I REALLY need help with DVD compatibilty issues...

[doonae]

Hi guys

My film is finished and I need it on DVD. The last short I done was shot on a 4:3 format and everything worked fine and I made about 30 DVDs.

This time though I shot on a 16:9 ratio. I exported the MPGs from Adobe Premiere Pro and used Nero 6 (with video checked at 16:9) to create the disk with menus etc and burned on to a Verbatim disk.

I popped the DVD into my Denon DVD player and it looked brilliant; basically everything I was after. Then I tried it in my Sanyo DVD player and got the 'no disc' error (this plays my other short films shot in 4:3 no problem). Then I tried it in a cheap DVD player I have and same again - error.

I'm at my wits end. Obviously I need to know this is going to work in as many DVD players as possible before sending it to festivals and stuff but I just can't see what I'm doing wrong.

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated here. Should I use a different DVD authoring program?? I should say that when I burned the movie straight from Premiere to DVD it worked on the Sanyo....but there's no menu facility with that.

Thanks in advance

Doonae

[sebastian]

Always use DVD-R discs, these are more supported on standalones than +R versions. Especially in older players.
And yes, try some other software to make your DVD-s. Nero is good for burning only. For making DVD files and authoring...I'm not so sure.

[Barry_Green]

You're encountering the hell of home-burnt DVD manufacturing. Get used to it, this is a problem that has plagued us since the beginning and, while it seems better, it still happens.

Not every player is going to play every disc. Some will work in some players, not with others. That's just the way it is. Some discs do seem better than others; DVD-R does seem more compatible than DVD+R, and certain brands seem better than others. I've had good luck with Taiyo Yuden white inkjet-printable DVD-R's.

[FlintMI]

Send your DVD-R or +R to a disc house and have them make some standard DVD's simple as that. You want "DVD 5" discs.

What is DVD 5?
It is the most common DVD format for replication. It's a single layer disc that holds 4.7GB of content. Do not confuse it with DVD-R, which is a blank media format used for duplication only.


What is DVD 9?
It is a double layer disc that holds 8.5GB of content. The only way to create a DVD-9 format disc is mass quantity replication by creating glass masters for both layers. A DLT or a double layer DVD-R can be used as masters. Do not confuse DVD-9 with DL DVD, DL DVD is a blank media format used for duplication only.


What is DVD 10?
It is a double sided disc with a single layer of content on each side. Just picture 2 DVD-5 glue against each other, it will hold 9.4 GB of content. The only way to create a DVD-10 format disc is by replication. A DLT tape is required to produce the glass master.

[Barry_Green]

Replicated DVDs are the only way to go for compatibility, yes. But they usually require a minimum of 1,000 copies, at usually somewhere around $1.40 each. So making one-offs for festival submissions isn't necessarily the best thing for replication...

[GenJerDan]

Are pressing houses taking DVDs as masters now? I thought they still wanted DLTs. (And we all have those at home, right? :) )

[Barry_Green]

I've had several DVDs replicated from DVD-R masters...

[TeleDan]

If you are using Premiere, upgrade to version 2.0 and you'll have menu capability. Better yet, get Adobe Encore DVD. I've been using it since version 1.0 and have had great success. At this point my DVDs (both 4:3 and 16:9) have played on a hundreds of players and so far I've had only one returned due to a bad burn (faulty media).

I'm not saying that this is the only way to do it but here's the guidelines I follow:

* always use DVD-R - I'm sure there are other good brands but I stick with Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden (inkjet hub printable)

* always burn at half the rated speed - in other words, if the media is rated for 16X, I burn it at 8X. If it's 8X, I burn at 4X.

* always encode your audio to Dolby Digital (AC3) format (assuming stereo) - PCM audio is part of the NTSC standard but I've encountered a couple of players that don't seem to handle it well; even when the overall bandwidth is well within DVD limits. Unfortunately, you can't encode your audio to AC3 with Premiere Pro unless you buy the expensive plugin from Minnetonka but Encore comes with Dolby Stereo support.

I also spot-check the finished DVDs using a shareware tool called DVDinfoPro. Among other things it has a tool for scanning for bad blocks.

-Dan

[Demistate]

Actually if your DVD burner supports Booktype setting you can burn DVD+r's to show up as DVD-ROM discs, this cuts the compatibility rate to 100%. Which means that it has even higher compatibility than DVD-R (-r doesn't support the booktype setting feature)


Only few burners support this.

And whats worse you usually have to flash your drive firmware with a hacked firmware to do so. Check out www.cdfreaks.com (http://www.cdfreaks.com) for more information.

[sebastian]

As far as I know -ROM and -R bits are equal for older players. Booktype'ing let you use +R blanks (or sometimes +RW) only. And there's never 100% rate for compatibility, because original (pressed) DVD-s have much better reflective dye to read in older players/weaker lasers.
For older players max. bitrate 8000kb/s (video + audio) is recommended. This is one reason why commercial DVD-s nearly never exeed this rate even with 6-channel Dolby audio. 9800kb/s is theoretical maximum for DVD specs but not always supported such high bitrate.
For compatibility reasons I never exeed 8000kb/s and no complains from customers so far.

[TeleDan]

Actually if your DVD burner supports Booktype setting you can burn DVD+r's to show up as DVD-ROM discs, this cuts the compatibility rate to 100%. Which means that it has even higher compatibility than DVD-R (-r doesn't support the booktype setting feature)

The booktype technique does not give you 100% compatibility. It does improve DVD+R compatibility but there are other issues besides booktype that affect compatibility; particularly with older players. To reiterate what Barry said, only replication will give you anything like 100% compatibility. As I said before, my process is not the only way. I just wanted to pass on what has worked very well for me.

-Dan