Burned disc works in PowerBook but not iMac or Denon player?

[Riot Nrrrd]

OK, I'm really baffled by this ...

Friend says "Hey, download this old movie I want you to see from my server". I d/l it, it's a VIDEO_TS folder, DVD2OneX'ed, 4 GB.

I burn it in Toast 6.0.7 to my external Pioneer DVR-108 (using Memorex 4x DVD-R media) using "DVD from VIDEO_TS Folder". Disc burns OK, verifies OK. I eject it, then re-insert in the DVR-108. DVD Player comes up, plays great. No worries, right?

Uh, NOT!

I put it in my PowerBook's internal UJ-815. It mounts. DVD Player fires up.

(At this point I should mention that both the UJ-815 and the Pioneer DVR-108 have been modified to contain Region-Free firmware.)

Then I put it in my fiancée's iMac 17" with a Hitachi SuperDrive. No go. Doesn't even mount onto the Desktop, much less make DVD Player come up. WTF?

I take it to the living room. My Denon DVD-2800 Mk. II DVD player immediately gets indigestion: "No Play", it displays. (I have never seen this error appear before.) D'OH!@

I have *never* burned a VIDEO_TS to disc without having had it work fine in my Denon player before. Ever.

Am I overlooking something obvious here? Is there any chance the disc, as burned, actually burned as a non-Region 1 disc? (My Denon has not been modified to be Region-Free, nor has the Hitachi in the iMac, to the best of my knowledge.)

If that *is*, indeed, the case, how do I find out what RCE this burned disc is? I know of no Mac tool to tell you this info ...

I'm thinking of re-ripping the burned disc with MacTheRipper to see if this is the case, but I really have no idea what's happening here if it isn't.

[Edit: I re-ripped the disc with MTR 2.6.3. All the VOB files have the same checksum as the originals. The BUP/IFO files are slightly changed - but that shouldn't have an effect on the Region Code for the disc itself, should it?]

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

[Case]

Looks like a media issue to me.
Even before you start ripping, MTR will display the regions, so that’s a fast check. Also the iMac would say so if region was a prob. I suppose likewise for the Denon.

[Riot Nrrrd]

Thanks Case. MTR showed the Regions as being "1 2 3 4 5 6 8" (7 was skipped).

I don't have any non-Region 1 (or Region 0) DVDs so I don't know what the Denon would do if it saw one.

I'll try burning with a different disc at 1x just for fun to see what happens. (But it's still weird - I've never had a Memorex 4x DVD-R burn not work in the Denon before this.)

I got a PM saying that maybe the problem was one of the DVD's bitrate being too high? Is that possible? Could that be confusing the Denon? Is there a Mac bitrate calculator that would tell you the bitrate for a given DVD (I guess for a given VOB, right?)?

[Edit: I fed the VOBs to MPEG Streamclip and it said they were

224 MPEG, 704 x 480, 4:3, 29.97 fps, 9.59 Mbps, upper field first

9.59 Mbps shouldn't be too high for a 2+ year old Denon DVD player ... I just checked my copy of Best of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and the 2nd VOB is 9.80 Mbps ... what about the "non-standard" 704 (vs. 720) resolution?]

[Riot Nrrrd]

Burned an old Khypermedia disc at 1x. Put it in the iMac - recognized and plays just fine. That got my hopes up ...

Put it in the Denon - no go. "Disc error" on screen, "No Play" in the LCD.

Color me baffled ... I popped in a NetFlix rental disc just in case the Denon was having issues, but that was recognized and it fired right up ...

[JoachimS]

OK lets start from the beginning.

Why would the DVD Player at your TV not play a DVD?

1.) Media not finalized (not an issue with TOAST as it always finalizes DVDs)

2.) RCE protection of the DVD and the player is code free

3.) Player is NTSC or PAL only, and you try to play a disc of the other format (Haven't seen those, do they exist?)

4.) Bitrate too high (e.g. Panasonic DVD recorder in SP quality setting)

5.) Media issue: DVD+R can cause more problems than DVD-R, both have issues with older players

6.) Some older players refuse to play a DVD if there is no AUDIO_TS folder (though it is empty)

7.) Some older players refuse to play a DVD if the name of the DVD is in lower case and/or contains spaces or other weird characters.

Region code free discs are usually live concerts as they are distributed world wide. I am in Germany, we have the PAL standard. It is not unsusual to see region free NTSC DVDs for sale.

