Argh! Burned DVDs won't play on TV DVD player

Hardware and technical stuff
1

I made a couple of DVDs for my daughter and her friends, made from a collection of video clips of them from a recent trip. I have never had a problem with DVDs made on the burner on my computer playing on the DVD player hooked up to my TV. But I just tested, and these won’t. Argh. Kids coming over tomorrow morning.

They DO play on my computer, using Power DVD. But I tried them on the DVD player in my home theater system and the DVD player hooked up to my other TV in the bedroom. In both cases it says they are unrecognized.

How can I fix this quickly, and get what’s on these two discs onto discs that will play on something other than my computer? It took me a LOOOONG time to edit and make these (and I didn’t save the resultant project on my hard drive, duh.)

2

It may be because of the type of DVD you used,have you bought any new media lately? Some DVD players will problems playing DVD-R’s or DVD+R’s, or the media itself will have problems playing on anything period. The absolute best place to find help is http://www.videohelp.com/. You can check out their DVD backup guides on how to backup your dvd’s and try it on a different media if needed. You can also check out your DVD player and hopefully see what kind of media it likes or can’t play.

Just a guess, but when I bought my DVD burner I spents hours at Videohelp. If there’s a way around it, it’ll be there.

3

What is the original format of the files?
Are they avi files converted to either MPEG or MPEG2
Are they MPEG (for VCD or Super VCD)
Are they MPEG2 files that compliant for DVD authoring?
What DVD authoring software are you using?
What software are you using to burn the files to disk?
What blank media are you using?

Hopefully I can point you in the right direction.

Also what is the total size of the compilation you are trying to burn to DVD? (The size of the VIDEO_TS folder)?

4

I just noticed that you did not have the project files anymore, so most of the questions I have don’t really apply. The problem may be that the Video_ts folder is under 2GB which will usually cause any DVD player to choke if not burned correctly.

Regardless though, this is what I would recommend you do as it will solve this and a few other problems as well:

Download and install DVDDecrypter and DVDShrink:

http://www.dvddecrypter.com/

http://www.dvdshrink.org/where.html

You may want to reboot.

Open UP DVD Shrink and click the “Open Disk Button” (The problem DVD should be in the Drive and select the disk from the Windows Explorer-like tree). It will take a minute to analyze it, and if you get any errors, let me know what they are.

Once it is done analyzing hit the “Backup Button” and a window will open. Go through the options and the ones that you only need be concerned about are the ones where you select the Tempoprary location for the files and the Burning Method. For the burning method select: Create ISO and burn with DVD Decrypter. Any other settings should be at their default. (Sorry I am at work, so I am doing this from memory)

Click Okay, it should write the ISO to disk, and then automatically burn the ISO with DVD decrypter.

Hopefully that will solve the problem. I do a lot of video editing and conversion and DVD mastering , and this has always been the most foolproof method (Creating an ISO and then burning with DVD Decrypter). Nero, if you are using it, I have found is very spotty.

The whole process should take about half and hour (depending on drive/burner speed).

If you still get no love, then take one of your commercial movie DVD’s you have and follow the same process, and see if you can get it to play. If not, your original project files are probably not DVD compliant (and you are truly pooched :cry: ), or possible your MEDIA is bad as croman has said.

Good Luck

5

Jeff, one more thing, if all else has failed:

Download the trial of TMPG DVD Author and install it:

http://www.tmpg-inc.com/download/tsda.html

From the Interface select NEW PROJECT
From the source Page click ADD DVD FILES (Browse to your Video_TS Folder)

Follow the Wizard Through

It will re author all the files and hopefull correct an problems (takes about 30 minutes)

Has it’s own burning engine, so you can burn it right form there.

6

It’s probably the media. I can’t play DVD+R media on my girlfriend’s DVD player, even though they’ll play fine on mine.

So, you probably used DVD-R to burn the previous batch, and DVD+R for this batch. Or vice versa.

Just switch back to your previous media type.

7

Sorry if it’s off topic… but TMPG Enc & Author = THE Best DVD authoring tools Period.

That’s all :)

( and yeah, if it plays fine on your PC through a DVD program and not a standalone… It’s the media.)

8

First, thanks to everyone - I’m trying everything offered this morning.

I don’t think it’s the media type, my burner (in my Inspiron XPS) only burns +R and I’ve made many DVDs that worked fine in my home DVD players. In fact, I’ve always used the same brand since they have always worked in my various DVD players.

SURELY the starforce mania isn’t true - this is the first time I’ve burned DVDs since I installed SH3. But I would think if that was the problem they just wouldn’t burn at all.

Anyway - I’ll be trying things this morning, new batch of DVD +Rs, to see if any of this works. Thanks!

9

I hate to say it Jeff, but if installing SH3 is the only variable, then it just might be starforce, however much you don’t want that to be true. :-(

10

A highly overlooked thing to check is the book type of the disc you burnt. A lot of drives have problems with the DVD+R booktype. You want to make sure you burn them with a DVD-ROM booktype. (The booktype being a few bits that tell the player what format and disc reflectivity to look for.) A lot of systems (especially car or older players) just bomb out on non-DVD-ROM booktypes despite the fact they can play them with ease.

There’s a good article here that explains it and links to a bunch of tools for different drives:
http://www.cdfreaks.com/article/150

11

I am an absolute idiot. For a lot of reasons, but this is just one more.

I ended up showing the movies via an S-video hookup from my XPS Inspiron notebook to the TV, so that hurdle was overcome for the short term. But all the kids wanted a copy of their own, so I kept trying to figure out the problem. Plus, I just hate problems I can’t figure out.

After a lot of mucking about, I looked at the original video clips that I captured from which I made the original DVD. And as I was looking at one of them with videoinspector and I noticed the frame rate. 25 fps. Then it all came together. The video clips had been taken by my daughter’s friend on the friend’s DV camcorder. And she was from Europe. Sure enough, the clips are PAL. So when I made the movie in Studio 9 it dutifully made a PAL DVD.

And from what I can see, the only way to simply convert a PAL DVD to an NTSC DVD is via an expensive program. So I suppose I will need to convert all of the video clips from PAL to NTCS via something like #1 Video Converter (slow, takes a ton of HD space) and then re-create the DVD.

Thanks for all of the tips and help, I actually picked up a few good tips and some new utilities. Also - does anyone have a better utility than #1 Video Converter for this kind of work?

12

Good work Jeff. It’s satisfying to figure stuff like this out. One of my big “honey dos” is transcoding all the 8mm video we have on tape, but I just can’t bring myself to looking into it for very long. One of these days, but until I do I am doing my chores vicariously through your posts. :)