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FAQ: If your backup freezes, stutters, skips, or show an abnormal amount of pixelatio
If your backup freezes, stutters, skips, or show an abnormal amount of pixelisation, it is more than likely due to a bad burn.
Important!!
It is highly recommended not to use labels on your backups. Here you'll find more information regarding this issue.
Do the DVD Error Test:
To find out if the problem is created during the burning process or while playing the disc - you can test your burned discs.
You can use Nero to verify the quality of your discs. There is a tutorial written by blutach. Here you can find the Nero CD-DVD Speed test. The used Nero program is freeware and you don't have to have the complete Nero program to be installed.
Block 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.
You got only green blocks?
If you only get green dots you know that your burning is ok and it is the player that causes the problem. That could depend on that your stand alone player don't like burned discs.
Solutions:
If you get any red blocks- you know that your burning is not ok and needs to be taken care of.
Solution 1 - A firmware update:
DVD burners optimize their ability to write to different brands of DVDs by internal "write strategies" that control the laser power and pulse settings to maximize its accuracy with each different dye formula, reflector density and plastic doping chemistry for each brand of blank DVD disc.
When a disc is inserted, the drive reads the factory media ID off the disc and queries its internal list of known disc brands and write strategies. If the disc is listed, then it uses the write strategy for that disc.
If a write strategy for a particular disc brand is not present in the drive's firmware, it tries to estimate how best to write to the disc by writing to the small re-writable "power calibration" area on each unknown disc type to see which power setting might produce best results for the unknown disc brand.
In some cases, the firmware is unable to produce reliable burning with a particular disc brand, and rejects the disc as having a "power calibration error" or "illegal disc" or a similar error. This error is generally not related to disc quality issues, but is simply a result of the drive not having the latest firmware in it that lists the particular disc brand.
From time to time, drive makers test additional brands of DVD discs and then update their firmware with new write strategies for those newly tested discs, enabling their drives to work with more brands of DVD discs.
All DVD writer owners need to frequently check with their drive manufacturer to see if there is a new firmware upgrade available for their drive. That way they can expect to enjoy working with more brands of discs, and more reliably with the discs that they already can use.
Look at your brands website to download the latest version or search for firmware at the firmware page or DVD-Makers.com.
How do I know which firmware version that is installed in the burner? Use AKA Flashman's tool to find out your current version.
Solution 2 - Try using a better media:
Having previously had successes with cheap media is no indication they're not the cause of the problem.
Their "quality control" is often not as good as other more expensive media, and you can easily end-up with a bad disc or even a bad batch of discs.
If you notice your pixelation, freezing, jumping problems at the end of the disc - it's normally a sign of bad media.
Using cheap media can also make your DVD player work harder to read the discs. This, in turn, will make it overheat, and sometimes freeze (I know, you wouldn't expect something freezing when overheating, lol).
Good media to use could be Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim, Fuji, Maxell or Ritek (but not Ritek G05). You find an overview and discussion about blank media and quality regarding different brands at digitalFAQ.com.
You can find a list of compatible media for your burner at VideoHelp.com.
To see who actually made the disc and the manufacture ID that you're trying to use - you can use the program DVD Identifier. This program offers a reliable method of accurately identifying the disc's REAL manufacturer. This information will also help you in determining which discs are most suitable for your DVD recorder when you compare the information from this program to what others have to say about your burner and player.
Solution 3 - Update your burning program:
Updates for CopyToDVD Nero
Possible other solutions:
Important!!
It is highly recommended not to use labels on your backups. Here you'll find more information regarding this issue.
Do the DVD Error Test:
To find out if the problem is created during the burning process or while playing the disc - you can test your burned discs.
You can use Nero to verify the quality of your discs. There is a tutorial written by blutach. Here you can find the Nero CD-DVD Speed test. The used Nero program is freeware and you don't have to have the complete Nero program to be installed.
Block 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.
You got only green blocks?
If you only get green dots you know that your burning is ok and it is the player that causes the problem. That could depend on that your stand alone player don't like burned discs.
