Hi all-
As some of you may remember, I recently recorded a ballet recital for a local dance group. I edited the video in Premiere, and exported it as dv avi. I built the DVD in Encore and let it calculate the settings. I tested the masters on several DVD players and on a computer, and it worked fine. I then took the masters to be replicated, and distributed the copies.
I have a customer who states that the DVD is not playing well on his DVD player. He says that sometimes the picture breaks up or freezes. I have asked him to please try and play it on another DVD player (preferably another brand), and on a computer, and if this does not work that I will replace it as a bad disc.
My thinking is that it may be one of those issues where his DVD player just doesn't like recorded discs.
I'm wondering... for those of you who sell DVDs to customers where there is a very small number of copies (ie., so it's not glass mastered or anything)... how often do you run into this problem, and how do you handle it?

Personally, I would say that you have handled things quite well. Usually I would give the individual another disk, and if there are still problems, ask for the brand/model of the player and do a little research...it could be a dinosaur player that just won't play dvd-r...

Just remember to be as flexible and understanding as possible...technology will play tricks on the best of us...for no reason whatsoever...it is the nature of the beast. That is unless you don't care for your name or reputation...people talk...way too much.

With Encore, you want to set a maximum bitrate of 7mbs for maximum capability. Also, you should check and see what brand of disks were used to make the duplicates...and also your original.

Mitch - is there a way to check that bitrate if Encore has already encoded the material (or does that matter?). I had about 70 minutes of video. I let Encore make the default encoding and DVD building decisions in order to get it to fit onto a DVD. Will Encore let you set a maximum bit rate and still do all of it's other calculations manually? Does Encore have a default bitrate limit?

My media is Verbatim. I haven't yet checked with the replicator. I haven't heard back from my client as to whether or not the disc worked on other machines and a computer.

"and still do all of it's other calculations manually?"

... sorry... I meant "automatically."

Yes, you can set the maximum bit rate in Encore and let it do the remaining calculations. Encore does have a default maximum bit rate that is higher.

Verbatim aren't the best discs, I prefer Tai Yuden. There's been a lot of discussion about disc brands, just do a search.

Thanks Mitch. I haven't received any other complaints, so I'm hoping this is an isolated event. I'll look into Tai Yuden for making masters in the future. That won't help much regarding whatever media the replicator uses, but at least it will contribute to the quality of the master.

Yea...it is worth mentioning that even if you get the best brand DVD discs, there still can be a defective disc..., just less likely.

Hi all. Today I received a message from a customer that both of the two discs I sent them don't work on their DVD player. That brings the grand total of bad/incompatible discs to only four... out of the 75 duplicates I had made. I don't suppose that's a horrible failure rate. However, it has made me want to make sure that I cover as many bases in the future in order to minimize this. To that end, I have ordered some Taiyo Yuden discs to use for mastering, which I should receive tomorrow.

I've run out of replicated discs to fill additional orders and replacements with, so I have the opportunity to try and put a little control on what I send out next. I'm thinking of two options:

1. Remaster the disc using Curt and Mitch's recommendations... record the master at 1x, don't let the bitrate exceed 7, and use a Taiyo Yuden disc. (If this is the best choice, I need some advice as to how to set Encore to do that... I've been setting it to "automatic" for transcoding. I see it has some presets, but I don't see a way to set it to "automatic with a bitrate not to exceed 7"). Then make copies of that master myself using TY discs to fulfill my remaining requests.

2. Use my current master (that was encoded "automatically" by Encore, and used to make the duplicates), and copy it onto Taiyo Yuden discs to fulfill the replacement, assuming this is some sort of DVD branding issue.

I figure I could argue with customers all day long about what brand of DVD player they have, and the difference between mass produced discs and recorded discs, but I don't want to go there unless none of my solutions work, because it's important to me not to leave them feeling unserved.

So. What "bad disc/incompatibility" rate do you feel is usual, say in percentages? Which of the two above would you choose as my next step (or do you have another suggestion).

