VS DVD won't play on my Pioneer DVD Player

[wstagner]

I have an SD Pioneer dvd player...model dv-49av.
It plays all commercial DVD fine, but never a DVD I burn from VS.
However, any DVD I burn from Corel plays perfectly in my Pioneer 23fd bluray player.

Anything I can do to change this?
The disk type (-r, +r etc.) doesn't matter and the DVD that won't play plays fine on the computer.
The disk loads fine, but when I select play the video or chapter it just locks up and I have to restart the player.

TIA,
Walt

[Ken Berry]

Unfortunately, while relatively rare these days, it is not totally uncommon for this to happen. Sometimes it is not a matter of whether it is a + or -R disc. Some brand name DVD players in particular appear to have difficulties with certain types/colour of dye used on batches of DVDs from specific factories. In other cases, if you burned the disc at too high a speed, some players find the signal on the disc not "deeply" enough embedded to be able to read properly. So one thing you could try would be reduce your burn speed to one of the lowest possible on the type of blank disc you use. (I tend never to burn a DVD at higher than 4X, though of course higher speed discs won't go that low. But if they, say, will accept 8x, then try that.

Finally, many DVD players have trouble with a video bitrate which is anything over 8000 kbps. So you might want to check that as well.

[canuck]

Adding to what Ken said... have you tried a different make of DVDs? I know that certain DVD players "prefer" certain DVd makes. Also the quality of the DVD media is not the same for all makes. I consider Memorex, Maxell and storebrands to be inferior to Verbatims or Tayo Yudens

[wstagner]

Thanks for the prompt responses...I appreciate it.
I think I'll try Ken's suggestions first and then try the brands you suggest here.

If I keep the bit rate below 8000 won't the pic quality suffer?
I guess I'm thinking that the discs I make play in my blu ray DVD player (and other people's DVD players), it has to be an issue with the 49av.

Unfortunately there's no firmware upgrade for the 49av.

I take it you guys havd standard def DVR's that you can play Corel-made DVDs in?

[BrianCee]

Yes my DVD's burnt in VideoStudio play fine on my DVD player - I always test them on my blu-ray player AND two standard DVD players to make sure - not only mine but I do a lot of video work for my local school and they sell DVD's (copied from my originals) to a few hundred parents and we have no problem.

your comment about reducing the bit-rate is interesting - are you trying to burn a HD disc of some kind - the maximum bit-rate for a standard DVD has been 8000 for as long as I can remember - I often go below that to get a longer video on the DVD and get no complaints about quality.

[rwernyei]

Here's a Pioneer firmware website. The firmware for your model is about 3/4 way down the page.

http://www.pioneerfaq.info/?question=Firmwares&type=DVD

[Ken Berry]

Just a footnote on the max bitrate for a standard def DVD. Under the international standard, the combined video *and* audio bitrates cannot exceed 10,000. Since the audio formats you can use are essentially only LPCM (.wav), Dolby and mpeg layer 2, which don't have particularly high bitrates when compared to video, you can thus theoretically have a video bitrate well over 8000 kbps. But as I said above, many (most?) DVD players -- and probably most (all?) brand name ones -- have difficulty if the video bitrate exceeds 8000 kbps.

That being said, 8000 kbps gives extremely high quality, though limits the amount of video on a single layer DVD to around 1 hour or a little more using Dolby/mpeg layer 2 audio (whose bitrates are lower than LPCM). I doubt that the human eye could really detect the increase in quality with a bitrate over 8000 kbps anyway. Sure, some commercial DVDs have higher bitrates. But some have much lower bitrates too, with much more squeezed onto the disc yet all in high quality. But commercial discs are pressed from a Master, rather than burned as in the case of our home DVDs.

But in home video editing/authoring, there has always been this trade off between quality (higher bitrates) and quantity (amount that can be squeezed onto a DVD): higher quality/bitrate = lower quantity; more quanity = lower quality/bitrate.

[wstagner]

Thanks again for all of the prompt responses.
I'm burning an SD DVD from HD video. I don't have a bluray burner.

[Ken Berry]

Did you first convert the HD footage to DVD-compatible mpeg-2? Or did you leave that to be part of the authoring/burning process? I'd recommend the former if you haven't tried it.

[wstagner]

Ken...which menu option in VS6 is this:

Did you first convert the HD footage to DVD-compatible mpeg-2? Or did you leave that to be part of the authoring/burning process? I'd recommend the former if you haven't tried it.

I want to retain the 16x9 aspect ratio.

[BrianCee]

With your project in the timeline instead of going "Share >> Create disc" you go "Share >> Create Video file >> DVD" - then choose exactly the same parameters as before regarding bit-rate / frame size / widescreen etc - so make a video with the correct properties first - give it a unique recognisable name.

now you can go "Share >> Create disc" and when the module opens the first thing you MUST do is delete any thing at all in the timeline there - now using the icons in the top left corner import your NEW VIDEO file - continue from there as you usually do.

we very often have recommended doing that in these forums.

[wstagner]

OK, Brian....thanks that would be DVD/16x9.
Then clear the time line and put the file just created on the timeline and proceed to the burn module.
Since my videos are always comprised of individual files, hopefully the burn module will recognize the individual files as chapters.
I'll try this soon and report back.
I've another product to start working on.

[Ken Berry]

Since my videos are always comprised of individual files, hopefully the burn module will recognize the individual files as chapters.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'individual files' and 'chapters...

If you make a DVD-compatible mpeg-2, you end up with one file. If you have several different projects you want to burn to a DVD, then you make individual new DVD-compatible mpeg-2s. These new individual files, when inserted into the burning module timeline, are called "Titles" in video editing speak, and not "Chapters". Each Title will have a separate icon or entry on the main menu page (depending on what type of menu you use). Each separate Title, though, can be broken down into chapters, and these show up on the sub-menu for each Title.

Note also that Share > Create Video File > DVD only works if your project is around an hour (or a little more with Dolby audio) or less. It uses the high quality bitrate of 8000 kbps. By default it is 16:9. But if your project is more than an hour, then you have to choose Share > Create Video File > Custom, with mpeg-2 as the format. You will then need to ensure the other Properties are OK but reduce the bitrate to fit the time -- as a guideline, a 90 minute project would use 6000 kbps at good quality and 2 hours would use 4000 kbps at VHS quality.

[wstagner]

I understand I'll end up with a single mp2 file. But that file will contain multiple clips....each clip I want to be a chapter on the DVD.

[Ken Berry]

Well, you will have to insert the chapter points manually at the start of each chapter when in the burning module. And then name them too.