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I used iDVD7/10.6.8/iMac to import an mp4 video, and burn it onto a DVD-R for playing on a standard DVD player. When I take that burned disk, it plays great on my Panasonic player. It plays great on my Mac, with DVD Player. But my Toshiba LCD TV gives an "incorrect disk" message. That Toshiba player plays commercial disks fine.
What gives?? I want a disk I can play anywhere.
iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)
Hi
Rather common problem - my notes on this follows:
DVD doesn't play
Most common origin to this are:
Brand of DVD used - NoName, Memorex etc. cheap brands might work as Data-DVDs - BUT NOT as Video-DVDs
I only use Verbatim - but there are other High Quality media
Type of DVD used - I only use SL-DVD-R as they also playback on older DVD-players. DVD+R for newer DVD-players. Never ever DVD+/-RW. Dual-Layers usually creates more problems than Single-Layers
BURN SPEED - Very IMPORTANT factor - I never go faster than x4 - Normally I use x2
Material used - Video Codec, Photo and Audio file formats
Video-Codec: StreamingDV, AIC and HDV (I use)
Photo: .jpg - NO .bmp or other - all converted to .jpg first
Audio: .aiff 16-bit 48kHz or 44.1kHz (as on Audio-CDs) - NO .mp3, wma etc alient formats - all converted to ..aiff 16-bit 48kHz or 44.1kHz first
Free Space: on Start-Up (Macintosh HD) Hard Disk - I never go less than 25Gb when doing Video-DVDs (for SD-Quality Video - if HD material is used 4-5 times more are a safe low level) (Other external Hard Disks - DO NOT COUNT as space here can not be addressed by Mac OS or iDVD for it’s massive use of .temp files)
Dusty DVD-burner Laser: I use a Cleaning DVD (no liquid but the one with brushes) from time to time.
Harmed DVD-burner Laser: Easy to do by burning more than three DVDs at a time - I let it rest for 30 minutes till next batch of three DVDs. If this happened - then only a costly repair will help. It will not heal by it self.
OBS: There are more than one Laser in the DVD-Burner so other functions might work OK as Playback CD/DVDs and even burn CDs. Still being broken.
DVD label - DO NOT Apply any sticky DVD-label (or any thing) on a DVD disk
- USE Inc.-jet printable DVDs instead.
Why not: The DVD will be just a minimal bit out of balance and when rotating this will in worst case destroy the DVD-player (some breaks easily other stands it for a short while) and the DVD disk will play BAD to not at all. AND the label is nearly impossibly to unglue without harming the DVD.
alt. Use a soft felt-pen instead to mark / label Your disk.
Yours Bengt W
Hi
Rather common problem - my notes on this follows:
DVD doesn't play
Most common origin to this are:
Brand of DVD used - NoName, Memorex etc. cheap brands might work as Data-DVDs - BUT NOT as Video-DVDs
I only use Verbatim - but there are other High Quality media
Type of DVD used - I only use SL-DVD-R as they also playback on older DVD-players. DVD+R for newer DVD-players. Never ever DVD+/-RW. Dual-Layers usually creates more problems than Single-Layers
BURN SPEED - Very IMPORTANT factor - I never go faster than x4 - Normally I use x2
Material used - Video Codec, Photo and Audio file formats
Video-Codec: StreamingDV, AIC and HDV (I use)
Photo: .jpg - NO .bmp or other - all converted to .jpg first
Audio: .aiff 16-bit 48kHz or 44.1kHz (as on Audio-CDs) - NO .mp3, wma etc alient formats - all converted to ..aiff 16-bit 48kHz or 44.1kHz first
Free Space: on Start-Up (Macintosh HD) Hard Disk - I never go less than 25Gb when doing Video-DVDs (for SD-Quality Video - if HD material is used 4-5 times more are a safe low level) (Other external Hard Disks - DO NOT COUNT as space here can not be addressed by Mac OS or iDVD for it’s massive use of .temp files)
Dusty DVD-burner Laser: I use a Cleaning DVD (no liquid but the one with brushes) from time to time.
