# Burnable DVD's Quality...



## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

I have been clearing material off my 508's hard drive over the past few days (a long process). I do this by bouncing the material to my computer, editing out commercials and burning the dvd in the computer. I have been using mostly Imation DVD+R discs. I went through about 10 with no problems at all. Suddenly I am lucky to get a 50% success rate. All of the failures seem to burn a bit on the inner portion of the disc and then no more. I have a batch of 8x Dynex DVD+R's and have burned probably 3 of them with no problems at all. Any suggestions (other than the obvious of not using Imation discs)? I don't understand why they would have been working fine and suddenly stop.

Another unrelated question... All my DVD+R discs have a small logo on them that says RW. I normally would assume that this means rewritable, but these are not rewritable discs. Anyone know what the RW stands for?


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## MarkA (Mar 23, 2002)

+RW alliance

And no, I dunno about the other... bad discs or bad hardware are both possibilities.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

What's a +RW alliance? I guess I'll do a Google.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Another finding... The Imation discs will play back on the computer that was used to record them (both the DVDR drive and the DVD play drive), but only plays partially through on my HT DVD player or my laptop DVD player before locking up. I guess I will now have to copy from the Imation discs to the Dynex discs on the computer I recorded the Imations on.  So much for Imation (a former 3M division). Very disappointing.


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## Ron Barry (Dec 10, 2002)

Richard King said:


> What's a +RW alliance? I guess I'll do a Google.


Try,

http://www.videohelp.com/

and

http://www.dvdrw.com/

From the post, sounds like something that just started. In the old days 50% burn was not uncommon. Today it is. Have you tried slowing down the burn speed to see what happens? Possible try a different software package?

Sounds to me like you might have a DVD burner going bad.


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## cdru (Dec 4, 2003)

With all the different media types and specs and manufacturers, not all media works on all machines that are suppose to support it unfortunately. I'd get the media code and look it up on this page to see what others experience has been. If all the DVDs came from the same spool, it just could have been a manufacturing problem and a bad batch. If they have come multiple spools, then it may be the overall quality of the discs. Based off your description and a search on the page above, it wouldn't suprise me if your media has a code of "CMC MAG.F01".


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## Danny R (Jul 5, 2002)

I've had this problem from time to time. 

I open up a new spool of media and find it doesn't work but half the time. The next spool is fine. The only conclusion I can make is that not all media is created equal and bad batches are still a significant problem when it comes to creating this stuff across the industry.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

I got a bad batch of DVD-Rs from Fujifilm (a 100 disc spool from Best Buy). Every disc starts to flake out after half the disc is used. It burns fine, but fails on playback. I went through 6 discs before I figured out that the media was the culprit (thought it was player problem first, then labels, etc..... finally played one without a label and the problem stayed the same. Pixellation followed by a lockup of the player and the inability to jump to later chapters. No problems with first 40% of the disc... problems once the tracking laser got to the middle of the disc...... )

I switched to Sony DVD-Rs and EVERY one has been flawless so far. (I've burned about 40 so far)


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> Pixellation followed by a lockup of the player


Yep. That's the one. I have about 5 Imations left and will give them a try, then on to the Dynex for the completion of my projects.  I really thought that Imation would be a good name, obviously I was mistaken.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

> Based off your description and a search on the page above, it wouldn't suprise me if your media has a code of "CMC MAG.F01".


CMC MAG.R01. It has mixed reviews at 
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia.php?selectmedia=1176#comments

Here's my Dynex: http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia.php?selectmedia=2534#comments


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

I have a Sony dual layered burner in my computer and a Light-On DVD recorder in my home theater room.

Sony DVD-R's and DVD+R's work great in both. I stopped buying Imation, Verbatim and other cheap brands because half the time they don't work. You get what you pay for in blank discs.

What I have found after 3 years of burning though is that the authoring process has a lot to do with how well the discs will work on other players. The DVD burner itself and the software you use have a large impact on compatibility.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

Prices have come down so far that it just isn't worth the risk anymore to go with the cheapies. 

CD-Rs were more forgiving (and you could get away with the off brand stuff) but the tolerances for DVD are much less forgiving at the smaller wavelength.


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## Bogy (Mar 23, 2002)

BobMurdoch said:


> Prices have come down so far that it just isn't worth the risk anymore to go with the cheapies.
> 
> CD-Rs were more forgiving (and you could get away with the off brand stuff) but the tolerances for DVD are much less forgiving at the smaller wavelength.


I don't know about that. My wife bought a spindle of 100 Memorex CD-Rs. They burn ok, but both my son and I have had problems with playback. He burns wav files for his truck, and I burn mp3s for my car, and both of us have problems with our CD players not reading disks. I can usually get it to read, but every time I turn off the car, when I start up again I have to go through the process of reinserting the disk until its read. I've never had this before this spindle.