Solutions:
- You could try another brand of media. You can find a list of compatible media for your stand alone player at VideoHelp.com.
- Try to slow down your burning speed.
- Use -R/-RW media insted of +R/+RW media or the other way around.
- If you are using +R/+RW media and your burner supports it - you could try to use bitsetting. For a discussion and how-to-do explanation - visit cdfreaks.com or DVDplusRW.org.
- The player could also suffer from being overheated.
- Take your burned disc to a shop that sells stand alone players and test out the several brands at that location.
If you get any red blocks- you know that your burning is not ok and needs to be taken care of.
Solution 1 - A firmware update:
DVD burners optimize their ability to write to different brands of DVDs by internal "write strategies" that control the laser power and pulse settings to maximize its accuracy with each different dye formula, reflector density and plastic doping chemistry for each brand of blank DVD disc.
When a disc is inserted, the drive reads the factory media ID off the disc and queries its internal list of known disc brands and write strategies. If the disc is listed, then it uses the write strategy for that disc.
If a write strategy for a particular disc brand is not present in the drive's firmware, it tries to estimate how best to write to the disc by writing to the small re-writable "power calibration" area on each unknown disc type to see which power setting might produce best results for the unknown disc brand.
In some cases, the firmware is unable to produce reliable burning with a particular disc brand, and rejects the disc as having a "power calibration error" or "illegal disc" or a similar error. This error is generally not related to disc quality issues, but is simply a result of the drive not having the latest firmware in it that lists the particular disc brand.
From time to time, drive makers test additional brands of DVD discs and then update their firmware with new write strategies for those newly tested discs, enabling their drives to work with more brands of DVD discs.
All DVD writer owners need to frequently check with their drive manufacturer to see if there is a new firmware upgrade available for their drive. That way they can expect to enjoy working with more brands of discs, and more reliably with the discs that they already can use.
Look at your brands website to download the latest version or search for firmware at the firmware page or DVD-Makers.com.
How do I know which firmware version that is installed in the burner? Use AKA Flashman's tool to find out your current version.
Solution 2 - Try using a better media:
Having previously had successes with cheap media is no indication they're not the cause of the problem.
Their "quality control" is often not as good as other more expensive media, and you can easily end-up with a bad disc or even a bad batch of discs.
If you notice your pixelation, freezing, jumping problems at the end of the disc - it's normally a sign of bad media.
Using cheap media can also make your DVD player work harder to read the discs. This, in turn, will make it overheat, and sometimes freeze (I know, you wouldn't expect something freezing when overheating, lol).
Good media to use could be Taiyo Yuden, Verbatim, Fuji, Maxell or Ritek (but not Ritek G05). You find an overview and discussion about blank media and quality regarding different brands at digitalFAQ.com.
You can find a list of compatible media for your burner at VideoHelp.com.
To see who actually made the disc and the manufacture ID that you're trying to use - you can use the program DVD Identifier. This program offers a reliable method of accurately identifying the disc's REAL manufacturer. This information will also help you in determining which discs are most suitable for your DVD recorder when you compare the information from this program to what others have to say about your burner and player.
Solution 3 - Update your burning program:
Updates for CopyToDVD Nero
Possible other solutions:
- Make sure your DVD-R/-RW or DVD+R/+RW is sound and clean: A small speck of dust, a scratch or fingerprint can be the difference between a successful burn and a coaster.
- It is recommended to not use your computer for other tasks while burning (some even recommend re-booting before a burn, and even stopping any background programs like anti-virus...)
- You are using a screen-saver.
- Compress the movie a bit more, so that the media edge is not being used (on bad media, the edge can be defective and not written to or read properly). This can be achieved by lowering Nero Recode 2's target size: "Edit -> Preferences -> Target Size -> Custom -> 4300MB"
- Try a lower burn speed (if you were using 2x or higher).
- Your hard-drive(s) is heavily fragmented. Make sure to defragment it regularly.
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