ProX5 DVD burn at 4x won't play on older DVD players

[cdoughertycd]

Hi:

I've burned some DVDs with ProX5 on the slowest speed 4x and someone I gave it to says it won't play correctly on his older stand-alone DVD player hooked to his TV. I had originally burned them at 16x so reburned it at 4x. He says it starts to skip and stop about mid way. I am not using dual layer DVDs. He says they play fine on a friend's newer stand-alone DVD player. I'm thinking it's a problem with older stand-alone players.

These DVDs play fine on my computer and my stand-alone DVD player hooked into my TV. My player is newer with Blue Ray although my project is not Blue Ray.

Also one thing I've noticed is when I set the burn speed, burn the DVDs, they complete, then when I go back and check the burn speed again it is not what I set it at. Does this mean ProX5 burns them at whatever speed it wants despite where it's set? I tried seeing the burn speed after the fact thinking I could see it in my Nero11 disc analysis but it does not give me the burn speed.

I've read discussion of this issue on the internet with home-burned DVDs and most of it gets a little above my head. I read that dual layer DVDs can cause this problem but mine are not dual layer.

Do you think my friend will have to bite bullet and buy a newer DVD player?

Thanks for any input.

Happy New Year!

Candy

[Ken Berry]

The reality is that quite a few older DVD players -- particularly the brand-name ones -- were very finicky about what they would play; whereas cheaper, mass produced (Chinese) ones will play virtually anything round and silver you care to put into them. The problem can be how "firmly" the signal is burnt into them by the laser -- which in turn, as you evidently know is linked to the burn speed. But as you have found, X5 appears only to use the maximum burn speed regardless of what you set it to. (I have separately and coincidentally running some experiments on exactly that, though don't have definitive results as yet.)

However, as often as not, it is other factors which cause home made DVDs not to play on certain players. Some of those older brand-name players don't like certain types of discs -- some prefer -R discs, some prefer +R. Some don't even like the colour of the dye used by certain brands of discs... I kid thee not! So if your discs play perfectly well on a range of other players, it is indeed the older player which is at fault. Not much you can do about it except, perhaps, use a different brand of disc and burn another copy for that player...

[cdoughertycd]

Thanks Ken for your insights on this. I'm finally getting back to the forum. The person I made DVDs for tried it on a friend's new machine and they played fine so I can assume the culprit in this instance was his older model DVD player.

Candy