Cheers,

JoachimS

[AntnyMD]

3.) Player is NTSC or PAL only, and you try to play a disc of the other format (Haven't seen those, do they exist?)

I have an NTSC Sony DVD player that rejects PAL formatted DVDs (but not PAL VCDs). It sucks.

[stavrosh]

I have seen a similar behavior with a region-1 DVD playing on G4 and Powerbook ( region free drives) but showing no-PLAY on a DENON 2200 player. Your 2800 model is quite popular and I know for sure that there is a "hack" solution in a form of a CD-DVD that flashes the player to be region-free. I got mine from the official DENON shop !!!
If every other suggestion fails ( ie remastering the DVD with AUDIO-TS, upper case characters etc) I would go for it. It takes only 5 minutes.

[JoachimS]

@AntnyMD:
It's a SONY. How old is it? My player (actually a recorder) offers to play NTSC as PAL 60. Seems you don't have that menu option (play PAL as NTSC 50)? However, not all TV sets can handle that.

@stavrosh:
AUDIO_TS with underscore.

@Riot Nrrrd:
Reading the original post remids me of an issue I had with my old PowerBook G4 400MHz Titanium with combo drive: It would eject DVD+R immediately.
You may also try the TOAST setting: Data, DVD-ROM(UDF). Create an additional empty folder AUDIO_TS within the TOAST files and folders window.

Cheers,

JoachimS

P.S.: Sure it is not a DVD+R?

[Riot Nrrrd]

It's not a DVD+R, I burned it myself

It's not PAL, either - I test-played the VOBs in VLC and it says they are 29.97 fps.

I bring it up in MacTheRipper and it says the Zones are "1 2 3 4 5 6 8" (7 is skipped)

I am starting to suspect the Denon player. I had previously burned a European documentary ("Fifty Years Of Ferrari") in the same exact way (Memorex 4x DVD-R) and it played perfectly (and still does, in my PowerBook and in my fiancée's iMac). Last night I started testing my other burned discs, and although all of the others worked OK in the Denon, I put in the Ferrari documentary and it froze up the player about 10 seconds in. I power-cycled the Denon, tried a few other discs, and put the Ferrari disc back in; this time it didn't even get that far - got the same "Disc Error" on screen and "No Play" on the LCD display. Took it out, slapped it into the iMac - fine. Maybe the laser in the Denon is dirty?!?

[JoachimS]

Pioneer and Memorex is a NO GO!

This combination got some real bad test results in a German computer magazine (c't).

Never had any problems with Sony, TDK, and Verbatim Media. One exception: Verbatim 8x would only burn OK in 6x. But the Magazine told me so as well....
SONY 8x are OK.

My advice: Change media! I have the same DVD drive.

Cheers,

JoachimS

[Riot Nrrrd]

I have 6 videos on the Memorex 4x DVD-R media.

I have about 10-12 videos on the Khypermedia 1x DVD-R media.

Until the "Fifty Years Of Ferrari" disc stopped playing yesterday, *all* of these discs worked fine in the Denon DVD-2800 Mk. II. *Except* for the one I'm trying to do now. And it fails in the player with both the Memorex 4x disc burned in the Pioneer, *and* the Khypermedia 1x disc burned in the PowerBook's internal Matshita UJ-815 SuperDrive.

I'm having a hard time believing it's the media. It's got to be either something on the discs itself (the actual video) or there's something going bad in the player that is triggered by something with this particular video.

It's very frustrating to have your DVD player play all of your Toast-generated Mac video/DVD burns ... until now!

[Riot Nrrrd]

Update: I took the Khypermedia 1x disc into work. We've got a recent top-of-the-line flagship model Panasonic HDD/DVD PVR, the DMR-E500H, and it plays like a champ ... I also played it in 2 other DVD players there, and it worked fine.

Update 2: Next, after I got home from work, I burned it in Toast 6.0.7 once again, this time in the Pioneer DVR-108 at 8x using a FujiFilm DVD-R 8x disc. Once again, no go in the Denon - same error.

At this point I'm lost. 3 different discs, 3 different burn speeds, all result in "No Play"/"Disc Error". If the Denon was at fault, surely it would refuse to play all burned discs at this point?!? If it's the disc contents, what could cause the Denon to refuse to play it whereas all the others play fine?