Nagging Feeling

[suppafreak]

I have been converting videos to DVD fro about a year now. Every time I finish the project, I get the nagging feeling that it will not play on the customer's DVD player, or it will play with skips and distortions. That may not happen most of the times, but it happens more than I would like to. So my questions to you are this. How do you deal with this problem? Now I know it is impossible to eliminate this, so what can I do to minimize this problem?

These are my steps.
1. Export the video as an AVI file using Adobe Premiere.
2. Convert the video to m2v using TMPGEnc Plus (usually at a rate of 7.5Kb/s)
3. Author DVD using DVDLab Pro and export the DVD into a folder.
4. Burn the DVD image using Roxio Media Creator and Plextor 708A DVD burner at 1x to a Verbatim Data -Life 8x DVD-R (94854).

Now I have two DVD players: Daewoo and JVC. When I test the finished disk on JVC it works great. On Daewoo it may display some distortions, but I do not expect much from Daewoo.

Your suggestions are greatly appreciated

Thanks

[dvd3500]

How are you encoding sound? Dolby Digital is the only offically supported sound for Region 1/NTSC discs. I have seen that be a problem with skipping.
DVD+ media are supposedly better.
Try creating an ISO file with DVDShrink from your DVDLABPRO output and burn with DVD Decryptor.
To date I have not had a DVD NOT play by doing that.

[suppafreak]

I encode the audio using the default setting in the TMPGEnc Plus I believe it is PCM. so the audio file is encoded as WAV format. I believe DVDlab Pro can convert the sound to AC3 (if that what is meant by Dolby Digital). Also, how would I export the project as ISO file from DVD Lab and what settings to I need to set in DVD Decrypter so the DVD is UDF compliant? Should the DVD be ISO compliant or both ISO and UDF? I tried using DVD Decrypter before, but was not sure what setting to set for burning the DVDs.

Thanks

[dipstick]

The best way to deal with your doubt, is to scan all your disks with a Disk Quality scan like the one in Nero tools, before you give it out to your client.

I've never had any issues, until I bought questionable quality media that was too cheap to pass up. It only takes about 8 min or so to scan the disk and is well worth the peace of mind it brings.

[harley2ride]

Some things not covered. If you are using a quality 8x media (which you are), burn at or near it's rated speed (6x or 8x). You could switch to Taiyo Yuden (the best media), and eliminate more doubts. I do all my burning on +r media, and bitset to -rom for maximum playability. Add this to the prior post about the audio format, and you should have no concerns at all. Almost forgot. Make sure that you defrag your HD at least once a week, or more often if you are doing a lot of capturing/burning. And make sure that you use a second HD on a seperate path from your burner (no os or software on the HD), for capturing, encoding, and burning.

[suppafreak]

Harley

I have separate 160Gb hard drive where I store all the captures and DVD files. I burn it from that drive. It does not have any software.

Please clarify some things for me. What do you mean by this?

"I do all my burning on +r media, and bit set to -rom for maximum playability. Add this to the prior post about the audio format, and you should have no concerns at all."

What burning software do you use?
Where do I set -rom setting?

I have never used DVD+R because I was always under impression that the DVD+R discs are less compatible with DVD players than the DVD-R discs.

Thanks

[jman98]

DVD-Lab (which I have not used) will allow you to get away with things which do violate DVD standards, such as incorrect resolutions and I assume it will allow MPEG audio as the only audio track for NTSC DVD. If you only have 1 audio track on an NTSC DVD, it must be either PCM or AC3. DTS and MPEG audio are allowed, but only if there is either a PCM or AC3 track as well. Don't get me wrong - the fact that DVD-Lab allows these is a good thing as long as you understand what the specs call for and are willing to take a chance that non-standard discs will play. Usually they will. PCM audio is OK, so I don't think that's your problem.

