DVD plays fine on 3 players but not on ... 4th!

[cpedrazzi]

Hi everybody!

This is my first post in the forum. I am an (happy) recent new customer of Roxio, I bought by download and installed successfully MyDVD 10 Premiere (btw, I chose it because it is the winner of a quality/price test in the Computer Bild magazine).

 

I created my first DVD, a presentation of old scanned photos from an album of my parents, in order to present them with this as a gift :-)

 

The DVD is a DVD-R of mean quality (not a Verbatim or so). Actually I bought it at the COOP store, it is labeled COOP.

 

I created it in 16:9, HQ, and masterized it with the minimum speed of 4X. I made in on a HP Pavillon computer with Vista Home Premium, a relatively recent PC.

 

It works perfectly on:

1) the PC

2) my Philips home theatre

3) another Philips mini-home theater (well, there the menu will not show, the DVD starts from the first presentation)

4) an old combo DVD+VHS player (don't remember the producer)

 

BUT :-(

it does not work well on the brand new Samsung DVD Player that is my target! namely that of my parents!

 

"not work well" means that the menu appears but it is difficult to change the chapter, and the music and the photos are shown with interruptions. And in one case during the projection the DVD player just stopped to obey to the remote control and to the front panel, and I had to interrupt power to reset it.

 

Although I read the previous post "problem, problem...", I would like to hear some good hints from the experst between you :-) I am pretty desperate.

 

Another small thing: I activated the zoom and pan option on the photos, in order to dynamize the presentation: but to my surprise this options "cuts" away a small slice around the photos, a small but important slice for me, because I had superimposed the date and place of the photo, in the lower right border. Almost all of them, although being visible in the original photo, are not visible in the video, due to this clipping. Some Hints?

 

anyway, the program is good, and relatively complete. I am happy with it and wish to say thankyou because it really revives old photos and brings them to new life!

 

Best regards from Italy

 

Claudio

[firenhancer]

First thing, try a different brand of DVD. Possibly, a Verbatim or TDK etc. Some players have chronic issues with brand of media you use

[cpedrazzi]

Firenhancer, first of all thanks for your answer. Before I go out and buy a new DVD a final question: having the possibility to choose, should I buy DVD+R or DVD-R ?

Cheers

Claudio

[firenhancer]

Either format should not really matter as long as the player supports it

[cpedrazzi]

firenhancer and everybody,

I wish to thank you and communicate that I finally succeeded in playing the DVD burned with Roxio MyDVD Premiere also on the reluctant Samsung player. In the process of trial and error, I have developed a few doubts, on which I would like to hear your opinion.

 

It seems to me that the solution came from using DVD+R.

I think so because tried the same project on DVD+R and DVD-R of TDK and Verbatim, and only the DVD+R works.

There is a glitch in my theory ... namely that before buying Roxio MyDVD Premiere I burned two DVD-R using "Windows DVD Maker"... and they work!

Admittedly, Windows DVD Maker does not create a real menu structure, that is my reason for upgrading to Roxio.

 

The manual of the Samsung DVD-player says that DVD+R and DVD-R are both supported but "some DVD-R could not be played because of format and condition of burning" ... this is suspect!

 

Anyway, here are my latest questions:

1) could it be that the real difference is the software that physically makes the burning? Roxio, DVDMaker, Power2Go...? In that case, would it be a good idea to create an iso copy of the project, and burn it with, for example, Power2Go that is preinstalled on my PC? Or is the quality of the burn only dependent on the hardware and the burning speed (I use 4X)

 

2) Could it be the "HQ" (High Quality) option that I selected? Windows DVD Maker has no such option, and I have no idea which "quality" it chooses for the DVD it creates.

 

3) Could the issue come from the menu structure? In fact, the problem in playing the faulty DVD is the following: the menu is shown with difficulty, and when I succeed in selecting one item, the presentation starts, but it is not possible to go back to menu level... the DVD player is somehow frozen in the presentation.

 

Anyway, I have a solution, and this is the important thing. If you have time, your opinion on the above will be highly appreciated.

 

Best regards from Italy

Claudio

[firenhancer]

1. Authoring using most DVD authoring softwares follows what is called as Industry standard spec. However, quality difference can come for variety of factors such as type of encoder, quality of media, type of decoder etc. Burn speed is no longer really an issue since almost all burners able to handle the quality of burn as long as media and the burner & Player are compatible. As pointed out earlier, brand/quality of media is much important.

 

And yes if you have option to save it as a .ISO before you want to give it a final go, it is recommended step which I usually follow.

 

2. The option of "HQ" is usually to provide user with ability to control the quality and length of the project. Remember, higher the desired quality, lesser the video on the target media, especially SL

 

3. It is likely the Navigation structure has been corrupted or tempered. It is difficult to label such a issue as generic. But yes, if the DVD is not navigating properly there is usually a broken navigation structure.