Quality of burned dvds

[Helen]

Hi
I am after an opinion on some of the dvds I have burned.
I am using Ritek dvds to burn my movies and I burn them at 4x using Nero. Recently my husband loaded the program Nero Disc Speed 4 and suggested I used the Scan Disc option to check some of my dvds. Some of my disks came up with no damaged sections and others were anything from 35-60% damaged. These damaged disks all play perfectly in the 2 dvd players that we have in the household. Is there something that I am missing since they play perfectly or is the Scan disc overly sensitive.
All the firmware etc is up to date on the burners in the computer.
I have also ordered some Tao Yuden (not sure of the spelling) disks and will compare these with my Riteks after I receive them.
Thanks
Helen

[VernonRobinson]

Helen,
Most disks will have some errors. That is why error correction is built into the DVD burner. The question is whether the damage becomes so severe that the error recovery mechanism is unable to deal with it. The reate you quote are way to high. The Tayo Yudens will give you much better performance over the long term then the Riteks.

Regards,
-Vernon

[Bobby]

I have been away from this for a bit, so forgot all the details. But there are two kinds of errors - basically recoverable and unrecoverable. But even an unrecoverable error for video is usually not a big deal - if one pixel in 1/30 of a second is bad, you will never see it. As long as the video play doesn't skip, stutter, etc. you are probably OK.

But I agree that the Taiyo Yuden DVDs are worth finding.

[Chuck Engels]

I'm still waiting for the comparison

[Bobby]

I'm still waiting for the comparison

Chuck, I did one, and fairly detailed, but quite long ago. I compared different media on two different drives, and the TY had a much lower error rate. I am going to have to dig through the archives, but a quick pass couldn't find it. Perhaps the subject was not indicative of the content when searching my back posts.

[Helen]

I received the Taiyo Yudens late last week and I will be burning a couple in the next few days and comparing the errors with my Ritek dvds.

I have burned one already, but it was of a different project and it came up with no damaged or bad areas. This project was a bit shorter than my other one, so I am not sure if the length of the movie makes a difference. The project I was burning on my ritek dvds was about 4gb and this project was about 2.5gb.

I will post back after I have burned another one. Hopefully they will prove to be much better.

[Bill Hunt]

Helen,

I do not know the Ritek brand. However, I have been on T-Y exclusively for DVD-5 and Verbatim for DVD-9, for over a year now. Not one disc has been a problem and my clients have a wide array of players. Right now, 100% for over a year.

Some other things to think about to get the maximum compatibility that you can:

1.) Media - you are addressing that now
2.) Burn speed - go as slow as you can. A few seconds saved at this point will definitely be offset if you have to re-burn even one disc. Now, some programs do not allow one to adjust the burn speed. I use ones that do. Depending on the speed of the media, and the burner, they will allow me to drop down. In my case, with my T-Y media, my LG will drop to 2.4x and my Plextor to 4x. I normally use the LG, so nearly everything gets burned at 2.4x.
3.) Bit-rate - DVD specs. state 10 for the bit-rate, as the max. Remember, that this for replicated (not burned) discs, and is also a combo of both the Video and Audio. Much has been said about what the "magic number" is for quality vs playability. There is some argument here. I always set my bit-rate to 7 Max (combined). Some go as high as 8, but there are many who feel that this is pushing the envelope, especially with regards to older players. Even on my very large screen TV (60" HD), I cannot tell 7 from 8, so I stay with 7.

Last, remember that the DVD specs. only state that a player must play a replicated DVD to be certified. There is absolutely nothing in the specs. that mandate any burned DVD. Most play them fine, but I always do all that I can to insure the greatest playability.

Good luck,

Hunt

[Helen]

Well I have now burned a half dozen TY disks and they are 100% good with no damaged or bad areas. There is a definite difference in quality. I have run a couple of other Disc Quality Scans and the TY's are all at least at 95% good quality while only some of the Riteks are 95% mostly in the 75% bracket.

Looks like I will be changing to TY disks in the future.

Bill, I am not sure where to check or change the bit rate. I am using Nero 6. I have looked under a few options, but have not been able to find it.

Helen

[Chuck Engels]

Hi Helen,
What speed are you burning at?
I think you will find that the slower the speed the fewer the errors also.

[Bill Hunt]

Helen,

I think that I might not have been clear on the bit-rate. That is set when the Asset is Transcoded, and can be done in one's NLE (for Export as fully DVD compliant MPG2), or in their authoring program. Encore, for instance, will do an "automatic" Transcode to fit, or you can manually set the bit-rate for each Asset, as well.

As far as the burn speed (Nero should have this), it's usually in the form of a drop-down. For 3rd party burning apps., I normally use ImgBurn or Gear Pro. I am not that familiar with the various interfaces of the Nero versions, but I'll bet that others here are and can point you in the right direction.

Good luck,

Hunt

[Bobby]

Go TY! Go TY!

I agree about burning at a low speed. I always burn my temporary (i.e. DVD-RW) at the highest speed because my units can handle it, but when I go production I always burn at 4x. Nero does have a pulldown for speed in the final burn window.

[Bill Hunt]

Bob,

Glad you mentioned RW's. I try to recommend that people pick up a 5-pack of these, and do a test burn, that they then view at length on their set-tops, prior to comitting to a DVD for distribution. This, of course, is predicated on their set-tops being able to play RW's. All of mine can, so it's moot for me.

Recently, I posted a reply on the Encore forum, and helped the OP get past a problem. However, Jeff Bellune (almost as famous an author, as our Steve G), picked up on the OP's comment about "coasters." I had missed that and had not mentioned RW's.

I bought a 10-pack some years back, and have used these over and over.

Now, one quick PE-related question: does PE allow one to "erase" RW's? I know that my main authoring program, Encore, does. I cannot recall if PP2 did, especially as I never used the direct to DVD function of it - only Encore. What's available in PE?

Thanks,

Hunt

[John 'twosheds' McDonald]

Bill,

I never got past PrElv2 but it did give the option, via a 'warning message', to overwrite a pre-written RW.

[Bobby]

I never write directly to the DVD. I always write to file, then use Nero to write the RW first. If it is OK, I then can use Nero to write the others from the same image without having to restart PE.

Also, I do have about 15 seconds of pre-menu intro that I put on via PGCEdit, which you can't do if you write directly to the medium.

[Bill Hunt]

Thanks guys,

It was my lack of knowledge with PE, that led to that question. I also use other programs, but before I recommend that others use RW's, I wanted to make sure I wasn't making a mistake.

Appreciated,

Hunt