Perhaps a PC based DVD player is best?

[BB_Mike]

Lately, I've run into some bad media. Only I realized it too late. I've spent a lot of time trying to get it right, and thought I had it right after a few trial runs. Well, not so much. Seems a good deal of my attempts end up with DVDs, that when played back in a stand alone player, cause errors towards the end of the disk.

For My Samsung N501, I get pauses every so often.
With a Samsung HD-841 (720p upconverter) I get tons of pixilation.
With a Sony ###, it just locks up towards the end.

however, in my PC, using my (somewhat generic) Micro Avantage DVD burner as the reading drive, the movie plays flawless. So, if I just get a video card with DVI or Component out would I be back ahead of the game?

I'm trying to find a good DVD player, and (continually) reliable media, but all of the surveys on the plethora of website don't lead to any one conclusion and each one has a possiblity of failure in a standalone player. I've come to learn this is not an exact science, rather a very dynamic equation that may even depend on the position of the moon.

Why are the production DVDs so darn versatile and reliable?! What burner do THEY use, and what media do THEY use?? I bet THEY don't have coasters laying all around their factories...



(Honestly, I'd rather it just not work at all versus getting to the end of a movie and having to shut off the player!)

[cynthia]

To find out if it is in the burning process or in the playing process you have your problem - do this test;

Download www.dvdinfopro.com (freeware) insert one of your burned disc and selelct the option "Test your media for CRC read errors" - if you only get green dots you know that your burning is ok and it is the player that causes the problem. If you get any read dots - you know something else.

Also - do you have the latest firmware installed for your burner and latest updates of your burning software installed?

[BB_Mike]

I need to just throw away all of my 8x movies and just move on, but I can't bring myself to do it.

I have quite a few CRC read errors towards the end of the backup DVD. I was hoping, that since my PC can play the files ok, that I can at least pull the files back off the disc and re-burn them to a better media. Right? Sounds flaky, but I'll try it when my new stack of DVD+R media comes in.

I believe NERO has the same media test tool built in. Besides, this DVD-InfoPro is very slow.

What are the white squares?!?!

[cynthia]

Originally posted by BB_Mike
I bet THEY don't have coasters laying all around their factories...

No, they sell them as cheap generic media...

Your questions:

1. You could already now try to copy the burned discs on to your hard disk and see if that works - I doubt it will.
2. The reason why i suggest DVDInfoPro is that there is a version of that program that is shareware - not everybody have Nero.
3. Colors:

GREEN - The green blocks represent groups of blocks with no error.

WHITE - The white blocks represent a block that gave an error but a retry read was successful.

RED - The red blocks represent errors that failed even on a retry.