I have never used the -ROM setting when burning because I never needed to. I understand that some, but not all, burners allow you to set a flag which tricks DVD players into thinking the disc was a pressed disc, not one you burned, and it may provide greater compatibility to set this, if you can. Some older DVD players may freak out and think they can't play a DVD+R disc if you don't set the flag. Nero can set this flag, but again, it my understanding that only certain burners allow you to set it. DVD-R discs generally are slightly more compatible than DVD+R discs, but that's really only true on older DVD players. New players really should play both.

[harley2ride]

Plextools has a tab where you can select to bitset +r as -rom. You are correct that -r is better than +r, but -rom is even better yet.

[FulciLives]

The burning process has a lot to do with the final compatability of the final DVD when in comes to stand alone DVD players.

Always create an IMAGE file. The freeware program ImgTools classic is great for that. Then burn with DVD Decrypter. That combo has never failed for me.

As for DVD media I only use Taiyo Yuden DVD-R discs and since 8x is the most popular speed these days for media I would burn at either 8x or 4x but not below 4x. You can actually cause more harm than good by burning 8x media at 1x speed. As a rule of thumb burn at the stated speed of the media or at half the stated speed. Don't go below half.

Everything else you are doing sounds fine. A video bitrate of 7500kbps with PCM WAV audio is just fine. As an alternative you could use 256kbps 2.0 AC-3 audio but if this is mostly home video stuff and you are keeping a DVD video at around 1 hour or so then you can't beat using PCM WAV audio.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[suppafreak]

Harley

So I assume you are burning the DVDs using the Plextools. If yes do you select DVD ISO, DVD ISO/UDF, DVD/UDF or DVD-video. Do you bern DVD the image folder or an DVD ISO image.

And finally - So I need to convert PCM to AC3 or is it OK to use PCM.

[FulciLives]

And finally - So I need to convert PCM to AC3 or is it OK to use PCM.

Use AC-3 or PCM WAV but do not use MP2 audio.

If you want to use AC-3 instead of PCM WAV then 256kbps for AC-3 is more than high enough for the bitrate. This saves space since PCM WAV has a bitrate of 1536kbps but again you only "need" to save the space if the final DVD is going to be well over 1 hour otherwise PCM WAV should be fine and still "fit" on the DVD.

Another thing ... you never want to "push" the limits of the bitrate on your burned DVD discs. So I would cap the video at 7500kbps if using PCM WAV audio. If you use AC-3 audio then you can up the video bitrate to 8000kbps

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[suppafreak]

John

Is that -rom setting important? If yes, does DVD Decrypter has it?

[harley2ride]

Yes, DVDCRYPTER will allow you to change +r and +rw to -rom, if your drive supports it. I haven't found a player yet that won't play my -rom bitset dvd's. But my brothers player won't accept -R,s, and I have a unit that will not play +r.

[suppafreak]

So this setting applies only if I use +R or +RW. If I use -R that i do not need to set the burner to -rom.

I use the Plextor 708A. If I need to changed it to -rom, where can I find out where it supports -rom?

[lordsmurf]

Just for the record, I sometimes use MP2 audio in DVD Workshop or TDA, and I always author to a folder. I then test the folder in PowerDVD. If all looks well, then I burn to a 4x DVD+RW and play in the player, using RecordNow Max 4. If that looks good, I burn the folder to a DVD-R or DVD+R.

So some of this "you must do this" and "you must do that" advice above is not correct. MP2 is not an "official" spec audio for NTSC, but almost all MPEG decoders found in DVD players play it just fine.

Authoring to an image file is just personal preference, not a requirement.

To get the single most compatible discs, you'll have to use anal spec settings, like AC3 and not-to-high bitrates for audio or video. Only do NTSC video (or only PAL video), whatever is in your country, assuming you only deal with people in your country. Finally use MCC, MXL or TY DVD-R. But even then, you will still get a 5-10% churn rate because some players out there are just stubborn and old.

[FulciLives]

So this setting applies only if I use +R or +RW. If I use -R that i do not need to set the burner to -rom.

I use the Plextor 708A. If I need to changed it to -rom, where can I find out where it supports -rom?

The bitsetting is only for the +R format.

Many do NOT agree that +R discs bitset to ROM are better than the best of the -R discs.

- John "FulciLives" Coelman