Problems copying a home-made DVD

[jj1807]

Several years ago I made a DVD which has become very important to our family. I made the DVD using Mac's iDVD and iMovie (no copy protection). The bottom line is, the few copies I made played fine back then but I think the DVD's started deteriorating or something because they no longer work properly. Using several computers and the two copies I have of the DVD, I was able to collect all of the files and put them in their proper folder structure. Problem is, when I burn them to a new DVD, it doesn't work! It's very frustrating. Are there hidden files I may not have copied? I have a computer running Mac OS X and another running Windows Vista. I would be grateful for any helpful advice. thanks!

[oldandinthe way]

Lots of possibilities.

1. You burned this DVD on low quality media which has deteriorated.

2. Your burner made a marginal burn because of problems with your DVDwriter, or compatibility problems with the media you used. They read properly then but your readers have aged and can no longer read the marginal recording.

For your files not burning - there should not be any hidden files. More likely you are missing some file. Try seeing if you can rip and reauthor.

[GeorgeW]

On the PC Machine -- can you use a DVD Software player to play the DVD from the folders on your hard drive (like PowerDVD or WinDVD)?

Regards,
George

[fredfillis]

Here's what I would do.

On my PC, make an ISO image of the original DVD with DVD Decrypter.

Use Daemon Tools to create a virtual DVD drive on the PC. Mount the image to the virtual drive. Now play the virtual disk using you favorite software player.

If it works, use DVD Decrypter to burn the image to good quality blank media.

If you can't get a good image from your original disk, check out Isobuster.

Don't know how or if any of this would work under Vista.

Good Luck!