Suddenly Nero SHowtime won't play DVDs that I've burned.

[ibzomie]

All of a sudden, Nero Showtime won't play DVDs that I've burned. I used to try every burned DVD in the stand-alone DVD player. That wasn't always convenient at the moment, so I began trying them on Nero Showtime on the computer. My experience had been that if the DVD would play in Showtime on the computer, it would play on the stand-alone & TV.

The other day I burned a couple, and they wouldn't play in Showtime. Normally, I would put the disc in, start Showtime, and the DVD would start playing. This time, however, I put the disc in, started Showtime, and nothing. So I clicked the Select Source button, selected the proper drive, and Showtime gave me this message: Cannot play DVD from this location.

So, I first thought it was a bad burn, and I set those two discs aside as "bad". I burned a different DVD, same results. This time however, I tried it on the stand-alone player & TV. Surprise! It played just fine, but it still wouldn't play on the computer, not on Showtime, and not on VLC.

What gives? Did I unknowingly change some setting or other? Does it possibly have something to do with the Microsoft Autoplay box that pops up? I suppose it's not that big a deal; they play on the TV, but what happened to make them all of a sudden refuse to play on the computer?

[Baldrick]

Do you see the VIDEO_TS folder and vob,ifo,bup files if you browse the dvd with windows explorer? or is it just empty?

[bendixG15]

Check the Nero Showtime program files and reload if necessary.

[ibzomie]

Thanks for your interest Baldrick and bendixG15.

First, if I've broken a rule, I apologize. I've twice thought I was posting a reply, but I didn't see either one when I looked on the forum. So I'll try again. If it seems that I am replying in an attempt to bump up my post, it's not intentional. Perhaps I'll get it right this time.

If I browse the dvd with windows explorer, the disc appears to be empty. But I know it's not, because, as I said before, the disc plays just fine with a stand-alone player & TV.

About reloading Showtime - I don't think that's the answer. The dvd won't play in Showtime, VLC Media Player, Media Player Classic, or Windows Media Player. They all act as if the disc is blank or is not present. To me this seems to indicate that the problem is not with a specific player.

If it matters, I use Tsunami DVD Author to author the dvd, create the dvd folder, and to burn the folder to disc. When I browse the dvd folder that I've created, the correct files are present - AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS folders as well as the vob, bup, and ifo files inside the VIDEO_TS folder. And, until a few discs back, everything was happening just as it should.

As I typed the above paragraph, it occured to me to try playing the dvd from the dvd folder. And it worked. Both Showtime and VLC play the dvd if I play it from the dvd folder rather than from the disc. To me this would seem to indicate that the problem is somewhere in the burning process, or maybe the disc itself. If the dvd folder is good, and all availble players will play the movie from that folder, then the problem would seem to be with burning the folder to the disc, correct? Unfortunately, I apparently don't have the knowledge to make the leap from one fact to the other.

I hope you can help.

[oldandinthe way]

Sure looks like a burn problem. Try using Nero or IMGburn to burn the dvd folder.

[ibzomie]

Thanks, oldandintheway.

I've concluded that it must be a burn problem of some kind, but does anyone have any ideas about why all of a sudden, when up until a few discs ago everything was working fine?

I've used Nero to burn in the past, and as I remember, it took an awfully long time compared to Tsunami DVD Author. It's been a while, but if I remember correctly, Nero took about an hour or so to burn a full DVD, while Tsunami DVD Author burns one in 5 - 10 minutes. I'll try Nero again, and also try ImgBurn. But I would really like to figure out why all of a sudden this is happening. The puzzling part to me is if it's a bad burn, why does the disc play with a stand-alone player & TV?

[ibzomie]

I took the advice of oldandintheway and tried a burn using ImgBurn. The first try was only partially successful; I started the burn, left, and when I came back about 10 minutes later there was an error box on the screen. But when I closed it, the progress bar in ImgBurn seemed to indicate that the burn had completed, so I tried to play it. Same old story - it wouldn't play in any of the players on the computer, but it played just fine on the stand-alone. Unfortunately, I had closed the error box before noting it's contents so that I could include them in this reply.

