VCD made by someone else works, mine does not

[jerm]

I've been trying to burn VCDs for the past 2 days now and wasted about 9 CD's. I have a VCD someone burnt for me and it is stored on a Maxell CD-R (74 minutes/650 mb) (not CD-RW) and works fine on my standalone DVD player.

I have tried Nero and Ulead to burn VCDs and they do not work on my standalone DVD player. They work fine on my computer though. The mpeg clips are in the right format, and everything seems to go well during the burning process. The media I am using to burn the VCDs is a maxell CD-R (80 min/700 mb). Unfortunately I am no longer in contact with the person who burnt me the VCD that does work, so I cannot ask them what they did.

I've noticed the the dye on the back of the one that works is blue, whereas the back of the ones I'm using is silver.

Could it have something to do with the dye, or maybe the fact that one is 74/650 and the other is 80/700?

If someone could help me out, I'd really appreciate it. I'm driving myself nuts here

Thanks in advance.

[Vejita-sama]

When you say that the VCD will play in your PC you mean that you burned it using Nero's VCD template/wizard so all the correct folders/files are created. Not that you drag/drop the MPEG and burned it as a normal data CD?

If so, what error do you get when you try to play it in your standalone. What program did you use to encode the MPEG? Are you sure it's VCD standard (352x240 MPEG1 video=1150kbit/s audio=224kbit/s)?

[tinycorkscrew]

My guess is that the problem is the silver dye. Dark blue-dyed discs work every time in my DVD player, but some cheap silver-bottomed CD-Rs don't always work well.

It would help us if you specified what type of standalone you're using. You should always check this site's DVD Players Compatibility list to find out if your player works with CD-Rs and/or with CD-RWs. Don't forget to read user comments, too, which often provide specifics about which brands of CD-Rs work and which don't.

[jerm]

Sorry I should have given a little more info.

What I mean about the VCD's working on my computer is that when I put them in, they play flawlessy with Creative Labs Playcenter, and I can watch everything on it.

The standalone DVD player I have is a JVC XV-523 and anyone who talked about it on the Compatability list said it played VCDs on any kind of CD-R they fed it.

Tomorrow I'm going to go out and buy some CD-R's with blue dye on them, and see if that works. Does anyone know of any CD-R's that have blue dye, so I don't get kicked out of a store for opening boxes and looking?

I'm positive the mpegs are in the right format, I converted them using Ulead's software. When I burned them in Nero and in Ulead it gave me no problems with being VCD compatible (I tried using some regular mpegs just to see what would happen and both Nero and Ulead wouldn't let me use them).

Hopefully the blue dye thing will work, otherwise I really don't know what else to do.

Thanks!

[speedy]

If you're saying the CD you burned plays fine on your PC, then it got to either be the media or your DVD player. Have you tried a burn test on CD-RW media?

It don't necessarialy have to be blue dye, DARK or more accurately dull as opposed to shiny. With some DVD players the laser bounces off. Many newer DVD players have dual lasers. One for DVD, another for VCD.

Verbatium Data Life Plus media seems to work good. The reason I suggested CD-RW as a test, their are less shiny.

[Dhruv]

Why don't you just ask the person who made the vcd for you how they did it?

[lee mu bai]

did you Finalize CD (close) before burning? have you tried burning at a slower speed?

[Bluez]

the following may sound stupid but it is a quick test to see if the media is the problem: did you copy the vcd that works in your player on your machine, and try that copy in your player? couldn't make that from your posts