DVD won't play on most dvd players

[green_boots]

I'm realatively new at this. I started with an avi file. After much trial and error and a few different authoring programs, I created vob and ifo, etc files that would fit on a single DVD. These files were saved to my hard drive in file folders called AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS (all in caps). I then used DVDShrink 3.2 to create a DVD using those files. It plays great on all my PCs and on my APEX AD-1130W stand alone DVD player. It won't however play on any other DVD player I've tried. I don't know all of the models of players tried but 1 of them was the Toshiba SD1800 (which is on the list of players that should play dvds). The Burner I'm using is an HP DVD writer DVD 200i (I know it's old) and I'm burning to DVD+R. I guess what I'm looking for is software (other than DVDShrink) that can take my DVD files (not MPEG files) and burn them to a DVD that will play on more than one player. I did do a search here before I asked this but I couldn't find the right answer or didn't search with the right question. If there's a tutorial that addresses this issue or if anyone has any suggestions that I should try, I'd appreciate the help.

Thanks!

[guns1inger]

FAVC (free) or ConvertXtoDVD (no free) are both reliable and very good. FAVC uses a higher quality but much slower encoder than ConvertXtoDVD. Both will encode and create the appropriate files and folders on your HDD. I suggest you burn with Imgburn.

Also, you should buy only good quality discs (TY or Verbatim would be top of the list) and not the cheapest spindle available at Best Buy unless it happens to be TY or Verbatim that week.

Note : many US players, especially older ones, do not play back PAL encoded discs. Newer ones are less limited, but this could be part of your problem. Some players also give incorrect or misleading error messages when they try to playback PAL discs (Sony, anyone ?)

Finally, there is no such thing as a universally playable burned disc, so expect some players to complain at some time. These should, however, be in the minority.

[green_boots]

Thanks for the reply. I'm using Memorex blanks (not sure if they're good or not), but for this test I used an HP dvd+rw. I downloaded and installed imgburn, as you suggested. I created a new build pointing to the files on my HHD, and started the burn process. The result was the same as DVDShrink. I can play the DVD on my Apex player but not on my Toshiba, I get a load error. Is it anything that I could be doing wrong that's causing the trouble. Could it just be the burner I'm using? Anything else I could try?

Thanks!

[guns1inger]

I would suggest you buy some Verbatim discs - a couple of -RWs and a 10 pack of DVD-Rs - and give that a try.