I don't think that the media is it. I've tried with TDK DVD's and I still
have this issue with certain movies. Mind you the movies that I'm having
issues burning/encoding have all been converted to WMV format.
So are there any other ideas what's causing this??
If you're trying to "burn" movies to a DVD why aren't you using the
default file type to create a compatiable file which is MPEG-2, not
WMV? The converting process, called transcoding, itself can introduce
all kinds of problems, depending on many variables.
Burning DVDs STILL is a hit or miss proposition. Many variables than
alone or in combination can screw things up. In no particular order:
1. YES, the media can be to blame. Regardless what brand you use
you're bound to hit at least 1-2% failure rate where nothing is
wrong accept the blank media had some tiny flaw. You may not be
able to see it, but the laser may act up, often something as simple
as the beam not corrently bouncing off the surface as expected.
This can happen if there is a flaw in the media, like some spots
the coating is just too thin or contain impurities. It don't take
much, which is why you can look at a blank disc and not see
anything obviously wrong.
2. A FREQUENT beginner mistake, setting the bitrate TOO HIGH. Higher
is not better and often will trip up many set top DVD players. For
nearly all videos set bitrate no higher then 6,000 kbps, better if
you can, depending on software, use a variable bitrate so lower
compression gets used for scenes where there is a lot of fast
action happening.
3. Don't burn at too high a rate. My general rule of thumb is reduce
your burning speed to half of what the burner and media is rated
at. Example: You use 16X media, and your drive can burn that fast,
instead set to no more than 8X. You'll get a much lower failure
rate due to errors that can creep in when your burner is zipping
along at maximum speed.
4. Are you doing anything else with your computer during the burn
phase? While it is claimed you can, you really shouldn't. Some
things known to mess up a DVD burn is any application kicking in
and doing something on it's own like your anti-virus application,
your firewall, even your screen saver.
5. How are you playing back? Visit
www.vcdhelp.com and check their
DVD player compatibility lists as to what file types work best
with your particular player and also what kind of luck other
people have had with the brand media you're using.
6. If you have problems with playing back videos on your computer
check for codec conflicts and try to play the video on some
different player. Playback quality varies widely depending on
many variable including the video drivers, what codecs you have,
system settings.
For what it is worth, I've had bad luck with Verbatim. I can go maybe
60-70 flawless burns, then the next 3 or 4 blanks either refuse to
burn or have playback issues. Your milage will vary. No brand is
perfect. Today, many newer DVD burners as well as most set top DVD
players support multi read/write can handle both the DVD-R and DVD+
flavors. Again, my person experience is the DVD+ variety seem to have
less burn issues, but that could be due just to my combination of
media brand, burner and my 4 different DVD set top players.
