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DVD players won't read my DVD-R

D

dont24

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jan 17, 2005
247
2
Northeast
I tried iMovieHD and iDVD for the first time. I hooked up my camcorder, via firewire, used Magic iMovie, and it basically did everything for me. I did play around with the custom menus and added clips in the drop zones. Inserted a blank DVD-R and hit the burn button. Task completed with no errors. The probelm is, the Mac is the only system that'll play the dvd. My PC dvdrom won't read it, nor will any of my DVD players. ( Even the Xbox won't read it ) Did I do something wrong or miss a step along the way?
BTW, my dvd players have no problems with burned dvds, when I was doing it via my XP system.
 
It sounds like you did everything correct.

Did you try sticking it back into the Mac and see if its DVD Player program could play it?

What brand DVDs? What speed did you burn it at?
 
The Mac dvd player does play it. The title menu seems to stutter a little bit.
I forget the brand. I'll check when I get home. Maybe Maxell? I didn't set the burn speed. Left everything at their default settings. I've only had the Mac a month or so. To be honest I didn't do much reading about using iDVD and iMovie. I wanted to try the option that doesn it all for me..
 
It's likely the disc

I have had the same problem with cheap discs from EBay. Mine woundn't even play in my Dual 867 MDD, only on the powerbook that burned it. Also I frequently got burn errors and corrupted files on the discs. Got some Sonys and no problems at all since.
 
Verbatim

I use Verbatim's Digital Movie DVD-R and I get mixed results. It won't play on my LG DVD player (probably because it's three years old) but it would play on my cheapie DVD player (Elton) which I bought a month ago for NZ$50!

According to the Apple Online Help, iDVD and iMovies HD will on most new DVD players. My cheapie even played DVD-RWs (TDK) made with iDVD! :)
 
I'm going to have to go witht he cheap disc theory as well. I have burned several DVDs using iMovie and iDVD and have never had a problem. I am using Imation discs, not the classiest brand, but better than the knock-offs.
 
I wouldn't consider mine cheap, but it is the first time I've tried these.
I usually buy a brand name that's on sale at my local Bestbuy or CompUSA.
I was using Sony's on my XP system, which I'm out of. I may stop and pick up a few different brands on my way home and test them out. Funny thing is even my DVD-ROM on my XP system couldn't read it.
 
Try setting the Booktype/bitsetting to DVD-ROM so older and picky DVD players read it as a standard DVD instead of a recordable.Toast seems to do this pretty well , but I wish mac had Nero.
 
Hi, as said from the others it sounds like a bad disc and the brand does matter and I know it really shouldn't. Stick with TDK, Verbatium, certain Fuji branded and check to see if (I have to select this on my external drive-see sig.) you need to set cd or dvd. I have 2 types (speed) to select from i.e. 16x for cds or 16x for my dvds. Just an extra thought since I mostly use Toast 6 Ti. for my burning needs.
Discs that have not worked (very well) for me:
CompUsa...40 out of 100 good
Pio data...5 out of 25 "
Pro disc... lets not go there
As for the others about 5 out of 250 Vetbatium bad and 4-5 TDK out of 250 were bad and all played on every type of player so far....hope I didn't mess that one for me now.
Good luck and have fun... :)
 
The one that's doesn't work is a Memorex 4x DVD-R. I also have a package of Memorex 8X DVD-Rs.
I'm looking at the contents of the disk. AUDIO_TS directory, which is blank.
VIDEO_TS directory which has .BUP, .IFO, and .VOB files. Is that all it should contain? Seems like there might be something missing.
 
Looks like you guys were right. It must have been a bad disk. I burned the DVD again and all is well.
thanks,
Don
 
dont24 said:
The one that's doesn't work is a Memorex 4x DVD-R. I also have a package of Memorex 8X DVD-Rs.
...
Click to expand...
I've had bad experieces with the Memorex 4x discs and won't touch Memorex again for a long while. The layers started seperating during the burn.

The brands I found consistantly good are TGK, FujiFilm, Maxell and Sony.
 
A couple things can cause problems with burned DVDs:

Do not burn the disk "overnight" while OSX maintenance routines might be running automatically.
Try running all routines manually, then restart the system prior to initiating the burn. ("Onyx" is a freeware utility that greatly simplifies running these routines)

Be sure you have enough disk space and adequate transfer rate for the files. It's amazing how quickly a 60GB or even 80GB HD can fill up when working with DV.
You need lots of free space for this type of work.
Two HD are definitely better than one with regard media authoring, and the faster/bigger the drives, the better.
An external Firewire drive might actually perform better than the internal drive in your Mac. (Check Macgurs.com forums for recommendations; those guys are very knowledgable in high-performance storage solutions)

Moving the "Users" directory to another drive and controller can significantly reduce the load on your system drive, allowing it to perform better during demanding tasks.
(Macgurus.com for detailed instructions on moving the Users/Home folder correctly)

Try restarting the Mac prior to burning your disk.

Use lower speed media; Lower burn speeds are often much more reliable.
The burn time will be impacted, but the asset encoding is likely to be the most time-consuming process anyway.
Use high quality media($); it's often less expensive in the long run, unless you actually need lots of coasters. ;P

Converse to your experience, I recently had a problem playing back a DVD authored using WinXP; only one player in five I tried would even recognise the disk.
(neither of my Macs could read it, nor could my $600 Marantz set top player; very frustrating)
I've experienced minor problems with some DVDs I've burned on my Mac, but never to this degree.

Apple tends to put a happy face on this technology, so the failures are all the more frustrating, but rest assured that you are not alone.
Truth be told, the laws of physics are not repealed when you buy an iMac or Mac-mini with DVD authoring tools included. (Powermac with at least two very fast high-capacity drives and lots of RAM is the ticket for "trouble-free" multimedia authoring)

GL
 
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