PIONEER A03 FIREWIRE, APEX AD800, MYDVD/DVDIT!PE and me

[peyto635]

I burn a DVD to my A03 successfully with a memorex DVD-RW and a memorex DVD-R. It plays on a MAC iBook and a HP laptop; but no luck on my Apex AD800. I get a "disc major error-replace me" msg when I try to play it in the player. I have played VCDs and SVCDs in this player without trouble. In the compatability list, it shows the AD800 as being able to use DVD-R and DVD-RW. As far as authoring goes, I am getting no errors with the movies I supply the program, and the DVD works fine on the other systems.

A)Could this be a communication issue with the burner? (firewire)
Side note: I had to upgrade MyDVD to v3 before it would see my A03(firewire)

B) Is there something I need to do to the AD800 for DVD-R?

Thanks for your help-

Peyto635

[Faustus]

What software are you using to prep and burn your DVDs? There are some things the computer doesn't care about that the SetTop Player does.

[Anonymous65]

I have the Apex-660, and it will not play CD-RW and DVD-RW disks. It also have problems with the cheap DVD-R disks. So, get a Pioneer or Apple DVD-R and make a test DVD. It should play back in almost any DVD player.

[peyto635]

thanks for responding!

I am using dvdit!PE 2.5 for authoring...
I prep'd the movies with tmpgenc...
The thing that doesn't really make sense is that the AD800 won't even load the menus at all. I get the msg when I simply stick the disc in. :-?

[Faceman101]

like someone else mentioned, it can be the media. i second the notion to try Apple DVD-R (seem to be very good from what everyone says), Princos seem to work on alot of machines.

[peyto635]

Thanks for your help- it turns out that it was actually the Apex AD800. It does not support DVD-R...even though the compatability chart says it does. I tried it on a panasonic DVD-RV32 and worked like a charm.

[SLK001]

Make sure your burns are ISO9660 complient to maximize your compatibility. NERO does this very well (if you tell it to).

[Zadilla]

I've been using my AD-800 for about 2 months now. It plays every DVD-r that I've ripped without any issues. The only thing that I wish it did was play MP3 DVDrs

[Feuerwehr]

I have the AD-800 and it does just fine with DVD-R/RW's burned by my 104 even with the cheapo 72 cent DVDPro media. It really doesnt care which burner software. I have used Nero, Prassi, Studio 8, and Ulead Movie Factory-they all work. I have encoded with TMPGenc, CCE, and Pinnacle....all work.
There is one BIG quirk with the AD-800, it won't play a DVD-R if it is 30 min or less. Make sure you have at least 3.5 Gb of video, otherwise the AD-800 won't recognize the disk. The more full the disk, the better, as long as you don't exceed 4.3gb.
I am not sure why, but the Malata N996 which uses the same Mediamatics chip as the AD-800 has the same problem.