnacle studio, encoding with tmpgenc, authoring and burning with ulead dvd moviefactory 2 at 1x speed.
please, please help.
if I should add more info, please tell me but I'm really desperate.
sorry if I wasn't able to explain the situation clearly, I tried to do my best.
thanks, jeremy.

[Marco33]

Let's start at a simple place.

How do your backups of DVD-5's come out?

[jeremypps]

hi marco and thanks.
I don't know about dvd-5, till now I've tried only with dvd-9.
played on pc they look ok.
I guessed it would be a combination of media and player compatibility, but now I've tried 4 different brands at 2x and 1x speed and problem remains.
seems it's a burner issue, but I don't know if it's defective or if I have other things to check in my pc or if I do something wrong.
I was hoping somebody else experienced problems like these and solved them.

[mkelley]

What marco is trying to get at is to eliminate the compression of a DVD9 to a DVD5 as part or all of your problem. The pixelization you describe could indeed be a problem with compression -- whether you see it on your PC or not is somewhat ilrelevant, since it's apples to oranges.

So take a disk where you have to do no compression -- anything smaller than 90 minutes is a good bet -- and see if you can do a successful backup of it. Use *only* smartripper, rip to your hard drive and then just burn it to a disk (you shouldn't need to do anything else with a DVD5). If you still have problems then you know at least it's not DVD2ONE that's causing them.

[jeremypps]

thanks mkelley, I'll try as soon as I can.
the problem is that yesterday I experienced this problem also with a dv movie elaborated by me in this way:
- dv acquiring
- dv editing with pinnacle studio 8
- rendering in dv format (~ 40 min video)
- mpeg2 compression by tmpgenc @ 7000 kbps (~ 2.5 gb file)
- recording with dmf2
so I guessed it's not dvd2one fault.
main problem is that these noises (I don't know how to call them) are annoying, but sometimes they make the player hang!
thank you all for your kind replies, cheers, jeremy.

[mkelley]

No, it still could be the "fault" of DVD2ONE -- just because you experience the same problem using a different combination of processes doesn't negate the other. Another principle of troubleshooting is that coincidences are sometimes just that -- coincidences. Don't assume cause and effect across two different workflows.

The beauty of using a DVD5 backup process is you know exactly the source material -- it won't have artifacts (unless the movie itself was badly encoded -- don't use a bad one :>). So you're working from a known standard. Your own DV source material encoded doesn't present itself with the same situation: we don't know *how* it "should" look encoded (even at that encoding rate you may get artifacts: it really depends upon how good the encoder is and a whole lot of other settings).

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

[jeremypps]

I'll try as soon as I can, it would take probably some days to find the time to find it, record it and watch the whole movie, so please be patient with me !!!
anyway thanks a lot, I'll post as soon as I have any news.
cheers, jeremy

[FT Shark]

Does it pixelate in the same spot everytime or is it random. If it is random than it is a media compatability problem with your standalone. I had the same problems. Try a differen't media. If not than it is the encoding process.

[jeremypps]

hi ft shark and thanks.
problems occur always at the same point, it's a kind of pixelation but sometimes say in half the screen, sometimes just in a little area, you can see coloured squares or fuzzy image; sometimes no pixelation but some kind of "frame skippin'", and at last sometimes the player freezes, stops playing, I have to rewind and fast foward to skip the "bad sector".
if I'm able to I'll try to provide a snapshot of some bad frames.
sounds strange, as I've said it happens both in dvd backups and home made movies, process and software are the same I've always used making svcds and I've never had any problem like these.

[thayne]

Send me your PC!!!!! :d

I'm thinking it's probably your set top DVD player. Do the dvd's play on your PC all the way through?

What make and model is your DVD player?

A list of DVD-5's off the top of my head you could go buy to try:

Wildthings
The man Show season 1
Just Married

[jeremypps]

hi thayne and thank you too.
dvd player is a pioneer dv 535.
I've tried the disks in 3 or 4 other players, they all have problems, in the same exacts points, maybe they don't hang but you can see a bit "artifacts" (I'm frustrated I'm not able to describe them well).
I've borrowed my copy of "matrix" to a friend of mine, he wasn't able to finish watching it on his standalone, he had to put it in dvd-rom.
I'm using -r media princo, magnex, verbatim.
tried to burn at 1x, no changes.
no coaster till now, I was so happy, but .....

