Dvd Gets Stuck Forever

[lobbot]

I'got this weird problem regarding Video DVDs burned using toast.

 

Everything is fine until the burning process ends and the disc is mounted as usual.

 

Now, if I re insert the DVD back into my iMac, gets stuck spinning forever in the DVD player. You can hear noises coming form the DVD which indicates the disc is being read, but never finishes and does not mounts. Some times I've receive an error message that says "this disc can't be read". Some times the disc is mounted and launches the Apple DVD player, the screen goes to black... and that's all, does not plays at all. Displays two error messages instead: Skipping over damaged area and error -69902

 

This only happens with my iMac, and only with video DVD's burned by me. Data or audio disks have no problem at all. If I do insert the DVD in other DVD players, the results vary. In a Sony DVD player attached to a TV, the disc does not has any problem at all. Inserted in a Lacie DVD recorder attached t the same iMac, not problem at all. At first I though this suggested may be a problem with my Mac, but here comes the tricky part:

 

I need to produce about 8-10 copies for a business presentation. Using the same file, not changing anything, half of the copies are flawless, the other half present this problem.

 

The file is encoded once, then I produce the copies. Some can play, some can't.

Edited February 5, 2013 by lobbot

[tsantee]

Apple buys low-end optical drives for its iMacs and rarely updates firmware to work with recently produced blank discs. So if you used the iMac's disc burner instead of the LaCie burner then that probably is the source of the problem. In any case, if you want the most reliable playback it is a good practice to burn at the slowest available burn speed. The burn speed is selected in the Recorder Settings window after the blank disc is inserted and recognized by Toast.

 

What I'd do is insert one of the discs that the iMac likes and select it using the Toast Copy window. Then I'd choose Save as Disc Image to write it to the hard drive. When that is done I'd choose the disc image using the Image File setting in the Copy window to burn new discs. Do not use Memorex blank discs. Use Verbatim media if available.