Why won't my DVD player read my DVD+Rs?

Factual Questions
1

I recently bought a new computer with all the bells and whistles, including a dvd burner, which is supposed to let me burn movies to play in my dvd player.

Since I didn’t have anything else to do yesterday, I decided to test this theory out. 3 wasted discs later, I now know that discs that are burned on my computer do NOT play in my dvd player.

Initially, I thought that the problem was that my computer saves movies in WMV format. The operation manual for my dvd player says that:

“This unit can play a DVD-R, AND CD-R OR CD-RW that containes audio titles, MP3, WMA or JPEG files.”

Since my computer burns the files in WMV format, I figured that was the reason that my player wouldn’t recognize the movies. So, I got some software that converts WMV files so they can be played on regular dvd players. That was wasted disc number 3. This is getting annoying. Any dopers out there know what could be causing my dvd player to not recognize the discs?

— :smack: On preview, I think I just figured out what the problem is. I have been burning my movies to DVD+R discs, and the operations manual specifies DVD-R. Does that sound about right?? Now I feel stupid, cuz I should have figured this out last night. (is it okay to :wally myself, or do I have to wait for someone else to do it?)

For Og’s sake, why won’t the industry just come up with a standard to keep me from running to Target to buy different discs!!??

Okay, since I think I’ve figured this out, (and if I haven’t, will somebody please rescue me??) I guess I should go ahead and ask another question. What exactly is it with the DVD+R, DVD ±R, etc. thing? Why ISN’T there a standard, and when is somebody gonna fix it?

Also, does anybody want the remaining 3 DVD+R discs? I can’t do nuthin’ with em.

2

Here’s a quick rundown on the formats. A lot of commercial DVD players nowdays will play both DVD+ and DVD-, but some brands will still only play one or the other.

Just to be clear, you need to make sure that your computer can burn DVDs that are compatible with your regular DVD player. If your computer will only burn + and your player will only play - (or vice versa) you’re in a bit of trouble.

One final piece of advice: If my experience is any indication, DO NOT buy your DVDs at Target. I’ve found them to be outrageously expensive for blank media.

I generally buy Sony DVD+Rs in spindles of 25 discs. The standard price for 25 discs at CompUSA or Staples is usually $24.99. A couple of weeks ago, i managed to pick them up for only $10 on sale at Staples.

When i was in Target on the same day, the same spindle was $44.99!!!

(These prices were all in the Baltimore area; i don’t know if these differences are common elsewhere)

3

Where do I go to check what kind of discs my computer can burn to? I’m going to pick up some more discs this evening, and if I get home and find out that my computer can’t burn to DVD-Rs, you may see me on the news tonight.

As for price, since I don’t do much DVD burning, price hasn’t really been an issue (or a problem) yet. The last time I bought them, I bought a 5 pack of Sony DVD+Rs for about $8, I think. Since this was my first time buying any sort of recordable DVD media, I didn’t know if that was a good price or not, but since I had $8, I figured what the hey.

I live in Hammond, IN, FWIW, so things are generally pretty cheap in my area.

4

Well, don’t beat yourself up for not immediately noticing the DVD+R, DVD-R distinction. They couldn’t possibly have come up with a less useful naming convention.

You can probably find out the details of your DVD burner by examining the hardware configuration of your computer. If you’re on a PC, you can probably click on My Computer and get the info. (Or, I suppose, read the manual that came with it.) Once you know the model number, you can just do a quick search on the internet to find out what disks are compatible.

5

The industry is still young. Eventually either all players will play all types, or some types will become so obscure that no one will care. Remember the Beta and VHS wars? Mono & stereo LP’s? 78/45/33’s? 4 track / 8 track / cassettes?

If you are buying a new computer DVD burner, you may notice that most (all?) models will now read & write all formats, with the possible exception of DVD-RAM, which is falling out of favor already.

Uses for DVD/CDs:[ul][]They’re round and shiny and all – hang 'em on the Christmas tree. []Drink coasters[]Play frisbee with midgets[]Mount on a headband and play doctor[]Wear as a hi-tech, propeller-head yarmulke[]Judy Jetson skirt or hula-hoop for those with very thin waists[*]Hang from a tree with monofilament line, take a picture, cry out, “Look, it’s a UFO!”[/ul]

6

Well, I just bought my computer in February, and after checking my dvd writer’s model number on the internet, it looks like I should be able to burn DVD-Rs on it. So…off to target I go. Wish me luck!

Thanks for the replies!

7

If so, that’s good. DVD-Rs are the nearest thing to universal now, and they are also the cheapest and write the fastest. But I’ve found better prices at Best Buy and WalMart than Target, so go to one of those if you can. (WalMart last month, 30 Memorex DVD-Rs in bulk, $15.)

Good Luck! :slight_smile:

8

There’s one thing you can try - bitsetting.

DVD+R, unlike DVD-R, lets you change the “book type” that’s written to the disc. (At least, most DVD+R drives do, using different utilities for different drive manufacturers.) The book type tells your DVD player what type of disc it is, and it can either be set to DVD+R or DVD-ROM. Some DVD players will refuse to play discs that are marked as DVD+R, but they’ll play just fine if you set the drive’s book type to DVD-ROM before you burn the disc. The process of changing your drive’s book type is called bitsetting.

What model is your DVD burner?