[thayne]

I have never tried them, but I have read here both princo and verbatim suck. I don't know about the other one you list.

I use Ritek and never have any problems.

Since you have the same issue on other players, I'd bet it's bad media. I could be wrong, but it's worth a shot. I have also read Memorex media is crap too so don't get that! Although I have used memorex media with no problmes.

[thayne]

Try playing the finished files from your hard drive with windvd or what ever and see if the glitches are there before you burn. If the files look good on your HD then its either bad media or your burner is messing up

[spectroelectro]

Yeah, sounds like a bad media problem to me. Have gotten a few of those. The playback hanging is a telltale sign. I've never had that happen unless the media was bad. Authoring problems are usually something more subtle, like audio/video sync, or a grainy picture, or an upside-down picture, or the DVD just won't play at all.
Princo jumps the shark big time. Avoid 'em. I've heard varying things about verbatim -- some people say they work great, other people say verbatim gives endless problems. You might want to avoid verbatim to be safe.
TDKs are supposed to be primo perfecto but the cost a lot. Even so, maybe try a single TDK DVD-R and see if it fixes your problems.
I use Ritek branded and have never had a single coaster due to media. (I've had 3 caosters total in my entire DVD burning career but that's due to stupid DVD tricks I tried to pull with authoring stuff that didn't work, like mixing DVD resolutions on the same disc. Duh, don't try to put SVCD & DVD MPEG-2s on the same DVD.)

[jeremypps]

spectroelectro, you're giving me a little hope.
if it's just media problem, I can be happy.
I've tried a tdk disk but I don't remember the movie, I'll go and find it and watch it all the way through.
Verbatim seemed good too, I've used two of them (here in italy they are 4.5 euro each, say 4.5 $, quite a lot ...) for "fellowship of the ring", I've tried to watch first disk skipping to the last ten minutes (outer edge of the disk), five minutes perfect, then hanged; tried in a mustek player, same point, you can see for a fraction of a second half a line of strange pixels, then ok.

[FT Shark]

Princo caused alot of problems for me in the past. Try ritek. I have burned 200+ and havent' got a bad disk...

[jeremypps]

I'm beginning to think somebody comes into my house while I sleep and does something bad to my pc ....
I write this to all people who tried to help me, because I don't know when will I be able to post some other results trying to act as they suggested.
Yesterday I picked up my "Ice Age" dvd (which is dvd-5) and began to make a backup, following Marco33 suggestion.
While ripping with dvd decrypter (I finally was able to make it work under winME) pc hanged, i rebooted and discovered I lost all my winME partition.
One of these days I'm going to cut it into little pieces ....
This weekend I'm away, next week I hope I'll find the time to "try" to find out what the hell is going on and then do some more tries.
I have to thank all people who helped me, cheers to eveybody, jeremy.

[jeremypps]

after a lot of troubles, I was able to do the dvd-5 try.
I picked up my "Ice Age" dvd and made a backup, in two different ways:
1) dvddecrypter (I was able to make it work under winme), read iso and then write iso, well, the movie was all messed up, with the menu present but not visible
2) smartrip, then nero -> burn, movie came out ok, but in the first 45 minutes of playing I saw 2 imperfections, 1 of the "pixelation" kind and the other one of the "frame skipping kind", this one makes my set top player hang.
so, it's not dvd2one fault, it's something else, but what ???
does any of you experienced problems like these, I mean, dvds that make your player hang? this is, for me, the main problem.
thanks to everybody.

[thayne]

Crap media or your burner is messed up, I'd guess it's the media

You cant use iso mode with dvddecrypter on winme, winme uses fat32 which has a 4GB file size limit.

[jeremypps]

hi thayne and thanks.
I picked up a dvd-5 movie so I didn't have to mess with the 4gb limit, "Ice Age" is about 3.5 gb.
I was able to make the image and burn it.
about the media, I hope it's like this, but as I've said I have problems with princo, magnex and verbatim, how to be sure it's not burner's fault?