DVD Burning Problem

[abbaker2]

I burned a DVD containing home movies using PE4. The movie required 4.37GB of space on the DVD, well below the maximum of 4.7GB. The master (a Sony DVD-R) came out fine!

I used the master to make 2 copies of the movie on printable DVDs (each is a Taiyo-Yuden DVD-R). Each copy has both video stops & audio cutouts (in different spots) near the end of the DVD.

I burned a different movie disk (Part 2) which only required 3.88GB of disk space. Both the master (also a Sony DVD-R) and the copy (also a Taiyo-Yuden DVD-R) came out fine.

Has anyone had this kind of experience when copying DVDs? Can the amount of space used on the disk affect the quality of the burn? Any other suggestions?


Thanks for your help.

[Steve Grisetti]

Copying disks is usually not the best way to make copies of your DVD, abbaker. Sometimes -- especially when you burn at faster speeds -- data does get lost and the copies don't work as well as the original.

The very best way to make several copies to select the option to burn your DVD files to a folder on your hard drive rather than directly to a disk. Then making copies of your DVD is as simple as burning the VIDEO_TS file folder from this folder -- a process that only take a couple of minutes -- and, best of all, every copy is an "original"! (It also stores a master copy to your hard drive as a permanent back-up.)

I know that doesn't really answer your question, but it is a suggestion worth considering in the future.

[Chuck Engels]

My question would be something that Steve touched on, what burn speed are you using when you copy the discs?

[abbaker2]

That sounds like a great idea but I don’t know how to do that.

I used the PE4 option to burn a disk and put the result in a separate folder on my hard drive. The resulting files don’t look anything like the standard .VOB or .BUP files. I get 3 files with extensions .mpg, .xmp and .mpg.xmp.

What do I need to do to burn an image of the “final DVD” (with the VIDEO_TS folder, etc.) onto my hard drive instead of a DVD? If I can do that, can I just do a data copy of those files onto a DVD?

Thanks again.

[Steve Grisetti]

You shouldn't be getting those files if you're using the option to burn a DVD. It sounds like you're selecting the MPEG option instead.

Start the DVD burn process -- complete with creating menus or choosing the no menu option -- except, at the screen where you select your DVD burner, select the option to burn to a folder instead.