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## digital223 (Dec 19, 2002)

Richard King said:


> I have been clearing material off my 508's hard drive over the past few days (a long process). I do this by bouncing the material to my computer, editing out commercials and burning the dvd in the computer. I have been using mostly Imation DVD+R discs. I went through about 10 with no problems at all. Suddenly I am lucky to get a 50% success rate. All of the failures seem to burn a bit on the inner portion of the disc and then no more. I have a batch of 8x Dynex DVD+R's and have burned probably 3 of them with no problems at all. Any suggestions (other than the obvious of not using Imation discs)? I don't understand why they would have been working fine and suddenly stop.
> 
> Another unrelated question... All my DVD+R discs have a small logo on them that says RW. I normally would assume that this means rewritable, but these are not rewritable discs. Anyone know what the RW stands for?


Please keep in mind, burning mp3 and data is not as demanding as burning a DVD. However I can't explain why you are now experiencing problems with dvd disks that you have previously burned successfully. Could be a software problem, it also could be that your dvd drive is on it's way out. Maybe just a cleaning is needed.

I have found out that for burning movies Ritek is the best. Use the other brands for your garbage data etc. 
Also try Afterdawn.com, it has a great deal of info regarding problems such as you describe. 
I have inserted a dvd disk that has the RW logo on the right side of face of the disk. I also thought it was an RW disk. The utility for my packet writing software, identified it as a dvd-r disk. That disk came with my Lite-on DVD drive, I have no idea who the mfgr is.


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## MarkA (Mar 23, 2002)

Check out http://www.dvdrw.com/ .

It's a group of companies who came up with DVD+R/+RW to compete with the official -R/-RW standard from the DVD Forum. The nice thing is they created a competing write standard only, read is compatible.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

It was weird with my Fuji DVD-Rs. They all burned fine, but all would start to fail about 40% into the disc. I don't know if they were just a tad warped or if there was some problem with the dyes.

Regardless, switched to Sony and the problems went away. Most stores have specials on these disks regularly so it isn't a hardhip paying for the better quality "brand".


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## Chris Blount (Jun 22, 2001)

I've had an interesting experience with Fuji DVD+R discs. When I was using a Phillips DVD burner in my computer, the Fuji's worked great and produced very highly compatable video DVD's that even played on an 1st gen Playstation 2. Life was good for a few years. When I switched to my Sony dual layered burner, the Fuji RW's and R's wouldn't work at all so now I'm stuck with about 10 blank Fuji's with nowhere to go. They might work in my DVD recorder which I haven't tried yet.


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## BobMurdoch (Apr 24, 2002)

Phillips championed the DVD+R format (pretty much all by themselves). Sony was pushing the DVD-R format. I've got an LG DVD-RAM drive in my computer and it won't even recognize DVD+R discs. 

My new Sony DVD recorder in my A/V rack though can read all of them now.


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## waydwolf (Feb 2, 2003)

May or may not help, but when burning any discs whether DVD or CD, standard or re-writeable, I **KILL* *ALL* *UNNEEDED* *PROCESSES**.

Ctrl-Alt-Delte, choose the Processes tab, and one by one knock off anything not needed at the time. Of course, make sure you know what each thing is and research if you don't know.

I usually find that I can burn two to four DVD-Rs in a row before XP becomes flaky and starts failing on otherwise perfect discs. It might last longer if I created a secondary boot partition with a minimal load.

Remember that Windows is a memory hog, and past the 80s most programmers lost all concept of garbage collection. Side effect of becoming increasingly distant from assembler code and binary math. This means that just about any Windows app for doing DVD and CD burning will eventually go fubar and a reboot will be needed.

As to bad media packs, I find that very few credit-card size CDs ever burn correctly no matter what brand I buy. Verbatim DVD-Rs from Sam's Club work like a charm as far as DVD goes. I'm waiting to try dual-layer.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

I built another shiny coaster today. I am now going to have to take up drinking since I have so many matched coasters. The latest will play back just fine on the computer that I used to burn it (on both the DVD burner and the DVD player in the computer). It also seems to play back on my laptop, but not on my HT dvd player. I am beginning to think that I might have a bad player. I just recived a $75 Circuit City merchandise card today. Should I use it to buy another burner (partial payment for a dual layer burner maybe) or a new cd player maybe?


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Will the standard, everyday, DVD blanks work as dual layer or are there special dual layer DVD-R's? The CC guy today said that my DVD blanks that I have now will work fine with dual layer burners, but I think he misunderstood my question (not a surprise). What I wanted to know is if they would burn dual layers.


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## SimpleSimon (Jan 15, 2004)

waydwolf said:


> Remember that Windows is a memory hog, and past the 80s most programmers lost all concept of garbage collection. Side effect of becoming increasingly distant from assembler code and binary math.


I agree, although even mediocre so-called programmers can do a decent job with the right programming environment (such as Delphi) that manages things for you. Old 'C' was crap, and there's still way too much of that code out there.

