The recordable DVD is to the DVD world what the low-flush toilet is to
the plumbing world - items that sound great in theory, fail to work in
reality and have a whole bunch of apologists waiting to defend them.

Is there any, or is any disc in development, that actually has an
acceptable level of compatibility with DVD players? I'm really tired
of creating DVDs for friends and family only to see half-assed
playback on their machines or brilliant playback early on the disc
then no playback at all later in the disc. I'm sorry, but this should
be an all-or-nothing situation when using name-brand discs without
scratches.

- Do any brands have a decent level of compatibility yet? A review
about a year ago listed some brands where even the most compatible
discs only had a compatibility ratio of around 80% (that's sad).

- What's the maximum recommended bitrate for recordable DVDs? I know
that in theory you can go up to 9.8mbs but hardware has an easier time
with lower bitrates. I used to use 7-8 (if possible) but I'm thinking
I should drop that to the 5-6mbs range.

- Yes or no: Are DVD+R discs more compatible than DVD-R discs?

- Does burning at a lower speed generally result in a more compatible
disc? If so, I'd imagine that this depends a lot upon the speed
rating of the media and the burner model. Anyone know what works best
for a Pioneer A04 drive?


One thing I've found is that Maxell is good with replacing coasters.
I've mailed in defective discs, and returned them to the store where I
bought them without any problem. When I start the burn process and
the burn fails, I return those discs. I don't care if it was the
software, drive, or media: someone's gonna replace the disc and it
isn't going to be me. That's part of the price the industry needs to
absorb when creating such a shoddy piece of technology. It's not the
80s anymore, it just isn't acceptable any longer to release technology
that just doesn't work.

I use Ritek G03 media and the Pioneer DVRA04 burner. I have been able to
play the DVD-Rs in
JVC, Cyberhome, Sony,and Panasonic DVD players. They can also be read by the
playstation 2 and xbox.
Ritek G03 media can be found here:
http://www.meritline.com/rithigqualgo.html

I always encode at the highest possible bitrate and have experienced no
problems at all.

I have a Pioneer A04 drive and I ALWAYS burn at 1x. I am using the original
firmware.
The ritek media I use is only 2x, so I have no need to upgrade my firmware
to be compatible with 4x media. I have had great success with this
burner\media and have
never had a bad DVD (any dvd-r that doesn't work, I re-burn and the problem
is solved).
Compatibility with standalone DVD players has been excellent.

-Burntbizzkit

"scs0" <scs0@vol.com> wrote in message
news:b0edd513.0307291112.41b77014@posting.google.c om...
The problem is their players. Tell them to upgrade their old, pile of crap
players. You can get a new fully compliant player now from top end brands
like Panasonic, Sony, Pioneer, JVC, and Toshiba for under $99 now, so there
is no excuse for having a piece of shit player.

Thanks for the tip on the Ritek brand media, I'll have to give that
brand a try. It's funny that you mention success with the PS2 because
I mailed a disc to a friend of mine who had a PS2 and he couldn't read
the disc. I've found that Sony seems to be the company that is the
least pathetic of DVD player manufacturers. My player from '98 has
about a 50% success rate at reading DVD-Rs. When I began making DVDs
I knew about the horrendous problem with compatibility (yet like a
fool I jumped into it anyway) and I was surprised that it could read
anything at all. A Philips DVD player about 2 years newer than that
only plays about 1 in 10 discs: PATHETIC AND UNACCEPTABLE.


OK, I always burned at 2x so maybe that has something to do with it.
I haven't upgraded my firmware yet, but our firmware could still be
different depending upon when we bought our drives (for me Feb/2002)


I think I should update mine because you never know. You might get a
box and not realize that the it's been upgraded to 4x and accidently
damage your drive.


Mine has been pathetic, but I've been giving discs out to a lot of
people who aren't on the bleeding edge of technology and bought their
players a year or 2 ago and have no plans on buying another. I bought
a player last summer and I broght a handful of discs with me and told
them that I wasn't going to buy their so-called DVD-R/RW compatible
machine unless I saw it for myself. I was surprised when it worked
AND played MP3s from CD-R and CD-RW.

But that was the whole idea all along: hook people on DVD and leave
out support for DVD-R that way they'll buy another DVD player in a few
years. They had to do something, VCR technology was much more
mechanical and would die after a few years of use. CD players,
similar to the mechanics of a DVD player, last and last and last.

They shouldn't have to!
What do you suggest I do? Tell them "I know you bought that DVD
player last year but you need to buy another if you want to watch this
30 minute video I made for you." That's absurd! To 99% of the public,
a DVD is a DVD is a DVD. They have no idea that one DVD disc should
fail to play while another should work. Manufacturers as of last year
were still releasing players incompatible with DVD-R, a relative of
mine with a 8 month old player (I forget the brand but it was a name
brand) acted screwy about 30 minutes into a disc. I tried again with
the same material on a different brand of disc and it worked. That's
just absolutely pathetic. It's like buying a new car and watching it
crash on an asphalt road because it was only designed to run on
concrete!



Millions have bought a DVD player, probably name brand, that is
incompatible with the recordable format, and they have no intention of
buying a new one. Since to most people a DVD is a DVD, they'll have no
clue why a homemade DVD fails to play on their DVD player. (Most
people seem to believe that you would get the audio portion of a DVD
if you put a DVD into a CD player!) If DVD players are anything like
CD players, these millions of uncompatible devices will live in
millions of living rooms for a decade or more. My highly abused
college CD player is still working fine after more than a decade of
use!

