DVD+R not playing consistently

[chadd_st_clair]

Caution: Newbie question follows. :P

I've just purchased a Sony DRU 510A and was able to author a DVD. I burned it using Nero to DVD+R and DVD+RW media. I realize that not all media will play consistently on all hardware, but my +RW would not play at all on a DVD-Rom (Toshiba) on my PC or Sony settop player.

My +R would play on the settop, but not in my DVD-Rom. The same disk worked exactly opposite at a friends house, it played in his laptop but not his settop.

What am I missing? Should I be using -R, -RW, or Rom for better compatibility?

calculus

[xistan]

You could buy DVD-R/RW discs but I guess you would find nothing but the very same compatibility issues there.

I think you are seeing the effects of bad quality media, or bas authoring or bad burning. People keep complaining about Nero. I use Nero myself and I haven't noticed any problems that I can track down to the application.

What media are you using? I have tried TDK, Verbatim and 3tPro media (both +R and +RW). The discs that have problems has all been the 3tPro media. A careful visual inspection reveals many small scratches on the surface and (as it seems) on the reflection layer itself.

Give some better media a try, but also make sure you verify the functionality of the disc on your hard drive before you burn it. You can always use ImgTools together with Daemon-Tools and DVDDecrypter to create an image, preview it and burn it.

Good luck
/C

[mrbass]

After reading this article and from my own experiences (my small little isolated world) I'll never use -R again...I didn't intend to anyway even before I read it. A few months ago I didn't ever think +R would approach the price of -R. Well it has and it works so much better for me.

Why DVD+R(W) is superior to DVD-R(W)

Read the section on compatibility. It seems like apex models (without firmware upgrades don't like +R). To me that says you get what you pay for basically. In the end if -R works for you best then by all means use only that.

[chadd_st_clair]

I was shopping price a bit to play with the disk. 1 of the 2 was Verbatim. What is the best compatibility brand?

[mkelley]

After reading this article and from my own experiences (my small little isolated world) I'll never use -R again..

Why DVD+R(W) is superior to DVD-R(W) .

No offense, Mr. Bass, but that article just reminds me of all the scientists writing articles about how it's impossible the bumblebee can fly. I just had to sit down and LOL.

Look -- it really doesn't matter what the technical merits are of either of these formats -- Beta was a far superior format to VHS and we all know what prevailed (at least in the home) in the marketplace.

-R works and it works in places where +R doesn't: I've personally never seen the reverse but I wouldn't doubt anyone who tells me that. While I mostly burn -R I have started burning +R when I don't need the most compatibility but need a faster burn (incidentally, as that article points out but many people confuse, there is a big difference between RW compatibility and R compatibility. Most people acknowledge +RW works a whole lot better than -RW, but that doesn't seem to hold true for just -+R).

This isn't meant to start another +/- war: I think they can coexist peacefully unlike a lot of other formats, particularly as my hunch is within a year it will be very hard to buy anything BUT a multi-format burner. But I don't think the article is very persuasive one way or the other.

[Redd]

I use Verbatim DVD+R exclusivly, and always have since I got my Sony DRU500AX and have never made a coaster.

[chadd_st_clair]

Both the +R and +RW disks are Verbatim that I'm having trouble with.

[Gurm]

mkelley,

I'll tell you the reverse. I've seen +R's work in players that won't play -R's.

*shrug*

The ONE technical merit of +R is the ability to make after-the-fact edits to a movie that will play seamlessly and transparently in a set-top player.

- Gurm

[mkelley]

As I said, I've never seen this (-Rs not workng but +Rs will) but I don't doubt you. The only player my +R disks won't work in is my Apex (which, oddly enough, seems to be able to play just about everything else in the world thrown at it -- not too surprising considering it's mostly just a DVD-ROM in a settop box) but I understand there is some kind of firmware hack that can be done to make it work (at least I think I've read that somewhere).

For me it comes down to being able to burn both formats and to buying players that will play both of them -- so far, my new multi-disk Sony players perform well in the latter regard. While I do burn disks for others I always tell them one simple thing: if the disk doesn't work, return it to me and I'll either refund your money or replace it with one that does. So far, I've had to do neither with my -R disks (but it wouldn't surprise me if sometime in the future I had to make good on this). If that were the case I'd pop my -R disk in my ROM and burn it with my Sony to a +R in about fifteen minutes.

