Is there a fast way to test a DVD copy?

[Yankee666666]

Besides the obvious watching the whole movie, can this be done? Ive had lots of problems with freezing and skipping. I play the DVD on the computer with WinDVD and it freezes, then I take to standalone DVD and it plays perfect. Any sure fire way to test it quickly? Thanks

[louthewiz]

Put it in your dvd player and use the preview chapter feature it lets you check the chapters for you ,that feature comes with most dvd players that retail over 79 bucks

[dafreak]

...or try burning with more reliable media.

ever since i switched to riteks, i've never had to check my disks after a burn.

[joe bananas]

put the dvdr in your player and hit search (not chapter skip) if you have a problem it will lock up breifly and stop playing.

has found 100% of my errors this way.

[mike_rach]

Lately I've been doing the same thing as Joe Bananas. If I have a problem it is on the stand alone player. I dump the backup into the player, and FF scan through the disc.

Nero also has a CD tools, it tests the throughput of a disc and graphs the results. Sharp dropouts in transfer speed are usually media problems. If you don't have Nero I think you can download the CD tool separately from their website. That also seems to be a good way to check, but it takes about 15 min. per disc.

[joepic]

Besides the obvious watching the whole movie, can this be done? Ive had lots of problems with freezing and skipping. I play the DVD on the computer with WinDVD and it freezes, then I take to standalone DVD and it plays perfect. Any sure fire way to test it quickly?

Media, Media, Media that is your problem. Any time you have pixelation, freezing or skipping it's a media problem. Ritek works every time.

The quickest way to test the media is in your PC. If the DVD freezes in WinDVD or PowerDVD (I use this) then you have a media problem. In PowerDVD there is a slider bar at the top of the controls window. I move this bar forward and backward to test ALL portions of the DVD. Many times the problem only shows up in the second half or last 10% of the DVD.

I have a Sony burner and a Pioneer DVD-ROM reader. After burning I put the DVD into the Pioneer reader and do the above test.

Bottom line, if the DVD freezes in the above test then it's a MEDIA problem. Time to get new media.

[Yankee666666]

Why is it a media problem when it freezes on my PC but plays perfectly on my standalone dvd player? Plus im not using cheap media. Im using TDK DVD+RW

[Phil Thomas]

Why is it a media problem when it freezes on my PC but plays perfectly on my standalone dvd player? Plus im not using cheap media. Im using TDK DVD+RW

The reason is your standalone player has a certain amount of error correction built into it and it is able to skip the odd unreadable byte of data and keep playing.
On the other hand, your PC, via your Player software, is reading the data and through the wizardry of codecs, produces a picture on your screen.
If it hits a bad byte of data, unlike your standalone, it will freeze. It just loses it's way.