Sonic MyDVD creates slideshows that stutter

[billqs]

I got a DVD Burner for Christmas. It was the Hi-Val repackaged Optorite DD203. With it came Nero 5.5 & also Sonic MyDVD 4.04 build 73xxx (not sure on the rest of build number)

A friend of my fiance's got married and I created a DVD slideshow for her back on around New years. This slideshow DVD was perfect, had a music track, played fine, no problems.

Of course, now ALL of my fiance's friends want DVD slideshows of their wedding photos. I was burning one last weekend and noticed problems.

The first burned disk, would only play for a short time then would crash in the standalone DVD player. I noticed some blank spots in the grooved area.

I reburned and got a DVD that would play, but. The playback of the slideshows was somewhat jittery, with "bumps" and hiccups in the sound mix during slide changes. This was more pronounced on playing on my standalone APEX than on computer. Several more burns of same DVD showed same results, even after I flashed to most recent firmware.

Is there an answer? Other burned DVD's of movies play fine on APEX. This is the first problem I've encountered. I could find nothing on Sonic's website that covered this.

Thanks!

Bill S.

[TerryG]

Could it be the media? Did you put labels on the DVDs?

[billqs]

Actually, I burned on two different media. I used Verbatim and then Starlogic (Ricoh) and got similar response with both. I haven't put labels on the DVD's. I used a sharpie to mark the top, but only after I played them.

Thanks

Bill S

[awlchu]

Assuming your h/w is okay,

Try to isolate between the video and audio. My hunch it is the audio.

video - what bit rate is used? never go above 6000 avg
audio - PCM/AC3/MPEG 2

Create your movie without the audio and try it. Does it still shutter?

[billqs]

I'll try to delve into it when I get home.

The audio source were MP3's upconverted to whatever Sonic uses as default for the sound. Not sure if this is AC3 or something else.

I will also reburn a copy of the first DVD that originally had no problems to play for comparison.

I think the hardware is ok, but I don't know. I flashed the burner when I had the original problem with the latest firmware, and the flash seemed to be successful, although the computer froze after the flash. But the problem predates the firmware upgrade and seems to not have affected it.

Thanks for all replies including those yet to come!

Bill S.