Difficulty in Playback of DVD

[MLSM]

I've used VideoStudio 9 to create a DVD approximately 2 hours long. I'm very happy with the fiished production, however, I'm running into problems when playing back on a SONY player. Friends have suggested that the DVD media brand itself could be the problem since the DVD can play back fairly well on other players. I say fairly well because the last 3 chapters seem to have been corrupted & I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I have printed out the procedures & believe I've followed them to the letter. I've rendered the production twice & both times had problems in certain areas but not exactly the same spots in each. My computer has AMD Athlon 64 X2-4800+ Dual Core Processor, 2GB DDR400 PC3200 Dual Channel Memory & over 200 GB available HD space. All of the original DV video product is error-free & appears to have been captured error-free as playback of the production in VideoStudio prior to rendering is flawless. Any suggestions will be most appreciated.

[Ken Berry]

I'm sorry to have to say that it is most likely your Sony DVD player -- and you have mostly confirmed this when you say the DVD plays well on other players. It is a much discussed fact that the higher-end, more expensive, brand name DVD players are very finicky about what they will and will not play. Many will not play VCDs or SVCDs, and many of these types of players also have difficulties with home made DVDs. It may be a combination of factors -- mostly the DVD player, but also possibly the disc brand, and also possibly the speed of the burn. I for instance never burn a DVD at higher than 4x speed, even when using discs which are rated to burn at much higher speeds. The lower burn speed allows the burn signal to be 'seated' better in the grooves of the disc, and the more stable this is, the more chances are that a wider variety of lasers will be able to read it without jumping or sticking or simply refusing to play...

There is a general view that the cheaper Chinese DVD players will play just about anything round and shiny which you put in them, and this includes every DVD, VCD and SVCD I have ever made. In fact, I was going to throw one disc out because my previous player would not look at it. But when I changed players to my current one (bought for around US$50 in a supermarket!), I put this 'faulty' disc in and it played perfectly! Go figure.

[GeorgeW]

Did you burn that to single or Double-layer disc? How much total space is used by your project?

What were the bitrates you used for Video and Audio Type? CBR or VBR for video?

If it's over 4gb and all on a single-layer disc (DVD5), try running it through DVDShrink to bring it down under 4gb (don't shrink it too much), and as Ken suggested, burn it at a lower speed to see if it will play any better on that Sony DVD Player.

Regards,
George