LTK

I had this same problem with a wedding DVD that I had authored, I used a DVD-R for the Authoring, which I duly shipped off to the customer, they called to say that the DVD would just not play...PERIOD!... so I used a DVD+R Disc and sent that off to them, it played without fault. And the customer was happy with the DVD.

have you tried using both +/- DVD R discs??? (or is it that the DVD you have done is Dual layer?, which would be a DVD+R)

My guess is that it isn't a +/- problem or the DVD wouldn't play at all, most likely. It seems like a bitrate problem or a poor quality disc...it is a bit hard to tell the difference based on the behavior you're seeing.

I would suggest #1. If you you're using Encore 2.0 then go to Edit>Preferences>Encoding...and set Maximum Automatic transcoding bitrate to 7 Mbps. If you have an older version of Encore, this option may not be available.

I'm using Encore 1.5. It has an option for "automatic" and then a lot of presets. You can edit the presets... and just change the bitrate.. but I dont' know how to tell what settings it used the first time I let it encode on "automatic", or if the preset I choose will be similar to that.

Does anyone know how to do this in Encore 1.5?

LTK

Here's what I see in Encore 1.5:

NTSC DV High quality 4 Mb VBR 2 Pass
NTSC DV High quality 7Mb VBR 2 Pass
NTSC DV High quality 8 Mb CBR 1 Pass
NTSC DV Low quality 4 Mb CBR 1 Pass
NTSC Progressive High quality 7 Mb VBR 2 Pass

Automatic
Don't Transcode


So, you can choose a preset, which you can then edit, or you can choose "automatic"... but I don't see where to go to choose Automatic with bitrate of 7....

I read somewhere about someone with the same problem.
They were a good customer do they went to Wall-mart bought a cheap DV player and gave it to customer. Solved the problem. Might work for you if you get business from them in the future.

Go to file/transcode/edit project transcode presets and then hit video in the new window. Set max bitrate to 7000.

OK... but how do I decide which preset to edit - this sort of takes it off of "automatic", right?

One of the suggestions was to lower the bitrate, im pointing out to you how to lower the bitrate. And Yes its not automatic anymore, but no other presets are altered.

Thanks, Ann. I've experimented a little with that. It lets me edit the preset, and then give it a new name to save it. I guess my problem is that my video is a little larger than an hour long. I was worried about getting it to fit on a DVD, and Curt recommended that I let Encore "do the math," by using "automatic," which it did with no problem. I don't know how to see what it ended up doing... but it came out fine, except that I've had problems with four out of the 75 discs that were made, which may or may not be bitrate related.
Since I'm out of those discs now, I have the chance to remake this disc... but I don't know how to let Encore make it the right length, and use a preset that isn't automatic in any way. I guess I'll have to pick a "high quality" preset, and change the bitrate, and see if it comes in the right size to fit on a DVD. I guess Encore will tell me if it's not going to..

Don't worry about getting 1 hour of film on the disk, it can take up to 2 hours.

If your project is 70 minutes, choose automatic should be safe. At that length I doubt it is setting bit rate higher than is polite. I always use automatic for that length disks and havnt had problems.

Marginal quality media is the most common problem. Get the best diska nds you should be ok. TY is a good choice. I perosoally use verbatum thermals since i do thermal printing. They are high quality disks; however verbatum also sells lower qualty disks, so you do have to be careful. TY has a good reputation.

Of course, its possible your replicator is using bad quality too. Doi they have a good reputation? Might be worth burning a disk yourself and seding to the "problem customer" to see if its you or the replicator.
Curt

Thanks Curt. That's pretty much what I have done. I did re-burn a master with different settings... I used the preset for 2 Pass VBR 7 mb, which I edited to have a target bitrate of 7 and a maximum bitrate of 7.5. I also put it on TY discs... so that's two variables. I guess I won't know which one fixed the problem if this fixes it, but with that slight difference in bitrate, I'll bet it will be the media. I haven't heard back from the customer yet.

Thanks for the logic in your response. It helps me to understand why something may or may not be a problem - then I can make a better judgement next time.