iDVD burns won't play in some DVD players?

[8thMan]

Whenever I burn a disk in iDVD 5, it always runs great in every computer I put it in, but frequently it won't play in a DVD player. The 'play' screen comes up, but when I push 'play', it just stops. This happens frequently in many but not all players. I've tried using different media but the results are the same. I really cannot figure this one out. Any ideas? Thanks.

[Courtaj]

When you say that you've tried "different media" do you mean you've tried burning to both DVD+R and DVD-R media? The latter are usually considered more likely to play correctly in a greater number of players.

Andrew.

[8thMan]

Yes, I have tried both, and generally stick with DVD-R for the reason you suggest. I must be doing something wrong here, but I can't seem to be able to figure it out.

[muirgarth]

A client is experiencing difficulties playing back one of our DVDs on a new(ish) macbook.
It seems the error is confined to new macbooks - she has been trying the disc out in all sorts of places.
I tried a Hollywood movie (Evita) on her machine and that didn't display correctly either .
The DVD was authored using DVD Stuido Pro 4.2.1.

There are two specific problems. The lower half of the first menu was out of the viewable area and the active button area that was visible, was above where it should have been.

In the case of my control -the Evita disc, the second button (scene selection) was not active - though it is on any other player. The lower half of the safe picture area was also cut off.

This is from her web designer:

Hi Claire,
I recieved the dvd this morning and I am too experiancing the same issues as you were. The problem only occoured on the newer macs. Both mine and andrews macbooks both had the error but the powerbook g4 and powermac had no problems at all. There were no problems with any windows based pc no matter which dvd playing software I used and neither the dvd players attached to tvs. I could fix the problem on the macbook by exiting full screen and re-entering full screen mode. This of course isn't really a solution. I tried re-encoding the video but this had no effect. The only thing I can suggest is asking if the dvd company if they can burn the disc using apple software.

I'm fairly confident that since my DVD plays correctly on all machines other than macbooks (not macbookpro) running Leopard, that the problem lies with the player.

I know it's not a very precise question but I just wondered if anyone else had come across anything at all similar.

[alastaircmd]

I have had a similar problem. I have been burning a DVD lately from my iMac using DVD Pro and it seems to play OK on that and my MacBook Pro most of the time but does not always start at the first play position but jumps to the main menu instead.

It plays fine on my Windows PC and on a standard DVD player - it's just the mac it won't run on correctly. Also, copies of the disc sometimes won't play in DVD player at all - they open the software but then doesn't recognize the disc.

A process of elimination suggests that the problem lies with the Mac DVD player. I need to sort this out. Anyone got any ideas?

alastaircmd.

[jayeskreezy]

I'm having a similar problem. Any ideas? This is a birthday gift. My computer won't even recognize the disk that was burned on the same computer. I've never had that happen before. I'm using the newest version of idvd though. That might be part of the problem.

[jayeskreezy]

I'm having a similar problem. Any ideas? This is a birthday gift. My computer won't even recognize the disk that was burned on the same computer. I've never had that happen before. I'm using the newest version of idvd though. That might be part of the problem.

Well, I figured out it was the disk. I guess idvd or the mac burner is just picky and doesn't burn things well on all disks. It was strange though because I thought Verbatim dvd-r was the best around. Maxwell worked great though.