Authored Video DVD won't play on a DVD Player

[Inlesco]

So here's what I did:

- extracted two authored DVD filmed with a cam by using Auto Gordian Knot to .AVI
- imported two .AVI files to Cyberlink Powerdirector 13. For some reason, the videos flip themselves in editing software's video playback window, but you can easily rotate them and fix this in seconds.
- edited all videos around, rendered an MPEG2 DVD HQ 25.0fps, all good: video produced of desired quality.
- used DVD Styler to create a menu, burned an authored DVD.

My authored DVD doesn't play on Samsung ht-db750 DVD player (displays "No disk" message after "Loading..." for ~1 min). On PC, all menus show up and playback is fine.

So what the hell? Is this DVD Styler's fault? I live in Lithuania, checked this: http://www.diffen.com/difference/NTSC_vs_PAL

The map in the article display Lithuania as a "PAL" country. I've used PAL for authoring and it didn't work. Should I consider NTSC now?

Any help greatly appreciated! Thanks guys! This is the best video forum I've seen!

[manono]

- extracted two authored DVD filmed with a cam by using Auto Gordian Knot to .AVI

That's not how you 'extract' 2 DVDs. You reencoded them both and in the process severely degraded them. You didn't say what kind of editing you did but if Power Director isn't capable of working with your DVDs then you should use something else.

I know that's not what you were asking about but you might as well learn to do it right. You didn't say what you used to burn to disc - what program - after DVDStyler made the DVD with menu. Always use ImgBurn.

The issue isn't a PAL/NTSC one since PAL DVD players play both formats.

[Inlesco]

I used DVD Styler for both menu creation and burning an authored DVD. This is the mistake I've made? Should I always use ImgBurn for authoring DVDs?

In Powerlink Editor, I've cut out the parts of extracted videos I didn't want to use. Basically, merged two videos into one for comfortable watching. Added transitions between videos and nothing else.

Btw, for 'extracting', can I use makeMKV? I've tried it and it worked fine (produced .mkv), no idea about quality loss. And in that case, I should convert .mkv to .avi for easier compatibility with video editing software.

[DB83]

This sounds more like a compatability issue with your player and the brand of disk you are using.

I would try a different brand. Check your player manual for the types it supports. DVD -R has greater compatability.

But I wouls agree that you have degraded the quality of your footage. You firstly, created an avi - maybe evewn as an xVID if you used autogk. That was highly compressed. Then importing, and editing that avi compressed the footage even more. What quality you had lost in that compression you can not get back.

A better approach.

1. a straight rip to mpeg2 from your dvd using vob2mpg
2. Maybe a lossless conversion of that mpeg2 to lagarith or huffyuv
3. If editing mpeg2. Use a program that will not recencode except on transitions so no more quality loss
4. DVDSstyler should, itself, be fine. But most on here would use avstodvd to author then imgburn for the actual burning.

[Inlesco]

Despite the quality losses that you identified correctly, I've got the Video DVD working. Process below:

- MPEG2 (.mpg) to Video DVD (ts_audio & ts_video folders) with DVD Flick. Got saved on my PC.
- ImgBurn for actual burning of files / folders to a DVD.

Plays fine, but yeah, the quality suffered due to early and definitely unnecessary compression.

BTW: What video editing software you recommend for avoiding any [imported video] quality loss after rendering to MPEG2?

If you've got any advice, guys, feel free to share! Thank you very much!