Oh - and the problem is not Windows-related - it's "crap"-related. Look at the 921 for example.


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## dfergie (Feb 28, 2003)

Richard King said:


> Will the standard, everyday, DVD blanks work as dual layer or are there special dual layer DVD-R's? The CC guy today said that my DVD blanks that I have now will work fine with dual layer burners, but I think he misunderstood my question (not a surprise). What I wanted to know is if they would burn dual layers.


 You need the dual layer media... The burner will burn the singles...but...try this link for media... http://www.meritline.com/dvd-r-double-dual-layer-dvdplusr-dl.html


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Just as I thought, the guy at CC had no idea of what he was talking about. :lol: Glad I didn't buy it on his advice.


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## dfergie (Feb 28, 2003)

I guess this thread left an impression on me, I went to town for a Hard Drive early this afternoon and ended up with a LiteOn dl burner...I already have dvd-r and dvd+r burners...


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## Mike500 (May 10, 2002)

I have a Panasonic DMR-E55. I have been using Memorex dvd-r discs. Everyone of 50+ dvd-r's have bruned without fault and plays back perfectly.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Well, I am still making coasters out of those little silver discs. Could the problem be releated to my rendering program (Pinnacle 8)? Could the rendering program cause bad discs to be burned? Anyone know of a trial DVD burning program out there that I could experiment with? I am about at the end of my rope. I just had one play about 3/4 of the way though, then it locked up for about 3 minutes, then it returned to the start and suddenly had severe pixilizaton from the start. It played fine at the start the first time through. Could heat generated in the player cause this kind of problem. I am grasping for straws at this point, but trying to think of everything that can cause this. It CAN"T be the discs or NO ONE would be buying discs and trying to burn them. The failure rate is simply too high to be a viable product.


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## dfergie (Feb 28, 2003)

I believe you can get Nero on trial, Tmpg dvd author 1.6 is out you can try it for 30 days...but It might use Nero as its burning agent. I have burned 3 dl discs, 2 of which only play in the Pc...


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## djlong (Jul 8, 2002)

One thing I found that worked with Pinnacle - save the DVD image to disk - don't burn it before it "renders" the disk image. Then, do the burn from the saved image. I went from making coasters to making DVDs with that tactic.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Thanks dj, I will give that a try. I have a routine that I do every Saturday morning. I pvr the Fox Financial shows, dump them to the computer, cut the commercials out and burn them. Ends up being between 79 and 80 minutes each time depending on my editing. Well over half the burns to DVD have been bad in the 20 or so weeks that I have been doing this. Yea, I'm crazy.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

Well, I got a new external 200G hard drive ($135 from Ebay) and recorded the video to that and then to the DVD's and it has worked fine for two consecutive recordings. I think this is a new record for me. I needed the space anyway, so, hopefully this has solved my problems.


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## dalucca (Feb 5, 2005)

At work and here at home I use the Ritek -RW and we might have one or two bad ones per spindle. No one has ever complained of playback issues and the prices keep dropping.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

I take back my comment above. Still having problems. They playback ok in both the DVD recorder that I used to make them and the other DVD player in the same computer. However, they still break up, skip and stop in my cheap DVD player in my home theater system. The above mentioned DVD player gets fairly warm and I am beginning to think it might be a heat related problem. I may move the player out of my rack and see if that helps at all. I haven't had the problem with commercial DVD's at all though.


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## Richard King (Mar 25, 2002)

By the way, I love the external 200G hard drive. Nice toy.


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## dfergie (Feb 28, 2003)

Verbatims (only brand of dl media ava here) dropped from $29 to $19 a 3 pack at the local Wally world....


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## lee635 (Apr 17, 2002)

TRY A CLEANING DISK ON THE BURNER FIRST. Then, run windows update, then check for updated drivers for your drive. Next, turn OFF all the energy savers that power down the hard drive after 20 minutes, etc. Run your spyware and virus checkers. Defrag your hard drive. Turn off the screensaver. Reboot, open nothing else up , then start the disk write process. 

That seems to fix about 90% of the problems with disk burners. Often it's the simple things.


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## RandallA (Feb 4, 2005)

One thing that worked for me was trying different brands. Sony and Fuji seem to work best for me maybe because both DVD players are Sony and the DVD burner is Sony. 

But seriously, I tried different brands and some of them wouldn't even play on the DVD players. Of course they will play on the DVD drives in the computers but not on the DVD players.


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## ntexasdude (Jan 23, 2005)

FWIW, I have noticed the same thing, certain brands seem to work better than others. I noticed this same thing in CD-R's way back in 1997 when I bought my first 2X cd recorder. The problems with the cd-r's seem to have gone away. I just purchase the least expensive and they all seem to work fine. However, with dvd's I seem to have the best luck with Verbatim's and Memorex brands. I have had a dual-layer drive since January but have not actually tried burning a DL disc yet. I have never had luck with any type of TDK brand, cd-r or dvd.


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