DVD-R plays fine, 2X FF okay but FR or 4X FF freezes

[snaimpally]

I created and burned my first DVD-R and it plays fine in my Apex 1500 and it will fast forward at 2X but rewind and anything faster than 2X fast forward causes the machine to lock up and I have to go back to the main menu to play. This is very annoying because I have less control than my SVCDs.

I used SmartDisk media from CompUSA. I am getting some Apple media to see if it is the media. Sonic DVDit! PE was used to create it and Prassi Primo DVD used to burn.

Anyone else experience this? Is it the media, the DVD player, or what?

[Faustus]

Likely its the media... for me the Smart disk act flaky at anything over a 6x fastforward. (Though it doesn't through me to the menu, it DOES keep playing) Smartdisk is fine for a cheap local buy but in general apple is MUCH better. Goto the CD and DVD Writers forum... yoursetup sound almost exactly like mine and I've done a ton of DVD-R media research already in that group...

-Flaystus

[lucasong]

Yes I have the same problem too. Using Pioneer A03 , DVDit PE2.5 and nero 5582 to burn. My DVDRW will load the menu screen, when I play the video only the audio plays but video remains in the menu screen. sigh...

[waffle]

I have the same difficulty, using the blue Meritline media on an Apex AD-660. However, I don't believe it to be the fault of the media, since another disk I burned from a pre-generated VIDEO_TS directory (authored elsewhere) plays fine at all speeds on the same media and player, using the same DVD/CD burning software.

So I figure it's either a problem with the DVD authoring application or the MPEG-2 encoder. I'd like to find out if it only affects Apex players or if it affects a wide range of players. I'd also like to find out if using some of the alternate firmwares available for the AD-660 (i.e. the Sampo firmware) makes any difference or not.

[waffle]

snaimpally,

For what it's worth, I solved this problem today on my Apex AD-660 player by changing out the firmware (was 660-3) for the latest modified Sampo firmware, "Sampo 631CF V2.1 - AD-660 Mod 3.2c". This is firmware originally for the Sampo 631CF which has been modified to work on the AD-660 display, remote, etc. This firmware is discussed here:
http://www.nerd-out.com/forum/
under the AD-660 group. See this thread in particular:
http://www.nerd-out.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=19585&sid=003a63d6916c502995cddd33e57d13c8

With this modified Sampo firmware, I can play my cheapo Meritline self-authored DVDs at any speed, forwards or backwards, without incident.

I'd suggest checking out the AD-1500 forum and seeing if any such alternate firmwares exist for your player. (I didn't see any at the top of the discussion list, but I made no attempt to read back weeks or months to see what's available for it.)

Good luck!

[snaimpally]

Update: Its not the media. I can RIP and burn DVDs that are less than 4.7G and they play fine on my Apex 1500 - all FF/FR speeds work fine. In fact several different brands (SmartDisk, Meritline, Memorex) worked fine.

I am authoring with Sonic's DVDit. I am wondering if it is an audio thing. I am going to author without audio and see if that helps. I am also going to try authoring with Ulead and SpruceUp to see if its an authoring issue.

FYI: I have been using the 'how to create DVD compliant mpeg2 using TMPGenc' guide and have found for 2 hour movies a CBR of 6000 using fast motion search gives me a good, fast encode.

[snaimpally]

I fiorgot to mention that I did upgrade my AD1500 firmware to the Macrovision free version that was hacked from an Australian player. The Macrovision free part works fine.

DVD-Rs that I have authored still won't FF past 2X nor FR at all.

SVCDs that I have done meanwhile play fine, FR/FF all work no problem.

Its not the media so its either the encoding or the authoring.