Harmed DVD-burner Laser: Easy to do by burning more than three DVDs at a time - I let it rest for 30 minutes till next batch of three DVDs. If this happened - then only a costly repair will help. It will not heal by it self.
OBS: There are more than one Laser in the DVD-Burner so other functions might work OK as Playback CD/DVDs and even burn CDs. Still being broken.
DVD label - DO NOT Apply any sticky DVD-label (or any thing) on a DVD disk
- USE Inc.-jet printable DVDs instead.
Why not: The DVD will be just a minimal bit out of balance and when rotating this will in worst case destroy the DVD-player (some breaks easily other stands it for a short while) and the DVD disk will play BAD to not at all. AND the label is nearly impossibly to unglue without harming the DVD.
alt. Use a soft felt-pen instead to mark / label Your disk.
Yours Bengt W
Thank you. Excellent summary of ideas. Yes, I thought I heard that, for some reason, many DVD brands are not high enough quality. Also, I've heard of people lowering burn speed to get better results. I am a bit perplexed, however, why quality of medium and copy are more important for video than for data. Is that because video doesn't allow time for data checking/verification? There must be a technical reason for that. How does a commercial video player KNOW that the medium is inferior? Does the player actually read the Media Type ID and say "Ick, that's not for me!" ? Or does it scan for errors?
Dannymac22 wrote:
I am a bit perplexed, however, why quality of medium and copy are more important for video than for data.
It isn't. I disagree mildly with Bengt on that point, except for the fact that a video DVD contains a lot more information that has to be read in a hurry than the average data.
Inferior media is just that, whatever you try to copy to it.
Thank you. I'm still wondering though. If the medium is inferior, how does the player know it? That is, I can imagine that inferior media might play poorly, but this Toshiba reader just pulls in the disk, looks at it, and spits it right back out with an error. There is some test that the Toshiba reader is applying to the disk, and I'd just like to know what that test is. Maybe it tries to do a high speed test read, and makes some judgement based on the success of that?
I can't answer that!
It may be the case that your Toshiba simply does not like home-made DVDs. This is common with many older DVD players. Don't forget that there are huge technical differences between a commercially manufactured DVD (pressed from a glass master to provide 'pits' in the material) and home-made DVDs (a layer of chemical is removed by a laser beam to simulate the 'pits'). It is the quality (and thickness) of that chemical coating that defines the quality of media for home burning and data retention.
More information on DVD-R v. DVD+R here:
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/2279
http://www.diffen.com/difference/DVD%2BR_vs_DVD-R
and (about coating quality):
http://adterrasperaspera.com/blog/2006/10/30/how-to-choose-cddvd-archival-media
and that last article includes information on where (in the US) you can buy Taiyo Yuden media.
Also, this guide to what brands of DVD are the most reliable (and who makes them) is invaluable:
Thank you. Just one of life's little mysteries, I guess. Somehow the Toshiba reader makes a fast determination of whether the DVD is up to snuff. As to technical differences between commercial DVDs and home DVDs, again, somehow the Toshiba is able to quickly tell. I'm just using Memorex DVD-R -- nothing special, but before I go splurge on something highly rated, I guess I'll just try slowing down the write speed on these.
I should add that I have an iMac for which the optical media system seems to like home-made disks, especially ones it wrote. It often won't read commercial disks at all. Won't recognize them, and spits them out. Weird. Yes, I've done the standard cleaning & etc.
As said in first response.
Memorex - is a problem brand in regard to - VIDEO-DVDs
They usually do not work - and if by slow burning speed - it does. Then it might not be stable enough to play after a very short while !
I only use SL DVD-R Verbatim. But that's me.
Yours Bengt W
OK, I'm sold. I'll try 2x write speed on my Memorex and see what happens, but the Verbatim DVD-R are really pretty inexpensive. Not obviously more pricey than the Memorex.
There is a lot of information online about good, rather than not-so-good optical disks, but I've never really seen a clear accounting of why video demands the former much more than data does. This has been a very helpful discussion.
Verbatim DVDs contain much more organic dye than many other brands - BUT there are other HIGH QUALITY BRANDS tooooo.
