DVD Studio Pro 4

[Will_reed]

Is there anyway to trouble shoot a dvd without physically burning a disc to see if it works or not?
I shot a wedding not long ago and have been having a really hard time making a DL DVD that plays consistently if at all on actual DVD players.
Especially after going through maybe 7 discs before discovering maybe the fact that it worked on the macbook pro doesn't mean it will play back in the Panasonic Blu-ray player I own let alone the Playstation 2 or Sony Combo DVD player.
After some investigation I discovered that my main menu had a duration of 40s and that seemed to make it work but that just seems weird to me I don't get this whole DVD authoring business anymore.

On a side note I will never ever attempt to burn a DL DVD on my internal drive I had a 50% fail rate even on the Vertbatim discs everyone seems to recommend as the best out there, Memorex had a 100% fail rate and when I got to Imation I gave up and grabbed my 8 year old LiteOn drive out from under my bed which is lodged in a USB enclosure which I haven't used in at least 3 years because It doesn't always open when you hit the eject button and that actually managed to finish burning discs.

 

[VideoCave]

DSP Help

Yes you can test your dvd project without actually burning it to a disc.

1. Just hit the "build" button and this will create your dvd files as if you were playing off an actual dvd disc.

2. Now go to where you have stored your build files and drag the "videots" folder over your macs "DVD Player" icon in your dock and it will launch as if you had actually stuck a dvd disc in your drive.

Now for it working on every dvd player out there, there is no a guaranty in that. Some players may like and some may not. It could be the software in player itself is not compatible with that disc. The player could be to old. Who knows.

But when working with SD video I haven't had any problems. Now with HD/BluRay discs I have had issues. On one player it worked and another it didn't, don't know why its just the way it is.

 

[alph45]

my experience has been that the optical drive on MBP's have consistently sucked in all ways. This is over a wide range of MBP's. I gave up a long time ago and got a firewire 800 drive which has yet to hiccup at anything.

 

[gameface]

my experience has been that the optical drive on MBP's have consistently sucked in all ways. This is over a wide range of MBP's. I gave up a long time ago and got a firewire 800 drive which has yet to hiccup at anything.

I edit for a living and haven't burned a coaster in probably 3-4 years. This is going all the way back to Titanium Powerbooks, you know when DVD-Rs cost $5 a piece and didn't play on any machines basically. I don't know why you are having such trouble with so many drives.

 

[Will_reed]

I edit for a living and haven't burned a coaster in probably 3-4 years. This is going all the way back to Titanium Powerbooks, you know when DVD-Rs cost $5 a piece and didn't play on any machines basically. I don't know why you are having such trouble with so many drives.

I never used to have any trouble burning DVDs but then I tried to burn dual layer discs.

 

[Will_reed]

Yes you can test your dvd project without actually burning it to a disc.

1. Just hit the "build" button and this will create your dvd files as if you were playing off an actual dvd disc.

2. Now go to where you have stored your build files and drag the "videots" folder over your macs "DVD Player" icon in your dock and it will launch as if you had actually stuck a dvd disc in your drive.

Now for it working on every dvd player out there, there is no a guaranty in that. Some players may like and some may not. It could be the software in player itself is not compatible with that disc. The player could be to old. Who knows.

But when working with SD video I haven't had any problems. Now with HD/BluRay discs I have had issues. On one player it worked and another it didn't, don't know why its just the way it is.

I already know about there methods, problem is after burning a while batch of DVDs that played perfectly in DVD Player I have my doubts as to wether DVD player is a reliable testing source for DVDs, VLC is even worse because that will try and play pretty much anything.

 

[VideoCave]

DSP Help

The only true test is to actually play a disc on a dvd player connected to a tv. Thats all you can do to see if it works.

The only other way is to have it professionally duplicated or glass mastered.

Another possible way of burning your discs is burn a master from DSP and then use Toast to make the copies by doing a disc to disc copy if you have two optical drives, only one has to be a burner the other can just be a player.

This has made a difference in the past for me.

Also the burning speed in which the disc is made can affect its compatibility with some players. I don't know why but I had just noticed it at one point that when I changed it from default to something slower the discs wouldn't work in some players.

 

[Will_reed]

Oh man, I thought long and hard about getting it professionally duped with a glass master, that would save me so many hours sticking in a disc and going off to watch a blu-ray while I wait for it to burn.

I guess I didn't look at it for too long because I didn't even bother to find out how much it would cost.