So I tried another burn, fully expecting the same result, with the intent of passing along the error message. What a nice surprice when this burn completed successfully, with no errors whatsoever. I started Showtime, and the DVD played just fine. So I assume it will play in the stand-alone. Unfortunately, while this was going on, my brand new, only-a-few-weeks-old HD DVD player froze up. Remote controls won't work, manual controls won't work, drawer won't open. But that's another story.

Anyway, I am now of the opinion that rather than a burn problem, this is a media problem. It just dawned on me tonight that I had just started a brand new stack of blanks when this began happening. I've been using Imation brand, and up to now I've had no problem. Out of a great number of stacks of 50, this is the first stack that's had more than one or two bad discs.

Any one else have any ideas on this being a media problem rather than a burning problem?

[zaps]

Thanks, oldandintheway.

I've concluded that it must be a burn problem of some kind, but does anyone have any ideas about why all of a sudden, when up until a few discs ago everything was working fine?

I've used Nero to burn in the past, and as I remember, it took an awfully long time compared to Tsunami DVD Author. It's been a while, but if I remember correctly, Nero took about an hour or so to burn a full DVD, while Tsunami DVD Author burns one in 5 - 10 minutes. I'll try Nero again, and also try ImgBurn. But I would really like to figure out why all of a sudden this is happening. The puzzling part to me is if it's a bad burn, why does the disc play with a stand-alone player & TV?

Hi there! Well.. I had the same thing happen to me yesterday. I have nero but i never used " Nero Burning Rom " well not until this first time anyway.. i can't remember exactly but im hoping the little bit i do will help... i was attempting to replace a bad episode from one disc with a good episode from another without changing the video structure , menus... etc. whatever. i didn't want to waist a disc..( i only use taiyo yuden premium dvd-r 8x both my dvd player are sony rw dw q120a one internal the other external.. firmware is upto date. ) so anyway.. after i created a file for titles and another for menus and had made the modifications to replace the bad episode. changing video_ts..., vts.... no to match the one being replaced removing the bad adding the good.. i went to see preferences if i remember correctly i chose the option to only replace changed not replace all... i was saving as image file onto hard drive. . when i clicked burn. a warning message appeared . nero warned me about something like this happening.. sorry i didn't care what it said enought to pay close attn to it... i didn't care i doing this to see if it would work and had it not (which it did by the way) all i had to do is to delete it.. okay so when process completed successfully ... i went to verify by hoovering mouse over image file. .nothing happened.. it didn't give me details like usual had to chk by clicking properties to see and it was slightly larger than the origi. file size( the one w/ bad epis... ) that epis was incomplete so great news for me...next. used power iso to open/view & compare.. again all good . exited nero burning rom then clicked on the image and then burned.. again.. process completed successfully.. disc popped out.. i pushed it back in like always do. . blank disc.. completely blank.. i tried again only on the other sony dvd drive.. same thing . i tried reburning to same disc... message insert a blank disc.. i used nero tools , shrink dvd, dvd decrypter, nti dvd player nti dvd gold , and others.. all say blank disc insert disc.. even 1click copy pro.. u know the button won't light up unless disc is blank? it lights up .. attempts to burn 1 2 secs later error message disc error.. try again. . at that point i assumed i ruined disc.. wasn't doing that again.. again opened power iso extracted image file to hard drive.. i think i had to create the main movie file and the video_ts audio_ts files.. i really don't remember.. but i did what i knew i needed and did that.. burned another disc with 1click copy pro. voila . disc played perfect. i was able to replace the bad episode on the disc without chg to structure.. everything .. til a minute ago i popped in the disc into my dvd player the one i burned first from the image file created nero burning rom.. from start to end video structure and all ... plays 100% perfect. chkd it again same as before on computer drive.. nothing there.. hope this helps... i thought i was nuts and found i wasn't alone. u'r not nuts .. niether am i.. lol.. well yes i am but not about this not this time.. the video is there it was the option i chose i thinking i chose -rom and it may have said use video compilation something or tther.. ?? dunno!! good luck