DVD menu glitch at end of loop

I'm using TDK printable DVD-Rs. I've used them for several years, and have not had any problems to speak of. I've used them with other iDVD themes that use animated menus.

This problem is now consistent over 4 DVDs:
#1 burned at 8x on the iMac's internal burner
#2 burned at 8x on the iMac's internal burner with changes that required re-encoding
#3 burned at 4x on the iMac's internal burner
#4 burned at 4x on an external LaCie D2 Quadra burner

It seems unlikely this is a media problem.

F Shippey wrote:

after burning an image file and using DVD Player to play it, the menu “hiccups” at the end of the loop. Just enough to be annoying, but I could probably live with it.

You will have to live with it. The DVD player optical pickup must reset at the end of the loop to return to the beginning. Some player are faster than others.

In case I wasn't clear, the hiccup also occurs when I use Apple's DVD Player software to play the DVD from its image file on my hard disk. No optical pickup involved there.

But I accept the fact that there might be a hesitation at the end of the loop. My primary concern is that the main menu animation (and background music) locks up at the end of the loop on my DVD LiteON player.

An additional data point: I can hear just a bit of the first beat from the beginning of the background music when it stops, as though the player was trying to restart the loop, but hanging.

I'll be giving copies of this DVD to some other people this evening, and I'll find out if they have trouble with it.

F Shippey wrote:
Our experience, and the experience of many others here, is that using Maxell or Verbatim burned at 4x or slower maximized your chance of success. (If you buy in bulk on the internet, Taiyo Yuden is a good choice.)

OK, I'll give it shot. I'll get some of the recommended brands and try recording at 4x and see what happens. I'll have to put this on the back burner (no pun intended) for the coming week while I take care of some other stuff, but I'll report back here after I've had a chance to try them.

Thanks for you insights.

SDMacuser wrote:
Can you also let us know how well this particular media works out for you and those whom you issue copies to? According to Len Goff, TDK isn't much better than Memorex (a brand to be avoided also especially on older macs). I can confirm this with TDK 2x but not with anything rated at a higher speed for this one brand.

I've been a video hobbyist for for many years. In the past several of years, I've given away hundreds of DVDs containing performance videos to the entertainers at a nearby theme park I frequent. I've been getting my TDK printable DVR-Rs on 100-disc spindles at Costco (though recently, I think the Sony brand has replaced them on the shelves out there - don't know who makes those). I can't recall the last time I had a disc write failure, and I don't believe I've ever had anyone complain that the disc I gave them had problems (but I suppose it's possible they were just being polite 🙂 ).

In the last two years I've been burning most of my DVDs in my MacBook (late 2006), and on an external LaCie D2 Quadra attached to my trusty old iMac G4 800. A few months ago, I replaced that iMac with a new 24” iMac. The DVDs I'm referring to in this thread were burned on the new iMac's internal burner and the LaCie external (attached to the new iMac). So I haven't been trying to burn these DVDs on older Macs.

I delivered 3 of the DVDs in question to a friend this evening (video of her sister's Quinceanera celebration), and described the specific problem I was seeing. I asked her to report back if the family had any trouble viewing them. So we'll see.

As soon as I can, I'm also going to get some of the brands recommended in this thread and see if they make a difference.

Thanks.

On the way home from work today I stopped at Office Depot and bought a spindle of 50 Maxell 16x Print to Center DVD-R discs. That was the smallest quantity they had in printable Maxells, and they didn't have any Verbatims. The unit price is more than double what I paid for the printable TDKs at Costco.

I burned a Maxell disc at 4x in my new iMac from the same image file that I used for the TDKs. The result has exactly the same problem as my earlier attempts. So I guess its not a media problem after all.

To recap:

The main menu loop animation and music freeze at the end of the loop, where it should start the loop over. On my iMac and in my stand-alone Go-Video DVD player, the freeze lasts a fraction of a second (a hiccup), and then the loop restarts. I can tolerate that (though it isn't very esthetically pleasing).

But in my stand-alone LiteOn DVD Recorder/Player, the freeze lasts until I hit the Menu or Top Menu button (which restarts the menu loop), or select a menu button (the highlight is still functional, moving when I press the Up and Down buttons) to run a movie. The menu loop starts properly when I return to the main menu, but freezes again when it gets to the end of the loop.

So its looking like my LiteON can't handle something in the DVD program that the other players can get through.

Any other ideas/suggestions?

Thanks.

SDMacuser wrote:
1. Try a different user account and then attempt to burn a smaller iDvd project (disc image) to the desktop.

2. Use apple's dvd player to test the image before you burn it to the media you just purchased (Maxell DVD-R) at 4x or lower.

You just have to keep trying..... Eventually we'll get you thru this.

I've got another project that I need to do some groundwork for this week (it ultimately won't be using the same iDVD theme, and will be much shorter).

At this point, the DVDs in question are in the hands of the friends I produced them for. I may not hear until this weekend whether they are seeing any trouble on their players. I'll return to this issue then.

Thanks.

Here's an update after some more results.

Since my last post, I've produced a couple of projects.

One involved 3 different DVDs, 2 encoded using High Quality, the 3rd using Professional Quality, for a total of 42 discs (all on TDK DVDs, burned at 8x, widescreen). All 3 used the Marquee theme. The menu animation and music loop correctly on all the DVD players I've tried (including the LiteON), and I've had no failure reports from the recipients after a couple of weeks.

Last night I finished the performer demo DVD project. It contains a bit less than 20 minutes of material, in two sequences. For this one I used the Revolution theme. I burned it on a Maxell DVD-R at 8x, using the Best Performance encoder setting.

This DVD behaves the same as the one I first reported. In all players I've tried EXCEPT the LiteON, it is fine. In the LiteON, the animation and music stop after playing once through the menu loop, both for the top-level menu and the submenu (the music tries to restart, but plays only about 1/2 second before it stops). The menu buttons still work as they should. This is with a different theme, a different (better) brand DVD-R disc, different encoding option (the original problem DVD was encoded using High Quality - it had about 1 hour and 35 minutes of material), and different amount of material on the DVD.

It would appear that the LiteON player just has a problem restarting the animation/music loop for some iDVD themes.

As an aside, I notice that my external Firewire LaCie DVD 8x burner is a good bit faster than the Matshita 8x burner inside my iMac - about 8 minutes vs 12 minutes for a full DVD. Also, the internal drive takes a good bit longer to become ready after inserting a blank DVD (based upon when the Burn button becomes active in Disk Utility). This is with the external connected to my MacBook.

I've checked the company's web site, http://us.liteonit.com. When I tried to check for a firmware update for that model, it eventually took me to a non-existent page. Not a good sign.

They did have a downloadable list of recommended disc brands here:
http://www.liteonit.com/DOWNLOADS/DC/LVW-5005/recommendeddisclist/disclist.zip
It's a zipped HTML file - don't know why they didn't just post it on their website. Oddly, the recommended DVD-R discs did NOT include Maxell or Taiyo Yuden.

I'm not going to worry about it. I'll just know that there is a problem on this player, and not get overwrought when it pops up.

Thanks for confirming the burn times for internal vs external 8x drives. Glad to know my experience there is typical.

I'm going to mark this thread as “question answered”. No point in beating a dead horse.

Thanks again to all who responded.

-Gordon