My mother-in-law and the constant video data rate

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 4:10 pm

maxfrost01 wrote: You're focusing too much on my mother-in-law (which is not an easy thing to do). My point is the coincidence of events i.e. that 3 key members of my vast family audience are getting problems with the DVDs I send them even though each of those DVDs plays fine on my DVD player before I put them in the mail.

My points related to all of your discs

Skier - discs are good quality,
Sony's appear to have a variety of dye, try choosing Verbatim, a good brand you should be able to pick up anywhere, or look for Taiyo Yuden discs.
I go for a slower burn rate (8x), Depends what you max burn speed is, 8x, 16x for dvds, try burning at 4x next.
and the TV/DVD connections are only relevant if I assume the errors experienced by all 3 users are coincidence and separate issues.
The tv/dvd connection was based on your Mom's problem of poor quality a loose scart can cause colour problems, but if she doesn't experience problems with any other dds, then we are back to the problem that I feel you have and most of the others,which is compatibility of your burned disc with the player. and the above takes precedence.

Question: If I try the bitrate at 7500 might that stop these kind of problems? Or is bitrate nothing to do with quality and playability of DVDs?

Can be everything to do with it, which is why I suggested lowering it.

I know a good way to find out is to try it, but before I start burning and mailing my DVDs around the globe I just wondered if it made sense to any of you gurus that the 8000 constant bitrate could be the cause?

Could be,

Your swift reponse to my problem would be appreciated.
So would more humour.

maxfrost01 · Post by **maxfrost01** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 7:41 pm

Hi, Graham

Thanks for the response and particularly for the way you've hit each point!

I've just been looking at the Taiyo Yuden DVDs - are they the best you've come across? Would you go +R or -R? I use +R at the moment. And I thought I might as well try the 8x (rather than 16x) as I always go for a slower burn speed anyway! Your thoughts?

I've just burned a couple of DVDs at 7500 bitrate and they play superbly well on my DVD player.

Next step is the mother-in-law. Fingers crossed.

DVDDoug · Post by **DVDDoug** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 10:38 pm

The colour problem has me baffled. I don't know what could cause one disc on one player to have colour problems. The only thing I can think of, is that maybe you made an NTSC disc, and this player doesn't do well with NTSC discs. Is there any chance that happened????

The other problems sound like "physical problems"... Like somehow you're getting a "bad burn", or maybe you've got a batch of bad blank discs (This has happened to me). Different players do have different tolerances for this kind of thing.

The best way to determine if it's a problem with the MPEG-2 file or a physical DVD problem with the DVD is to burn another DVD. If the 2nd DVD has a problem at exactly the same place, it's the file. If the 2nd DVD has no problems, or probelms at a different spot, it's the physical DVD.

You can also test the DVD with Nero CD-DVD Speed. I've started testing all of my burns with this program. It will usually show you if there's a (physical) glicth on the DVD. (It won't know if you have "bad data", it will just tell you if it has any trouble reading the disc.)

alanball · Post by **alanball** » Tue Sep 22, 2009 11:25 pm

Hi maxfrost01

I have found that I had simliar problems with friends playing DVD's I sent them. I alway's used +R disks and found if I used -R they had no problems. so I now use +RW to produce a master and send a copy on -R.

maxfrost01 · Post by **maxfrost01** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 8:28 am

Doug,

I suspect that my mother-in-law's colour problem is unrelated to the disc problems my other viewers (aka family) have been having. Knowing my mother-in-law's relationship with technology it's most likely that it's a connection/settings problem in the TV or DVD player. And so far in this thread no-one seems to be suggesting poor quality colour is a recognised burn problem.

I don't think it's a bad batch of DVDs. I've been using them for a while and I never get a problem with any DVD I burn and test on my DVD player - it only happens after I put them in the mail (maybe I need to speak with my mailman?

) I think it's more likely to be the burn or compatability of disc with their DVD players.

Nero CD-DVD Speed sounds like a useful piece of kit. I already have Nero 8 but cant' see it in there. Is it a free download? I couldn't tell from the link you sent me if I was going to get a clean, free copy or if it was going to tell me it would cost $300 to activate after download!

maxfrost01 · Post by **maxfrost01** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 8:36 am

Alan,

Your comment on +R vs -R is really interesting.

I'm pretty sure that when I first began using VS (back in the days when you were winning the World Cup for England

) I would use +R and -R - whichever was closest to my desktop at the time.

Then, after checking out different websites and this forum, I seem to remember I decided that +R was the way to go. Don't ask me why. I can't remember that bit. I know that some machines only play one and not the other but I think most modern machines will play anything now!

Anyone else want to add a comment on the +R or -R great debate? Anyone find that one is significantly more reliable than the other?

mitchell65 · Post by **mitchell65** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 10:48 am

maxfrost01 wrote:Anyone find that one is significantly more reliable than the other? Thank You

Multiply the number of regular members of this Forum by the number of disc manufacturers by the number of types of DVD's they make multiplied by the first number you thought of and that's about the number of different opinions you can expect

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 11:46 am

I make hundreds (thousands) of copies of tens of dvds each week for clients.
I prefer -R discs.
Taiyo Yuden are the best I've come across.
I use a bitrate of max 7500 for video and generally 192 or maybe a little higher for audio.
I wouldn't worry about buying 16x discs, they will be the latest design and better quality, just burn them slowly. I buy 16x discs and burn at 4x.

Can you make a visit to MIL? Check out her system. Take your dvd player with you for comparison?

maxfrost01 · Post by **maxfrost01** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:14 pm

I've got a better idea.

Why don't YOU make a visit to MIL?

maxfrost01 · Post by **maxfrost01** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:15 pm

I'm going to try the Taiyo Yuden -R discs.
If I have any problems I will hold you personally responsibile.

mitchell65 · Post by **mitchell65** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 12:36 pm

Thanks for all the fun Max. Will be back (hopefully) to the Forum in a couple of weeks
John

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Wed Sep 23, 2009 3:39 pm

Cheers Max, have enough trouble dealing with 2 mother in laws and one mother and two FIL's and one father without anyone elses!!!!

sjj1805 · Post by **sjj1805** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 1:57 am

AS mentioned by Graham (Skier-Hughes) lower your BURN SPEED.
Please see DVD Burning / Playback issues

maxfrost01 · Post by **maxfrost01** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 9:17 am

Steve,

Perfect! Great summary of burn speeds et al.
So good I've printed it off and filed it.

btw I do search the forum before I post but it ain't easy to find what I'm looking for. And I'm really not sure I use the search facility to best effect.

For example if I enter 'Burn Speeds' in the text box should I then select "Search for any terms or use query as entered" or should I go for "Search for all terms"? The former seems to be self-contradictory as it sounds like it will search for 'Burn' or 'Speeds' or 'Burn Speeds'. And the latter is not much clearer!

Hiow do I get it to search for the PHRASE 'Burn Speeds'?

Sorry to bug you , but as I'm sure you've worked out, better use of the search engine might just save you and others like you a lot of time re-answering queries from me and people like me!

skier-hughes · Post by **skier-hughes** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 10:19 am

I've been using php forums for ages and still not worked out how to find the answer to my question using search.
I tried
Burn and Speeds
Got your post as first reply, then "please read this before posting", which contains the article Steve relates to, but too be honest, if I was quickly looking for an answer I would most likley have skipped that one

as the title bears no relation to my query.

So long as people are happy with the answers given most here don't mind pointing you to the answer rather than retyping it. It's when people come backa dn say that was no use, when it quite clearly answers their question adn they haven't bothered to read it