VCD, SVCD or DVD for best player compatibility?

[exbadger2]

Here is my dilemma. I need to create 100 DVDs for distribution over the next week. These are going out to friends and family (not a commercial endeavor). In the past I have had compatibility problems with my DVDs. My guess is that about 10-20% of the time, my DVDs won’t play. I have the problem with both +R and –R discs (I burn on two different computers). I burn at 4X speed. I have come to the conclusion that I will never achieve a 98%+ success rate with DVDs, which is what I would like to have. The mpeg file that I am going to burn is about 400 MB, so it could easily fit on a CD. My question is, should I consider going with SVCD or VCD format to hit my compatibility target? I know about the video/sound quality trade off and can live with it. (Actually, SVCD doesn’t look all that bad!) But, I don’t know if I will have the same compatibility issues I have with the DVDs. Does anyone know if SVCDs or VCDs have a higher compatibility rate than DVDs? If I thought that I was going to be near 100% compatibility with SVCDs, I would go that route for sure. Anybody have experience or seen some data on this subject?

Thanks for your help.!

[Ken Berry]

IMHO, DVDs are still your best chance. There are a variety of reasons why stand-alone players may have difficulty playing home made discs. Higher priced brand name players have a (well deserved?) reputation for being finicky, period. You have identified burning speed as one possible factor. But some players simply don't like a certain brand of blank DVD, some don't like +R, others don't like -R. If you are in an NTSC country, and are using mpeg layer 2 audio on your DVDs, this is another factor as mpeg audio is not part of the NTSC standrad. While apparently most modern NTSC players will nonetheless play it, there may be some older players which won't. So I would be using either LPCM or Dolby audio to ensure wider compliance.

As for VCDs and SVCDs, VCDs, I am sorry to say, are more widely supported by a wider variety of players than SVCDs. Many are simply not rated to play the latter. But you also have to be aware that, again, many of the more expensive brand name players, also don't like home-made VCDs either.

[exbadger2]

Thanks very much for your reply. I was not aware that MPEG layer 2 audio was not a part of the NTSC standard. I will make that change and see if it helps.

I have poked around looking for ratings of media and have not found any. I have been burned by off-brand media previously. Are there any resources around that rank the quality of DVD media manufacturers? Do you have any preferences?

[heinz-oz]

Some players also do not like a DVD with less than 1 GB file size.

You are pushing a string if you aim to achieve 98% success rate with any of the available formats, SVCD most be the most troublesome one because only a small number of players actually support it. VCD is just poor quality and I don't know what player issues there are. As Ken has already pointed out, the DVD players are just too finicky. The bast chance of success you would have if you know the players and their prefered media. Most, but not all, will play -R, many play +R, some play +R and -R, some dont seem to care about the brand or the speed at which these were burned. +/-RW amplifies the problems.

As a rule, I never burn at higher than 2x and use Verbatim discs. Still, last week I had one which wouldn't play in a brand name player (Kenwood) although it plays on my OMNI, Pioneer and Toshiba players, go figure

[sjj1805]

I need to create 100 DVDs for distribution over the next week.

Thats a lot of burning! I would suggest you create one and time it then mutiply by 100 (discs) and divide by 60 (minutes).

A full standard DVD disc burned at 4x takes 15 minutes
15 x 100 / 60 = 25 hours non stop.

[maddrummer3301]

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[exbadger2]

Thanks to all for you comments! Too late now to go with a commercial replicator this time, but I am going to check that out for my next project!