Problems burning DVD from Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 6

[jan]

You can be Mission Impossible expert with this newbie. I have used all compatible manual tutorials and Youtube tutorials in effort to do everything right from the start, but still have problems. Goal: 1 DVD for widescreen TV; DVD to have 6 slideshows and 1 traditional video.

First here is my sequence of events:
1. 1st effort. Made slideshow in Photoshop --> saved and sent to My Pictures for safe keeping --> opened Sony Vegas; changed (A) Preferences -Preview Device to NTSC DV widescreen; (B) Project Properties (1) Video Template to NTSC DV widescreen, full resolution rendering quality to best, (2) Video Preview Window and checked simulate device aspect ratio --> imported Photoshop slideshow --> edited, added audio... --> Redid the preferences & such for widescreen...just in case it needed at the end too --> rendered completed project --> saved into My Pictures --> to test out process on this one video I later brought it back into Sony Vegas clicked on Make Movie --> followed the How to tutorial there --> PROBLEM: Sony DVD+R 120mm will not even register as being in the burner. --?> tried different DVD and error came up that it needed a writable DVD. I tried burning using Windows and the same problem showed up. I have never had problems burning DVD's before this. --> checked turtorials and it mentioned that maybe it was an incompatability between input and output preferences??

2. 2nd Effort. I outputed the slideshow directly out of Photoshop. Got the same problems.

3. Possible 2nd problem? I had so many sfk, wmv, mpeg1 etc messing with my organized system that I made a new folder and put them into it. On my 2nd effort to make the movie, the computer could not find it, but I told it where to find the new file so I thought it was ok now. Then out of concern I simply put the files back AND kept them in the new folder. I still have the same problem.

Where is the actual problem and what is/are the solutions?

[Paul LS]

I tried burning using Windows and the same problem showed up.

Sounds like it may not be a Vegas problem at all if the same thing happens when burning using Windows. Have you burnt with DVD+R type DVDs before? Have you tried DVD-R DVDs?

[Barb O]

2. 2nd Effort. I outputed the slideshow directly out of Photoshop. Got the same problems.

Since Photoshop Elements will not burn a video TV playable format to a DVD disc, I don't understand what you attempted here.

However, even if you were only intending to use PSE for troubleshooting, I don't think that will help. To me concentrating on the discs or Sony Vegas or whatever DVD burning software is on your machine would be more productive.

[Barb O]

Additional thoughts to stimulate more discussion (presuming that the disc itself is not the problem) -

Since you have a DVD burner on your PC, there is probably also some burning software installed. Sometimes that burning software takes ownership of the burner. Either the InCD component of Nero or the DLA component of Roxio can take over the burner. I am not sure whether those components can be effectively deactivated or whether they must be uninstalled.

Also - are you running XP or Vista? Vista apparently had some problems of loosing track on the DVD burner - so that would be a question for whomever you use for Vista support.

[jan]

Thanks for the response.
I did not use a DVD-R since someone told me the DVD+R is fine. I will go buy some DVD-R and try this week.

I will pursue the DVD drive haven been taken over by asking a friend to help with it.

I am also going to try a test not using widescreen at the start or at the end. I still wonder if telling Sony that the Photoshop import is a widescreen is a problem. Do I only make the widescreen changes AFTER I produce the Sony video/slideshow? Maybe I am causing some conflict here by putting in widescreen changes before and after?

[jan]

Well, with your help I tried everything and found the problem was the burner needed to be replaced inspite of what the computer said. All is well in the learning curve. Thanks very much for the help.

[Chuck Engels]

Glad to hear you found the problem Jan, now you can get back to the fun stuff