Apple DVD Player and Panasonic Recorder Bug

[JoachimS]

If I put a finalized DVD-R into any of my Macs, the title menu just shows me the highlighted frames around the title selection buttons. The screen is black.

If I return from a playing title, the last frame remains on the screen and the highlighted frames can be seen again.

In both cases, there should be a background with buttons that show a still picture of the title and the title name.

The DVDs play fine on Windows systems as well as VLC on the Mac.

If it is not a bug, is it a feature?



The recorder is a Panasonic DMR-E85H.

Cheers,

Joachim

[maetel99]

I don't know if this applies to your case, but there seem to be a lot of recorders (usually the low end models) that do a lousy job of finalizing to DVD-Video format. They create discs that are simply not compliant with the DVD standard, including chapters and titles that point to non-existant data.

With these broken discs, each player is going to handle things differently. What should a player do when it runs out of real video data and is told to play "phantom" data? It's really a player design decision.

You might want to try contacting Panasonic and see if they have a firmware update for your recorder. I'm sure they are doing updates to fix bugs.

[chikanakan]

The main problem is that these are DVD-VR disc and there is very little support for them on the Mac. The best option is to use Pixela VRF Brower http://www.pixela-1.com/vrf_browser.htm

You can extra the files, then burn a new disc with Toast from the MPEG files and have a DVD that works.

Until Apple supports UDF 2.x, DVD-VR discs will have problems.

[JoachimS]

These are not DVD-VR discs. They are standard DVD-Rs I suppose. IMHO VR means, they are not finalized yet, so you can still use the empty space that might exist for further recordings. Correct me if I'm wrong.

DVD-RAM is a different story.

The issue of black menu screens is currently discussed in the Apple Discussion Forum. Do a search for "Panasonic DMR E85"

Strangely enough, only desktop Macs seem to be affected. My Powerbook G4 shows the DVD menu as it should be. Other DVD-Players that I tested, player programs on PCs and VLC on the Mac have also no problem.


Cheers,

Joachim

[chikanakan]

There are two modes for DVD-R on set top recorders. DVD-VR mode and DVD-ROM mode. There is also DVD+VR which is used for DVD+R/RW and it has always seemed to work better. DVD-RW only write in VR mode and RAM are just as mess all together.

It's my understanding that VR mode applies to anything recorded on a DVD-R, the different modes just allow the disc to be finalized differently.

Also, finalizing the disc doesn't mean it is DVD complainant. The set top recorders really mess up the vob files when they append, etc.

Until the discs are support better in the OS, there are going to be issues like this. VRF Browser is pretty good and allows one to use the files.

I'm actually doing some work with DVD-VR discs today. I haven't messed with them for a while so I forget all the behaviors. I'll let you know what I see today.

[JoachimS]

@chikanakan:

Thanks for your info.

I frequently use myDVDEdit to set the 16:9 flag if recordings are vertically stretched. It also has a debugging function. I'll have a closer look at debugging later.

I could not find VRF Browser at versiontracker. Any link available?

Ooops: http://www.pixela.co.jp/en/products/software/vrf_browser.html
Only in Japanese on a Japanese OS X?


Cheers,

Joachim

[chikanakan]

http://www.pixela-1.com/vrf_browser.htm

English version. Hard to find

[JoachimS]

Thanks for the link.

I found a free alternative:

http://www.alfanet.it/squared5/mpegstreamclip.html


Cheers,

Joachim