A strange thing (NEC-3100A related)

[MheAd]

Hi!
I've had this DVD-burner for almost a month.
There is an odd thing that I noticed.
All DVDs that I burned so far worked nicely on every single stationary dvd-player that I tried them on (Philips 630, 720A, Yamaha S550 and several "no name" cheap DVD-players). However, all of the DVDs didn't have bigger video content than 2GB.

When I finally decided to burn this bootleg Bowie-concert (already prepared VOB files) that I had on my hard drive for some time now, which is 3.8GB, I experienced problems playing the disc on Philips 720A and Yamaha S550, while it played normally on other mentioned models. Apparently both of these players are using the same chip. Basically, under the shell (and only few minor things) these two machines are identic. When I play the mentioned disc on these two, the playback would always slow up at SAME points, and then it would become faster to catch up with the sound. Like I mentioned, the disc plays nice on the NEC DVD-burner itself + other stationary players. I tested both SONY and VERBATIM media, both '+' and '-', burning on 2x or 2.4x speeds - always the same thing on these two players, on the same spots.

So I'm starting to guess that either the players with the chip that these two have simply don't like DVD discs bigger than 2GB, that are burned with my NEC. Or what do you think?
Could the way that the disc was authored effect this thing, so it happens that these two players don't like the authoring procedure that was used. Speaking of which, I have no idea what authoring program was used. But do you think it would be worth to rip the DVD back to MPEG-2 and re-author it and re-burn it and perhaps it will work better then on the mentioned players?

This is the only disc that I have which is bigger than 2GB, so I don't have anything else to test with at the moment to see whether all discs with 3GB or higher amount of content, burned with NEC-3100A, will behave this way in those players.

Any opinions/suggestions?
Thanks in advance!
MheAd\

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[cd090580]

If the disk plays fine on your 2 other standalone dvd players it's not a dvd burner problem.

It's more like a compatibility problem with burned disks. Check if your players are compatible with burned disks (maybe they are compatible with dvd+r and not dvd-r or vice versa).

[MheAd]

Hi!
Thanks for the reply.
As I wrote - I made a copy both on + and - media and it was still the same thing.

[Sturge33]

Is there a firmware upgrade for your DVD players? That may fix the problem. If the disc was bad or the burner was bad then you shouldn't be able to play it on any of your players. It doesn't seem logical that a DVD player would be unable to play a disc over 2 gb. Also maybe try burning with different software. That would probably be the easiest and cheapest starting point. Download a trial of Ulead DVD Workshop and give that a try. I have used it with great success.

[MheAd]

They are not "my" players. I'm using the Philips 630 at the moment, which plays the mentioned disc with no problems whatsoever. My friends have those two (and they DO have the latest Firmware installed). I'm considering to return my Philips 630 to the store and swap it for one of the mentioned players because they have generally much better picture. however, I must know why this thing is first happening with this DVD in particular when it's played on these two. I must make sure that the electronic that these two are based upon don't have any compatibility issues.

I use Nero 6.0 to burn them. Now, I received this DVD (Video_Ts folder) file through Internet, and I have no idea how it was authored, extracted, etc. That's why I still believe that it was authored in an odd way that most of players don't support properly (or at least players that are based on same chip as the mentioned two). You see, when a file / disc / whatever plays correctly on a Philips 630, it doesn't automatically have to mean that it's flawless, because this Philips is known to be able to play basically whatever you put into it - so you can never know for sure.

Oh well, I might still keep experimenting with the stuff. I'll even take your suggestion into the consideration...

[Sillyname]

Hi!
Thanks for the reply.
As I wrote - I made a copy both on + and - media and it was still the same thing.

Try splitting up your video files into 2 sections and see if they play on the other players... You said you could play discs that had less data on them... Just try it.

[MheAd]

Well, I just have burned another disc that is even larger than the one that is causing problems on the mentioned players. This one is 4.2 GB (compared to the problem-DVD with 3.8 GB) and it played with no problems whatsoever on the players that had problems with previous DVD, so I guess it's not the size-issue.

There is one thing that occurs me. The "faulty" 3.8GB disc contains slightly over 2 hours of video - yet it only takes up 3.8GB. This should mean that it's a bit compressed (with DVD-shrink ???) to be able to fit on a normal 4.7GB disc. Can this be causing the problems on the mentioned DVD-players? Perhaps they are too sensitive for discs that have video content that has been shrunk too much? Cause, this other disc, that played with no problems (the 4.2GB one) has only 1hr and 15 minutes of content, so it means that the video bitrate is not compressed at all but has in fact bit rate above the SP-mode.

Any ideas?
Thanks in advance!

[RabidDog]

may be your players dont like a bitrate that is too low.. I would strip it back and re-author.. keeping totally compliant esp with the sound.. keep the ch-ch=changes to a minimum.