Yours Bengt W
On doing a little online research, I've learned that Verbatim has started relabeling lower quality disks. It is said that if you buy Verbatim, make sure it says on the package that it uses the "Azo" dye technology, which is the original good stuff. FWIW, it appears that some of the best prices on Verbatim disks are for those that do indeed say Azo on the package. So it's not as if Verbatim is selling a lot of junk for lower price.
GOOD POINT
AZO is the word.
Yours Bengt
OK, I'm going to get the Verbatim media, but I tried experimenting more with my Memorex disks. Instead of using iDVD which claimed than my SS disk wasn't big enough for my 150 minute (720x404) video, even with the high quality encoding, I used Burn, with default (NTSC) settings. That did it. I burned at 4X (lowest allowable by Burn) and it worked!! We'll see how long the disk lasts.
How in the world can Burn get away with writing a video sized 3.8GB on the DVD that iDVD claims needed 4.8GB? The quality looks fine. That is, for the same video, iDVD thought it was too big, but Burn said it was just fine.
Presumably Burn uses a 'burn to fit' algorithm that ignores quality. With iDVD you can chose the correct settings for the length of the video:
iDVD encoding settings:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1502?viewlocale=en_US
Short version:
Best Performance is for videos of up to 60 minutes
Best Quality is for videos of up to 120 minutes
Professional Quality is also for up to 120 minutes but even higher quality (and takes much longer)
That was for single-layer DVDs. Double these numbers for dual-layer DVDs.
Professional Quality: The Professional Quality option uses advanced two-pass technology to encode your video (The first pass determines which parts of the movie can be given greater compresson without quality loss and which parts can’t. The second pass then encodes those different parts accordingly) , resulting in the best quality of video possible on your burned DVD. You can select this option regardless of your project’s duration (up to 2 hours of video for a single-layer disc and 4 hours for a double-layer disc). Because Professional Quality encoding is time-consuming (requiring about twice as much time to encode a project as the High Quality option, for example) choose it only if you are not concerned about the time taken.
In both cases the maximum length includes titles, transitions and effects etc. Allow about 15 minutes for these.
You can use the amount of video in your project as a rough determination of which method to choose. If your project has an hour or less of video (for a single-layer disc), choose Best Performance. If it has between 1 and 2 hours of video (for a single-layer disc), choose High Quality. If you want the best possible encoding quality for projects that are up to 2 hours (for a single-layer disc), choose Professional Quality. This option takes about twice as long as the High Quality option, so select it only if time is not an issue for you.
Use the Capacity meter in the Project Info window (choose Project > Project Info) to determine how many minutes of video your project contains.
NOTE: With the Best Performance setting, you can turn background encoding off by choosing Advanced > “Encode in Background.” The checkmark is removed to show it’s no longer selected. Turning off background encoding can help performance if your system seems sluggish.
And whilst checking these settings in iDVD Preferences, make sure that the settings for NTSC/PAL and DV/DV Widescreen are also what you want.
Well, but that's just three choices in iDVD for encoding quality I'm given. If Burn is using something else, it's something that iDVD isn't offering me. Also, with all due respect to iDVD, which has a lot of other great options that Burn doesn't, the quality of the Burned video looks fine. At least displayed on a smallish (~24" diagonal) monitor. So the choice that it made was quite adequate.
The amount of Video that can be stored onto a DVD depends on
- Bit-rate needed in PlayBack (High = Lot's of data = Smooth and detailed picture)
- The over all Picture Quality
- Encoding method used.
iDVD is limited here to always give a very High Quality = Limited in time 60/120 minutes SL-DVD
- I only use Pro Quality encoding when material adds up to 45 minutes or more !
Burn might use a "fit to DVD" algoritm = More movie - Less Quality
Roxio Toast™ - and You can put 10 hours of Video onto a SL-DVD - BUT the quality is barely usable when doing this.
Compare:
- VHS tapes Standard- mode - takes away half of the lines in the picture
- LP-mode - even less (about quarter quality)
- EP- mode - low low (about a sixth quality at it's best)
- 10h with Toast - EVEN WORSE !
Still it is possibly to do it - AND Toast can deliver very High quality if right amount of material and encoding method is used.
Yours Bengt W
iDVD and "incorrect disk"?
