DVDs play on DVD drive but freeze on player

[~PJ~]

Hi - I hope this is the right forum for this question - I had a quick look round but wasn't sure.

For the past six months I've been producing DVDs of various parts of the church services. I record the vocals with Audacity, insert the recorded clips into Powerpoint, convert to avi files using Camtasia, and then transcode the avis into DVDs using Nero 7. A lot of the DVDs play fine on the computer, but freeze after ~10-15 minutes on my LG DVD / VHS player. They also seem to have random problems on other people's DVD players.

However...
I've been doing some scouting around on here, and I found this which pointed me to this - and sure enough, my secondary ide channel was set to PIO mode.

Now. My old HP Light Scribe expired [RIP] in April. I then got a Samsung Light Scribe. I've actually found some DVDs which have run all the way through - 2 hours worth. Shame that the sound is carp as I was experimenting with Nero settings - but these DVDs must have been produced soon after I got the new DVDRW. So these were probably the first DVDs I produced. Actually, it was a conference day - two DVDs worth, and once I was happy with the settings I must have done 20 - 30 copies of each DVD, plus the same of the data DVD with all the Powerpoint and music files. NONE of these have been reported as faulty.
Then I went back over the ppt presentations and started converting them to avi with Camtasia, and writing DVDs. I'm just wondering if, at some point whilst I was doing the service DVDs that something caused the secondary ide channel to go into PIO mode, and that's why all the more recent DVDs are so unpredictable?

What do people think?

I may be using the wrong tools for the job, but I get the best results as far as picture and sound quality are concerned with Camtasia and Nero. I tried Power2Go, but it wasn't much cop.

I'd be really grateful for some help on this one, because I seem to be creating coasters at an alarming rate, and there's only so many the Sunday School and Cubs can use for craft projects!

[vw56german]

Head over to the DvdShrink forum and check out the FAQ section. Read the "Golden rules of burning" and read up on your media. It sounds like this could be related to poor quality media and possibly burning too fast.

As for DMA once set it will usually stay but trying to rip a cd or dvd that is badly scratched (causing too many read errors) has been known to make a drive revert to PIO mode.

Keep us posted and welcome to the forums.

[~PJ~]

I'm using Verbatim Photoprintable DVD-R 16x. They were the ones recommended for the purpose by Maplins [I'd already heard of the potential for mishaps with labelling DVDs!]

Will check the faqs out.

Am currently checking the disks with DVDinfoPro as recommended elsewhere, but not entirely sure which test to use. The CD/DVD/BD CRC Read Error Test seems to be coming up clean with one of the potentially dodgy DVDs.

Thanks for getting back to me.

[~PJ~]

Nero CD-DVD Speed 4.5
Two DVDs so far that won't play in the player have come up with no errors in Scan Disc.
I have a different interface to the one shown in 'FAQ - How to check if your burn is a good one' - there is no drop down for Scan Disk - instead it has tabs. There is a tab for Disc Quality, but I can't find how to run it!

[~PJ~]

Well, I've take everything on board - from here and the other forum. I've checked the quality of the media, I've re-enabled DMA for the burner, I've stopped folding and all other non-essential services; I've made a new server so the machine has no-one trying to access it to print or go on the internet; I verified the disk; I've looked at the log file for any errors [although I do have to say I don't entirely understand it]; and the DVD has frozen at 5:50. What is VERY strange is that this is the exact spot at which the previous version failed - and yet I re-created the nvc file from scratch.

[~PJ~]

Update;
Tried recreating the Nero project with the same capture files but on a different computer - froze in the same place as the original.
Then tried recoding one ppt with CamStudio [as per other thread], and edited it with Windows Movie Maker, saving it as a High Quality PAL [wmv - much smaller file than the avi] and just recorded it on its own - played straight through.
So I've spent all evening recoded a full DVDs worth, and I've created the Nero project separately on two computers. Left them to burn overnight.
Will see how they do in the morning.

[~PJ~]

Still something not right.

It can't be the burners. The reason being is that, if I take a movie file which has glitched at, say, 5:25 on one disk, and burn it again with a different disk [obviously] on another computer - it then glitches on the player at 5:25.
I'm sure it's not the disks - I'm getting the same average of results on the RWs.

