DVD-R won't play in my Toshiba DVD player

[thoefen]

Hey all,

Just wanted to start out by saying this is a great site and I have found many useful tips here. Now onto my problem!! I am new to the home video thing. My wife and I just had a baby girl and I decided to make a DVD video of her first days for my Dad back on the east coast. I read the video onto my computer and used Vegas Movie Studio to edit the file. I used MyDVD to burn it to DVD-R. I thought I had it figured out but it turns out the DVD still won't play on my Dad's new DVD player. I read his owner manual and it says that it should play DVD-R's. It does say something about the DVD-R's must be of DVD video format. I am not really sure what that means. Is that some kind of special DVD? Aren't most consumer DVD-R's of video format?

Here is what I did in more detail. I used Sony Vegas Movie Studio to make the movie and then read it into MyDVD to make the chapters and write the DVD. I wrote an .avi file out of Vegas but then I think MyDVD compressed it and wrote a lot of different stuff. The main file looks like a .VOB file. There are many files in 3 folders now. I assume that MyDVD set up the DVD like that so that a DVD player could see the chapters and stuff? I am currently using the trial version of Vegas so I don't have the Vegas authoring program that goes with it yet. I am torn between using Vegas or Adobe Premiere Elements. I have used Sony ACID to make music stuff for 6 years now so I am very familiar with how their interface works. Anyone have a preference between those 2 programs?

Here is some more background. The first time I wrote the DVD I used these cheap phillips DVD-R's. I tried viewing the DVD on my 5 year old Panasonic DVD player and it worked just fine. So, I sent it out to my brother and my Dad. They got them and neither could view it on their DVD players. Both have brand new Toshiba DVD players. My dad has a Toshiba SD-5970 and I think my brother has the Toshiba SD-K741. Then I took the DVD and tried playing it on my 1 year old portable Toshiba player (SD-P2500) and it wouldn't play on that. I then read something about the discs could be the cause so I went out and bought these fancy Taiyo Yuden DVD-R's because all of the film guys out there on the internet highly recommended them. I got my order of 100 the other day and burnt a disc right away. I put it in my Toshiba portable and it worked just fine. I thought I had it all figured out so I sent the discs to my brother and Dad again. Once again they didn't work in their players. The disc just sits there and says loading but never loads. The manual says that their players can read DVD-R. Does this mean that it is a disc issue, an authoring issure, a video format issue, a burn speed issue or something else? Does anyone have any clue? The MyDVD program is pretty basic. I think it came with my computer. FYI, the DVD-R worked on my Panasonic player, Toshiba player, all computers, my brother 5 year old $50 DVD player but hasn't worked on any player that has been bought within the last year. I feel like since their manuals said they should read DVD-R's that it has to be something on my end. I am thinking it could be how MyDVD wrote out the file? The thing with MyDVD is that it really didn't give me any options for writing the files. Do other programs give more options? MyDVD wrote the .VOB file. Should I just try and write the .AVI file instead? Do other programs write .AVI's with chapters? If you were going to make a movie. Are their some standard things you would do to make a movie? I.e. would you use a certain type of media and make sure the final format was avi or something? Any insight into my problem would be appreciated.


Thanks,

Todd

[BJ_M]

MYDVD is a piece of crap..



see dvd specifications at left though -

[lordsmurf]

MyDVD likely didn't write a 100% to-spec DVD.

[thoefen]

Okay, so does that mean that the authoring software that comes with something like Adabe Premiere Elements or Sony Vegas Movie Studio is better and will solve my problems?

[thoefen]

I looked up the Toshiba players on this site and they say they can read DVD-R's. So is it the authoring?

Thanks,

Todd

[wulf109]

Try reburning with Nero. I had a Toshiba and it would not play disks burned in UDF/ISO format but will play those burned with NERO.

[robertazimmerman]

I have three older Toshibas that spit out all DVD+Rs with disdain. The simple solution is not to use them. I have burned hundreds of DVD-Rs using Kodak, Sony, TDK, MAM/Mitsui, Memorex and other brands without a single problem.