In my experience, DVD-R media costs the same as DVD+R media ($20 for a 50-pack is a reasonable retail price), and also burns at the same speed. My burner (NEC ND-3520A) burns both +R and -R at 16x, +RW at 8x, and -RW at 6x.

9
  • For converting video formats, doom9.net has a lot of info + programs. Mostly it concerns ripping copy-protected CD’s, but there are also pages and tools there for doing other aspects of DVD-creation and editing.
    ~
10

Update:

The DVD-R worked! I converted the movie to DVD, and then burned it using the DVD-R disc, and it played fine in my player.

The next experiment is to try to burn it using my Intervideo WinDVD creator without converting it to see what happens. I want to do this because Intervideo allows you to make menus, etc., and I want to make my movies pretty.

Thanks to everyone for your help and advice!

11

If it doesn’t explicitly say that it will play WMV, it likely won’t. Unless you got lucky, your player probably doesn’t support it, since the number of players that do can be counted on one hand. Players that can handle WMA, but not WMV, are far more common.

I’d go even further and advise anyone puchasing blank DVDs to avoid local stores entirely. You get better selection, better prices, and a better idea of the manufacturer of your discs by shopping online.

To elaborate on that last benefit, the overall quality of a disc can be judged by what manufacturer produced it. Discs in retail stores tend to be rebranded, and it’s common for brands to buy from several different manufacturers, so you never know exactly what you’re going to get.

As they always were with CD-Rs, Taiyo Yuden is widely considered to make the best consumer DVD-Rs on the planet. They can be a little pricey, though. Ritek discs will save you a few bucks, but still be better than anything not made by Taiyo Yuden.

For packs of 100 regular discs (those with non-printable surfaces), the site I use has prices ranging from $24 (mediocre, but not outright bad discs) to $42 (Taiyo Yuden), and has free shipping promotions fairly often. I won’t offer the link here since my post reads like I’m pimping the hell out of them, but my email is in my profile if anyone wants to know.

12

Another piece of advice:

If you’re gonna be burning a lot of DVDs, buy at least ONE DVD-RW and get into the habit of test burning, rather than the hobby of coaster making.

This will save you cash-wise over time, but unfortunately not time-wise.

13

My experience of low-end DVD authoring programs (I don’t know if I’ve tried WinDVD creator) is that they are OK for throwing stuff on a DVD, but they don’t give you very much creative control over the way the menus will look and behave.
I’ve just finished authoring a DVD for an amateur production that had very professional standards and values; it simply wasn’t possible to get what we wanted out of any of the cheap commercial products.
The footage was presented to me already edited/mixed -I think he used Cyberlink PowerDirector for this, but Cyberlink PowerProducer (the DVD authoring component) just plain sucks.

I used the following tools:
SSMM - Slideshow Movie Maker (freeware) - allows you to convert a series of still frames into a movie with a wide range of transition effects - I used this to create short clips of one menu background fading into another.
VirtualDub - (freeware) Video tweaking tool - this production was a silent movie - I used VirtualDub to apply a (third party) ‘Old Cinema’ filter to the footage.
TMPEGenc (shareware) - takes video in various formats and encodes it as MPEG2
DVDStyler (freeware) - a bit quirky and non-intuitive, but allows you to create a DVD layout with a great deal of control over the look and feel - you can use MPEG files as menu backgrounds (so animated menus are possible) and you can set ‘pre’ and ‘post’ commands, so a click on a menu button plays a transition/fade, then plays the video content. DVDStyler outputs an ISO file.
DeepBurner (freeware) - Burns the ISO file to a DVD - no fuss and works really well - CDBurnerXP (my other choice of freeware CD/DVD burning tool) suffers from a bug that prevents you burning ISO files bigger than 4GB.

The end result was a DVD that has animated menus (with background music) , submenus, menu transitions and bonus material in the form of a slideshow of the kids’ drawings/writings about the movie, plus an interactive quiz (actually just a very long series of menus).

14

Oops, I also meant to mention that the cheap commercial offerings also don’t seem to give you very much control over the video compression settings, so your movie might end up with choppy motion or blocky compression artifacts and there would be little you could do about it.

15

Check out DVDlab - the standard version (US$99) is a very capable authoring system, and the pro version (which adds support for multiple VTSes, multiple audio/subtitle tracks, and VM command editing) is only $100 more.

16

Note that DVDlab doesn’t have its own video encoder, so you’d still need something like TMPGEnc or CCE Basic.

17

Side note – my old (3 year old) Toshiba laptop supported only DVD-R, couldnt get it to read a +R to save my life…so drives like that are out there, but yess they are getting less common

18

It actually did work. I saw your reply after I had already tried to do it, and was almost afraid to put it into my dvd player for fear that I had just created another coaster. But I put it in, the menu came up, and it works fine.

Yeah, you’re right about this. Even though it did let me create a menu, which I thought was pretty cool, if I’m going to be doing a lot of movie making, I’d like to have more creative control. WinDVD only let’s you use their templates, and when I tried to add music to the menu page, I couldn’t do it, even though you’re supposed to be able to.

This is great advice! I will definitely go and pick one up. Although I somehow doubt I will be able to purchase only one. They sell them in packs, right? So I guess I’ll get a pack of five (the lowest number I’ve seen sold together), and use those as the testers.

Thanks again, everybody. This thread has been really helpful!

19

Could have been DVD/R vs. DVD\R