This is soooo much better than Beta versus VHS <g>.

[mrbass]

@mkelley
true -R just may end up winning the war but I doubt it. But I've been wrong before.
Apex plays just about anything because they didn't pay proper licensing fees and got sued over it and did eventually start coughing up fees. That would explain the lack of support of +R since they are always shooting for the lowest price and didn't wish to pay the +R licensing fees. Now though it's so neglible with $99 dvd players in abudance. My first Sony DVD player I bought in 1997 at circuit city was $299.99. I gave it away a couple years ago as it didn't play SVCDs.

Only point I was raising is most of my friends (the few that I have) ask me which to buy. I'll be telling them to get the lite-on DVD+RW burner for $130. If they buy it and their standalone dvd player doesn't play +R I'll politely tell them it's time to upgrade to the lastest and greatest.

2 years from now...who knows +R might be dead and be the next beta format. I'm guessing the opposite though. Pioneer A06 is kinda of concession in some way at least I think. I'm gone through about 300 DVD-Rs but I won't be buying any more.

[mkelley]

Only point I was raising is most of my friends (the few that I have) ask me which to buy. I'll be telling them to get the lite-on DVD+RW burner for $130. If they buy it and their standalone dvd player doesn't play +R I'll politely tell them it's time to upgrade to the lastest and greatest..

I have lots of friends but few who'd ever ask me what DVD burner to buy (they are still struggling with *CD* burners :>) but if they did I would never recommend them to get anything other than a multi-format burner.

First of all, the price difference is negligable -- $100 will be eaten up in media costs in the first month. As you note, you spend 3 times what it costs nowadays for a DVD player a few years ago. Who will remember (or care) what they pay for a burner within a few months? No one in my circle, at least -- this is like the old Gillette formula where it's not the cost of the razor but the price of the blades that is significant.

With a multi-format burner you truly can go and just buy whatever media's on sale, which is exactly what I do. Or, to think of it another way, just look at yourself as a prime case example. Suppose you had *only* bought a -R burner -- you wouldn't now be able to switch to +R. I can very well see the opposite happening, your friends getting that +R burner you recommend and then getting very angry at you a few months down the road when *they* want to switch.

And at least in my circle (which I admit is a very non-technologically oriented one) my friends would be hopelessly confused about what disks to buy if I pointed them towards just one format (as it is the DVD-RAM will still complicate things :>) My wife is the network admin for a large group (so she's not a dummy in tech matters) and doesn't get it. Because unlike the Beta/VHS days, just looking at the physical size doesn't tell you anything, a lot of us old farts will have a major difficulty with the concept of different formats (I remember all the confusion when there were DOS formatted disks versus Apple formatted disks -- my friends never did get that one :>)

In any case, it's nice to have choices, and it's nice to have a civilized discussion about these formats (unlike one thread which I had to quickly leave when it just turned into name-calling. Jeeze, some of these people should get a life).

[burnmaster2003]

Another possible idea as to what is causing this problem, with all due respect to DVD burnables quality, is the way that you are burning using Nero. When burning DVD+R with Nero, set the options so that it is burned as a DVD-ROM disc. These discs will play in most any DVD-ROM drives when they are burned this way. The settings for this are located in the DVD options section of Nero. There are many articles about this at this forum, just do a search. Also, DVD+RW disks do not play in every DVD-ROM drive. Some drives play them fine, but others, especially older ones and laptop models, do not play them at all. Again, go the DVD-ROM drive sections of this forum to see if your drives can play these types of discs. Hope this helps.

[chadd_st_clair]

Actually, I tried several options in Nero including DVD-ROM. I also followed the procedure for UDF 1.2. It's interesting to note that the +RW disc will not read in a DVD drive though.

[julio_rod]

chadd,

Try other burning programs, such as RecordNow. Also, what I would do is use the +rw media until I got it right. (Actually, that is what I did.) If your player will play the +rw, I bet it will play the +r as well. I have a cheap dvd-rom that won't read my +r media also. Newer ones will though.