DVD truncated at 4GB?

[Greggy]

I'm slowly learning more about my truncated discs.....

Following the recommended procedure, I write an MPEG2 file, which ends up being just over 4GB. When played from the HD using any MPEG viewer, everything looks fine.

I'm using VS9 "Share" to create a DVD ISO file based on this MPEG file. The ISO file is slightly larger than the source MPEG file, as I would expect. (Menus, etc.)

I'm burning using VCD DVD Disc Recorder, the minimalist utility for burning ISO's that is included with VS9. (Check start->programs->ulead video studio 9.0 to find it.) This allows me to write mutiple copies quickly, without any re-rendering.

The resulting DVD runs just fine until 62 minutes and 34 seconds, then there's an artifact on the screen (Half a screen of blue dots) then it goes back to the menu briefly, then it starts playing at the first clip again, although the counter on DVD player continues on from 62:34 minutes. It's always at 62:34. Very odd, but I'm convinced this is where the 4GB boundary is crossed. If my source files are less than 4G, I have no problems, everything works as expected.

All the involved hard drives are NTFS, so the 4G FAT32 file limit should not be affecting my burns, unless the DVD disc itself is somehow getting limited to 4GB.

I now how to work around the problem (be sure ISO is <4GB) but it's frustrating to only be able to use <4GB of a disc that's supposed to be able to hold 4.7GB. I suspect a bug in the DVD burning SW.

Anybody know of some freeware that burns ISO files? That would help me narrow it down further.

Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Greg

[Ken Berry]

Can't think of a freeware program that burns ISO, though there are probably some out there -- have you done a Google search? But if you have the Nero suite, its own ISO burner is excellent and I use it in preference to the Ulead program you mentioned.

Anyway, I wonder if your problem might not have a (relatively) simple answer which may be linked to your belief that the disc should hold 4.7 GB. Well... it does ...er ... sort of...! It depends whether you are counting bits or bytes or something. But in reality, while it is supposed to hold 4.7 GB, in reality it will only hold around 4.3 GB. So if in fact your ISO is around or over the 4.3 GB mark, that could be your problem. The thing is, of course, IIRC the Ulead ISO burner does not have a little sliding scale along the bottom, as other programs such as Nero, do, which shows a nice red line that indicates if the project is too big or not to fit on a single layer disc. Mind you, I would have thought the Ulead program would have come up with some sort of warning message before the burn if the ISO was too big. But then again, it may be so simplistic that it doesn't... And I also would not think you would have a successful burn if it was in fact truncated...