DVD Burning Advice

[Brett]

My uncle was over last night because he needed help replicating some DVDs that he made. The DVDs were made with Pinnacle Studio with video captured through his Pinnacle card.

One DVD is about 3.1 GB and the other is really full at about 4.1? GB. Here is what I did to try and replicate them:

- Take his master and verified that it worked in my computer and two of my set-top DVD players. The master is on a DVD+R.
- Read the master into a .mds file through Alcohol 120%.
- Mounted the .mds image as a virtual drive and verified that it works great on the computer.
- Burn the .mds image to a DVD-R through Alcohol 120%.
- Test the burn DVD on the computer then both DVD players

Using the above process we were able to successfully replicate the smaller DVD (3.1 GB) and it works properly.

However, with the larger amount of contact I can't make a disc that works. It burns all of the way through but then the disc is not recognized in the PC or DVD players.

Any ideas? He is doing this for a charity with his own time and money and I would really like to help him out as he as already spent 200+ hours on it.

[Worm]

I've always had fairly good luck with DVD Shrink. Especially when the data starts to push the limits of my writeable media

http://www.dvdshrink.org/what.html

[Brett]

Yeah, I like DVD shrink too. I just got into it lately. However, should there be a need to shrink in this case? I mean it is taken from a burnt DVD that was authored from orignal material. The original DVD works fine but I just can't make a duplicate.

[Worm]

Probably not, now that I re-read your post.

I'm out; I'll leave this one for the Eric_Darlings of the world who actually know what they're talking about.

[gbrown]

Have you tried writing to DVD-R rather than +R? I found that made a difference in some stuff I was buring. Some drives only read the -R. Don't you just love standards?

Bring Back CPM!

[SUF6NEWBIE]

You could try www.dvddecrypter.com ...freeware..try it with this thing

choose 'file mode' in dvddecrytper and extract to Hdisk location.

when done, then try Alcohol to blank media.

Alcohol can fail when 'extracting from Dvd formats. (to md.)

4.37 gig or 4464 meg is Dvd-r safe max burn capacity

[longedge]

How did he burn them in the first place? I use Nero and the DVD copy option works fine for me, I burn an intermediate image to HD though.

[Brett]

Yeah, as far as I understand he used his Pinnacle software/hardware for the whole thing and burnt right to a DVD+R. Unfortunately I don't think he went to the HD first.

[longedge]

You could always put your hand in pocket and get a CD/DVD duplicator like the one we have at work from Verity Systems - brilliant bit of kit 100 CD's burned and printed in a couple of hours - now there's a way to help him out

[Roboblue]

This is a new one on me. Unless there is a copy protection scheme on the DVD (unlikely on a homemade), I just don't understand why, as longedge stated, a direct copy using Nero or any good full featured burning software wouldn't work. I do it all the time. My system is fast enough that I can even skip dumping it to the hard drive (2 16X dvd burners) and just copy on the fly.
The only limitation that I know of is -R holds more data (4.7gb) than a +R (4.3gb), so you have to make sure that you use the same type of media (and burner format), and only then if the data space is close to the limit.
The only other thing I can think of is that the original was "overburned".
Where are you getting the 4.1gb reading from?

[Brett]

I actually talked to my uncle about an hour ago and he says that he installed Alcohol 120% at his house and now they are burning just fine for him. The only thing he is doing differently is burning at 2X instead of 4X like we were at my house last night. Could that make a difference? Are DVDs sinsitive to burning speed? Should/could this be a factor. The other possibility is that some difference between his burner (used to make the master) and mine (used to make the Alcohol image and burn duplicates) is causing the problem.

Anyhow, I am going to swing by his house on the way home and pick up a few of his burns to make sure that they work on my set-top players at home. I'll let you know how this turns out tommorow.

[Roboblue]

If he can't reliably burn a particular media at it's rated speed, then the drive's firmware could benefit from a firmware update.

[eric_darling]

Hey Brett,

Glad he got it working, at least.

The only thing he is doing differently is burning at 2X instead of 4X like we were at my house last night. Could that make a difference? Are DVDs sinsitive to burning speed?

Yes, absolutely. In fact, DVD media is so prone to errors, that even though most replication facilities will now accept a DVD-R master, nearly all of them still prefer a properly mastered DLT tape instead. Most errors that you get on DVD-R and +R media are so minor that they don't matter for normal playback purposes, but they fail all sorts of mastering tests. For our clients, we ALWAYS ship a DLT master to the replication facility. It's that big a deal. The faster your burn speed, the more errors you get.

Have you tried writing to DVD-R rather than +R? I found that made a difference in some stuff I was buring. Some drives only read the -R. Don't you just love standards?

Good point, gbrown. DVD+R is far less compatible with players than DVD-R. Still, there are some players (particularly DVD-ROM devices) that will not play back any kind of burned DVD media, including -R. You have to expect about 5% of all installed players out there will give you a problem. It's getting better, but most people own a DVD player now, and they won't want to buy another one anytime soon. Apple Computer used to have a great list, but the models got too numerous and changed too frequently for them to keep up with it. I think there's a good list at VideoHelp.com.

[Worm]

See! I told you Eric would know!

[Brett]

Thanks Eric and everyone who helped out and gave advice on this. It seems that the 2x burn was the key to getting more reliable results. I think we are on our way now.