Subsequent conversion do not necessarily glitch at the same point [or at all]. For example -
Master DVD of Christ's Instructions to the Church; [times are froze at]

................Original Conversion.[Camtasia]..New Conversion [Cam Studio]
Temple...........5:50............................. ......5:32
Family............1:08............................ .......played through
Flock..............2:44........................... ........1:25
Body..............played through....................1:11
Bride..............played through....................0:02

[I had to do a new conversion because of the screen settings - I'd lost some of the edges of the slides.]
I've tried Camtasia, CamStudio, and PresenterSoft. They all work sometimes, but unfortunately I have to burn a DVD to find out whether it will play through. A file that does play through will then do the same on subsequent burns / copies of disk.

I tried one of the old disks on a different [v cheap!] player - it didn't freeze, but at the point where the freeze was happening on mine, the picture went fuzzy but the sound was fine. Then the picture recovered and the sound went funny. Then they both played, but were totally out of sync until the next title.

I've got ALL not MS services turned off on my computer, including all AV. No screen saver / power save / background. It's a 3500+ with 1Gb RAM [which has tested clean]. My DMA is what it should be.

I'm just frantically hoping that SOMEONE recognises this problem because it's taking over my life. In spite of extensive searches on various forums and with Google I've not been able to find anything relevant.

[katzdvd]

It sounds like this could be related to poor quality media and possibly burning too fast

My first thought.

Could you post a screen shot or two of the Nero tool scans?

From your initial post

I must have done 20 - 30 copies of each DVD,

are these burns one after the other? That drive must be smokin' till your done!

Can you burn other discs, such as a "rip" of a movie with no problems? Or is it only on your produced DVDs of the church services?

regards, katz

[photo_angel2004]

What speed are you burning at.

Its also possible that the file format may not be compatable with all players.

Try burning at 4X and see what happens.

[~PJ~]

1. I probably could post a screen shot - but I'm far from convinced that I've got all the details or know how to use the program properly.

2. The DVDs were copied on three or four different machines!

3. I don't copy DVDs, but I've been mass producing CDs of the old band and the church music group without a problem. I'll try copying a commercial DVD and see.

I'm pretty certain it's to do with the audio / visual synchronisation within the converted file. I'm looking at the data I collected from all the DVDs - there are 11 of them so far. I can't see any connection with, say, number of slides or length of audio clips. I do tend to use wav instead of mp3 because the converter on Audacity gave very poor quality mp3s. However, I've found a little program which converts them much better - do you think I'd do better with mps3 rather than wavs?

The other thing I'm wondering is that I started with Camtasia 2, but I redownloaded it and got version 3.
That wouldn't explain why three different programs are giving similar errors.

Sorry - still thinking out loud [or writing, anyway].

What I'd really like to know is if anyone else hsa tried converting ppts with embedded audio, and making standalone DVDs with them. It would be useful to know if it has actually worked for some people at least!

[katzdvd]

been producing DVDs of various parts of the church services. I record the vocals with Audacity, insert the recorded clips into Powerpoint, convert to avi files using Camtasia, and then transcode the avis into DVDs using Nero 7.

Sorry, I am not into all of that; I personally capture video into my pc w/ my ATI card, save the files & burn w/ NERO/other.

Haven't worked with ppt./inserting audio/more. Seems like a lot of steps involved. Is there a way to make the process simpler?

A lot of the DVDs play fine on the computer, but freeze after ~10-15 minutes on my....DVD player.

What I know about that, from my experience, is it was a media/disc problem for me, plus updating my firmware was also a big factor in the equation.

Keep digging & researching; the answer is out there!

But it does seem that the answer lies on the disc...dvd structure, since it happens over a wide variety of players...

regards, latz

[photo_angel2004]

You have mentioned powerpoint and music.

Is this actuall video or are you trying to combined songs with pictures?

[~PJ~]

What I have is the powerpoint presentation as used by whoever's preaching in church. I record the readingas and sermon using audacity - then edit it for pops, coughs, snezzes and shrieks from random small children [usually Zoe or Katy]. Then I cut the edit up and export each appropriate edit up as a small wav file, and insert it into the presentation.
What I have recently been trying to do is to convert the ppt in toto into a wav or wmv, and create a stand alone DVD for each sermon series.

I've just found something, tho. The files have been linked rather than embedded because I had the default set too low, and I've been shifting the entire folder around. Now I wonder if it would work better if I changed the default so that the audio is actually embedded in the file...

[photo_angel2004]

What is in the power point presentation though, is there any video or just pictures and text?

[~PJ~]

Most of them are just pictures and text - with sound added later. Only two of them actually had added videos.
I've noticed one difference with PowerVideo Maker, having taken one file that has never played right and embedded the audio instead of linking. The sound actually played during the capture process whereas before it hasn't. I'm just waiting for it to finish so that I can burn it... the suspense is killing me.