The DVD Forum and DVD player manufacturers really dropped the ball on
recordable DVD format. We had the history of the CD format to look
back upon so they should have been better prepared, if anything they
seemed LESS prepared for this gen then they were with CD!

Welcome to the world of electronics!

You think that computer you paid $2000 for over a year ago is still worth
$2000? Nope. Maybe $200.




"scs0" <scs0@vol.com> wrote in message
news:b0edd513.0307291849.559bc843@posting.google.c om...

"Pug Fugley" <nosir@mrhorse.com> wrote in message
news:jXGVa.1940$lq.1406@newsread2.news.atl.earthli nk.net...
That has nothing to do with it. Neither has the age of the player. If a
company states that they make a player that is DVD compatible, then it
should damn well be FULLY compatible too.

In article <tDBVa.1789$lq.617@newsread2.news.atl.earthlink.ne t>,
nosir@mrhorse.com (Pug Fugley) wrote:
new cheapies which are all built to a price.

Exactly.
As far as I'm concerned, if a DVD player has that official DVD Logo
from the DVD Forum on it, then it better be able to play the
recordable DVD format approved by the DVD Forum. The DVD-R format was
developed years ago (and if you ask me they took too long to create
the format) and there's no excuse for any DVD player built in this
century to fail playing back DVD-R discs. Like I said, the DVD-R
world is a lot like the world of low-flush toilets. There's a lot of
empty claims about how wonderful the technology is, but it fails in
the real world. Fortunately I can at least go out and find an actual
DVD-R compatible player, but the envirofascists have set things up so
that I must drive to Mexico to get a working toilet!

Like I said, this technology has a lot of apologists, and it looks
like we found one. It's people like that who let technology companies
walk all over them that allowed messes like this to exist in the first
place. If people would only demand that their technology do what it's
supposed to do we wouldn't have this problem. I have a Dell computer
that's less than a year old that can't read DVD-R discs and I made the
mistake in accepting the problem instead of demanding a replacement.

"scs0" <scs0@vol.com> wrote in message
news:b0edd513.0307300528.369abeb6@posting.google.c om...
Hi

With all due respect you are completely wrong. Players are made to be DVD
Video compatible. DVD-Rs are DVD-Rs and not DVD Video. You are assuming
that DVD-R is the same as DVD Video, it isn't.

There are different logos for DVD-R/RW, +R/+RW and even DVD-RAM. DVD Video
does not cover the recordable formats, it means pressed commercial DVDs
only.

If the player shows a DVD-R logo or specifically mentions DVD-R as supported
in its specifications (a lot do now however even then it will have a
disclaimer that not all DVD-Rs will play, too many variables) then you
should be fine with a) Decent quality media, b) a correctly authored disc,
c) Burnt using software that is able to make a DVD compliant disc.

Read the literature and manuals, no manufacturer promises 100% compatibility
with DVD-R (including the plus variants), so why should you expect it?

Accept the technology for what it is.

It is amazing it works as well as it does.

Regards

Philip

Now wait a minute
If you are burning 1X disks at 2X, its YOUR FAULT
They will NOT be compatible.
Use proper media and a proper DVD drive
I have burned 100's of DVD-R's on Pioneer A03,A05 and Sony (piece of
crap) 500
ALL work in compatible players
I have an old Samsung DVD player that does not read DVD-R, other than
that machine, my burns all work.
Before you trash a product and an industry, examine your own
techniques

On 29 Jul 2003 19:30:55 -0700, scs0@vol.com (scs0) wrote:

"CTS" <no_mail_@this_email.net> wrote in message
news:MPG.19936956df6397aa989733@news.freeserve.net ...
Hi

This isn't correct. For a start DVD-Rs are not even allowed to carry a DVD
Video logo, they must only show a DVD-R logo and that also applies when they
are recorded.

You are talking about the application layer, what about the Physical and
Logical layers? I couldn't play a DLT tape in my DVD Player and so wouldn't
expect to find a DLT tape in a DVD rental shop with a DVD Video logo, would
you? The tape may contain data in the DVD Video application, but it isn't a
DVD Video, the container is important, of course it is how can you suggest
otherwise? The application layer is only one small part of making a DVD
Video disc, and authoring software can often get that wrong.

If a DVD Player only shows the DVD Video logo, that tells you that the
manufacturer has presented the DVD Forum verification laboratories with a
production model. It gets a pass and license to display the DVD Video logo
if it plays pressed DVD Video discs, and that is all. It could choke on a
DVD-R disc and do nothing with it, that doesn't matter, it is still approved
to carry the DVD Video logo.

The DVD Video logo IS NOT just about the application layer, it covers the
physical layer which excludes recordable DVDs, and the logical layer.

Only glass mastered pressed DVD-ROMs can comply to the DVD Video physical
specifications. Read up on the spec if you like, an internet search will
find something on it I am sure.

So to recap my point, a DVD Video logo DOES NOT say anything about a players
ability to play recordable DVDs. Recordable DVDs are not allowed to ever
carry a DVD Video logo.

Regards

Philip

On 30 Jul 2003 06:28:38 -0700, scs0@vol.com (scs0) wrote:

Well one doubts that these older players claim DVD-R playback
combatiability... so one should not be surprised when they don't work.

DVD and DVDR are two different beasts.

Guess you were not around when CDR's came out.... it was worse.

Unless it claimed to read DVDR... you don't have a leg to stand on.