Problems Burning/Playing DVD-Videos Using Pinnacle Studio 8

[Dudemail]

I'm having difficulty successfully burning a DVD video that I would like to view on my Toshiba stand-alone DVD player. I've had success in the past, but suddenly things aren't working and I'm officially fed up. Here's what I've done:

I have successfully captured the video and edited it (including adding titles, cropping scenes, etc.) using Pinnacle Studio 8.10.4.0. I can also burn disc content to my hard drive without burning the DVD (i.e., the rendering and compiling of the data go smoothly). Then whenever I try to burn the DVD-video with Pinnacle, I get an error message saying something like "disc burning failed with unknown error." I have the options "render as a background task" and "use hardware acceleration" unchecked in the edit menu and am currently using Memorex DVD-R discs. I have DVD+R and DVD+RW discs, but my computer - actually, it might be the software, for all I know - doesn't seem to recognize the format. (In My Computer, I see a DVD-R icon when a DVD-R disc is inserted, but DVD+R/DVD+RW discs just generate a generic CD-Drive icon.) I've played with trying to shut down tons of background programs, but I've gone through about 8 discs in the last couple of days and decided I had had enough.

So, I ended up trying to burn using Nero 5.5.9.14 and after messing up the first time by putting files in the audio_ts folder, the next several attempts seemed to work if I would transfer the contents of the video_ts folder that Pinnacle created into the video_ts folder in the open Nero project. However, when I would put the DVD-R discs in my DVD player, I would not see the video as was the case when I burned DVDs in the past.

Any suggestions on how I can get Pinnacle and/or Nero to successfully give me some positive results? If I left out anything important, just let me know. Thanks.

[northcat_8]

First let me say I too am OFFICIALLY fed up with Studio 8...https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=210258...you are getting further than I can with it.

As per your problem. I've never had any luck dragging my VIDEO_TS folder into Nero either....

Download a free tool called IMGtools. You can get it here or at www.doom9.net

IMGtools lets you specify a directory to image and then creates an image file. You can also burn using IMGtools but I don't do that. IMGtools will write a file that is a .nrg extention which is a Nero image file. Then you just go to nero and under the file menu select "burn image" and burn it that way and your DVD should be fine.

Everything with IMGtools depends on the version you get. Back in the beginning version 0.89 (I think) wrote an image file that you could burn with DVD Decrypter...that's the version I use as I don't care much for Nero burning DVDs...but I sure wouldn't trust Pinnacle to burn it, hell I can't even get my studio 8 to write the DVD to the hard drive.

[Dudemail]

Thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, I used both IMG Tool 1.00.6 to directly burn the DVD and IMG Tool 0.91.2 to first create the DVD Image (which was a .iso file instead of a .nrg file) followed by burning the DVD Image with Nero and neither produced a DVD-R that I can play in my DVD player. I didn't see any error messages during either burning process, so I presume that everything went fine with the actual burn. When I used 1.00.6, I chose the video_ts folder from the Pinnacle Aux. Files as the DVD Root and I left the volume UNDEFINED. Also, the selected device was HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GMA-4020B (and both boxes under the write speed - reallocate video_ts structure and enable DVD +/-R/RW high compatibility mode - were checked). When I used 0.91.2, I chose the DVD folder under the project name in the aux. file folder in the Pinnacle directory as the source directory (C://Documents and Settings/Me/My Documents/Pinnacle Studio/Auxiliary Files/Project Title/DVD). Also I created a "IMG Tool Image Files" folder in My Documents to house the output file (video_ts.iso). I also changed the Volume ID to the project name. Then when I burned it in Nero, I had to change the default Burn CD Image dialog box to Burn DVD Image before the actual burning process.

Like I said, I burned directly with the IMG Tool and with Nero using a different IMG Tool and had no success either way. Any suggestions?

[northcat_8]

Well you probably won't like my suggestion but.....

I would render all the video files in Studio 8 to MPEG-2....OR....if they are DV-AVI files still...I would use TMPGEnc Plus to demux and convert them to m2v and wav

I am assuming that your video files are complete....ie...the DV-AVI file is the whole move not the project still in "clip + transition" form.

Then I use TMPGEnc DVD Author to make the DVD.

I am also not a big fan of burning with nero. If you can make an ISO then I burn with Decrypter. Matter of fact, using TDA to make my DVDs, I have TDA make an ISO file and I burn that with Decrypter. No matter what program I use I always burn with Decrypter.

[donpedro]

Dudemail, my guess is that you tried this, right ?
https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=206727

[Dudemail]

Yup, I sure did. I went through everything I saw in those posted links and still with no success. I was considering that maybe the Memorex DVD-Rs aren't compatible with my DVD player while the old Maxell ones I was using are. But I haven't been able to dig anything up that would support that guess...