DVD-R playback problems

[Jasper1106]

Hi all,

Recently I have had problems playing back newly burnt VOB's from my PC on my both my Toshiba SD-200E DVD player and my PC.

I have burnt them in exactly the same way yet they now refuse to playback. On my DVD player it makes a rather strange grinding noise when this disk is inserted and it goes from play --> to the number of tracks display which is usual but no audio, video or track display timer then launches.

After playing about with the settings from PAL to auto I eventually gave up, and tried to play my DVD-R's on my PC, to which it made PowerDVD not respond.

However I can view the contents of the disk perfectly on the drive itself and can play some of the VOB tracks individually but only on the PC, it wont read it as a usual DVD, even though I have made a good dozen disks in exactly the same way.

So I am wondering is there something wrong with my DVD burner? Or have the settings changed by themselves in NERO burning DVD video.

I am ok at doing this kind of stuff but as soon as something goes wrong like this I havent a clue where to start to go about fixing the problem.

I have tried 2 seperate movies both in VOB formats DVD-R's the results being exactly the same even though Nero went through its burning phase successfully without any errors.

I would really appreciate anyone that could give me some advice here.

Thankyou all for your time.

[Jasper1106]

after a little more fiddling about with one of the movies I had the following error in a authoring program:

The Combined bitrate of this clip, exceeds the upper limit for a standard DVD.

The current bitrate is video: 9800kbps, audio 160kbps, combined 9960kbps.

The combined video and audio can be no more that 9.848Mbps (9849kbps)

For a standard DVD, it is necessary with a combined bitrate (video and audio) lower than 9.8Mbps (9848kbps).

With a bitrate higher than 9.8Mbps it becomes a nonstandard DVD, and we cannot guarantee that this will play correctly in a DVD player.
**************

I checked my other VOB movie and the video bitrate was 8000 and something, and couldnt author it adding menus etc would go over the disk space limit.

So I am still really no further forward as to why these videos arent playing, but this exceed bitrate may have something to do with it on the 1st movie?

[FulciLives]

What encoder did you use?

I ask because I know for instance that Cinema Craft Encoder has an option called DVD VIDEO COMPLIANT which automatically sets the bitrate information in the HEADER of the MPEG file at the MAX and when combined with audio the DVD Authoring program "sees" this as an error even if your combined bitrate is A-OK. Only the HEADER is wrong not the actual bitrate used. Assuming you didn't really use too high of a bitrate!

One question unrelated but what audio are you using at 160kbps ???

AC-3 should never be lower than 192kbps and MP2 is best at 224kbps or higher.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman