Is DVD-R Improving? (Compatibility Problems Abound)

[BassPig]

Although it maybe unrealistic to wish that DVD recordable will improve with
each new generation of media and burners, the question still begs for an
answer.

I produce a fair number of limited distribution event videos on DVD-R.

I have tried the gamut of brands/price ranges. For a short while last year,
I was getting minimal complaints with some Meritline DVD-R generic brand
media that I used. However, their media changed and subsequent batches
brought many returns as 'unplayable'.

I switched to Samsung BeAll brand DVD-R and replaced the Meritline discs
with the BeAll and those clients were finally able to watch their videos.

Recently, some of the BeAll DVDs have been coming back with complaints that
the picture breaks up into mosaic and freezes at about the mid point of the
program length.

I have a Pioneer DV343 here that plays just about anything I throw at it,
but a couple of extra copies of an older event program I am archiving are
exhibiting the freeze/mosaic problem on the Pioneer player. Those discs are
Samsung BeAll media, which surprised the heck out of me. Also equally
surprising is that the BeAll discs aren't playable on my Sony GRX560 laptop!
It's DVD drive will read the menu and I can start play, but very soon after,
it too will freeze and mosaic. Sony plays the cheaper DVD media from
Meritline just fine. Go figure...

But this should not be happening, IMHO. It seems like DVD recordable is such
a marginal technology that the odds of it playing on any set top player are
a crap shoot. I can't base a business offering on gambling odds.

Are we ever going to get past this hurdle of some brands of discs playing on
some machines but not others and having to deal with frequent customer
complaints of incompatibility? It seems we are at the whim of the batch
number and manufacture process, which is ever-changing. The batch we get one
month has few returns, whilst the very next batch will come back with many
as unplayable.

My question to the group is, what's on the horizon with respect to improving
general compatibility? When will DVD recordable move from the novelty phase
to the usable production phase?

[alexnoe]

You shouldn't use generic cheap and sometimescrappy media that sometimes work and sometimes doesn't... you should use Mitsubishi Chemical (http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0000AKGPM.03.LZZZZZZZ.jpg), Maxell (http://maxell2.finishdesign.biz/images/data/pi_dvd_r.gif) and Taiyo Yuden media to avoid those problems.
When will DVD recordable move from the novelty phase
to the usable production phase?They did 2 years ago. But you decided to buy cheap discs

[Doom9]

I don't think you're looking for usable production phase, but the "standard" phase, when the majority of new computers are equipped with a DVD burner. Even though I wasn't an early adopter, I've seen average CD-R quality increase from the time when I had a 4x Yamaha burner, to the 12x Plextor (that's when things got stable as long as you didn't buy silver top el cheapo discs). With DVDs, we're not quite there yet, but there will always be the cheap silver top discs that you have to stay away from..
If you sell those discs you should most definitely use a major brand media from one of the manufacturers alexnoe mentioned. If you buy a large enough batch, the price difference isn't that much anymore, and your customer satisfaction rate will definitely go up (of course there are players that cannot properly handle DVD-Rs..).

[alexnoe]

of course there are players that cannot properly handle DVD-RsFortunately, the number of players that don't handle dvd-r at all is much smaller than the number of players that don't handle cheap silver top media :D

[CouJo]

Another idea and hopefully not offtopic: Have you labeled your DVD-Rs? That was my major fault the first time I've created "professional" looking DVDs.

Almost every DVD a have created works perfectly without any paper label but most of them show blocks and freezes if I put a paper label on it...

Only an idea.

[alexnoe]

I've seen that problem on some players as well.

[djadjet]

Labeled DVD will most definitely exhibit the characteristics you described no matter which brand blanks you used. They age much faster, the tracking gets screwed when the glue changes as a result of time and other conditions, and you dramatically reduce the number of compatible players. When disk is heated it becomes even worst, that is why almost all of the laptops won’t be able to play full-face paper labeled disks after a while.

Currently the most cost effective solution for professional looking disk labeling is inkjet or thermal printing directly on the surface.


As for the improvements in this technology;

Over the last couple of years there are evident improvements, much less than it was in CD-R case, but there are definite improvement. Not that much on the media itself, though difference between Ritek G01 and G03 is colossal, but mostly on the drive side and predominantly the writing strategies.

[BassPig]

Thanks for all the various responses.
To answer some of them:

I have been trying various brands of media, ranging from expensive name brands to cheap no-name discs. Curiously, there are some players that will play the cheap disc but not the name brand disc, and then there are players that are visa-versa, so there is no clear winner.

Ralph LaBarge did extensive testing of media compatibility and even with the best media, he was still only looking at a 78% success rate (using TDK media). I'm seeing 12-15% return rate of 'unplayable' discs. Sometimes I swap them for the cheap brand and ask them to see if it plays. It did in one particular case, so now I reserve a pile of discs of that brand for when I publish stuff that that person is going to buy.

Then we've got the customers where they complain it plays on the bedroom DVD player, but not on the one in the livingroom.

To answer another question, yes I do label my DVDs, but not with paper labels. I use the clear acetate labels from Neato, at about $20 per pack of 20 labels.

We were looking at white printable DVD media, but selection is limited and cost is nearly double the regular media. A while back, some of our titles were selling on Ebay for $1.99 each, so we had to keep media costs down. Other titles are selling at $10-12 each, and for those we use the more expensive SamSung BeAll media. But lately, even our in-house Pioneer DV343 player is having trouble playing the discs and that has NEVER happened, even with the cheap Meritline discs we used quite successfully last year. (We stopped using that brand after subsequent batches had changed in quality and exhibited many problems with returned discs.)

As for CD-Rs, I can only recall one very unusual circumstance where a CD-R didn't read: it was on a Tascam CD player and the CD had one track 4 seconds in length. (It was being used at a radio station for ID announcement, triggered by a relay).

I also had one ancient PC with a 1st generation CD drive not read a data CD-R once. But that was it. Out of thousands of CD players, everything else, cheap brand, silver, gold, purple, no matter the color, labeled or not--played beautifully on all players. CD-R technology is pretty reliable, based on my experience and I'd say ready for prime time, but DVD recordable is still a crap shoot as to what player is going to choke on it.

[Kedirekin]

I feel like adding 2¢ worth.

In the first couple of years after CDR became available, there were a ton of legacy CD-ROM drives that couldn't read CDR disks. There were also a lot of CDAudio players that couldn't read them. I don't recall seeing any studies, but I would not be at all surprised if the compatibility rate was well under 75%. Find any old 2X CD-ROM drive, and there's a good chance it won't read a CDR, even if you use the newest media.

In time multi-read drives became the norm and most of the old incompatible hardware was replaced through obsolesence. The problem went away not because the media became more compatible, but because the hardware did.

I believe we're in the same situation now with DVDR. I don't think it's a sitaution where media compatibility (i.e. reflectivity) needs to be improved, because I don't think that's possible. We're just in the period where there's a lot of semi-compatible legacy hardware that needs to exit the system.

Unfortunately for your situation, I don't believe semi-compatible stand alone players will exit from use as quickly as PC drives will. There's likely to be a fair number of incompatible set top players still in use 5 years from now (just as there are probably many incompatible audio CD players still in use out there).

[CouJo]

To answer another question, yes I do label my DVDs, but not with paper labels. I use the clear acetate labels from Neato, at about $20 per pack of 20 labels.

It's not important if your labels are cheap or not. If you put a label on a DVD-+R/RW you'll get the described problems. The problem is that you can't center such a label 100% and you'll get an "out-of-balance" disc which makes trouble on almost every player.

I'd suggest you to test unlabeled DVDs for compatibility, then put a label on it and test again. I'm pretty sure you'll find the reason for the problem discs.

[gooki]

And to add my 2 cents:

"cheap Meritline discs we used quite successfully last year."

If that is the case, let us know the manufacturer ID and we can probably track down a online supplier for you.

I do however disagree with doom9's comments about CDR media quality getting better over time. If anything I've seen it get worse. Some of the best discs I've ever used are the verbatim 4x speed CDR's.

And I wouldn't expect DVD+/-R media to get any better either, as there will always be manufacturers that cut corners in order to reduce costs. And the ones that have been doing it right from the start will keep going the way they are (or outsource production when consumers demand lower priced media - aka verbatim outsourcing to ritek).

Oh and not all big name DVD-R media is equal (ie Imation just isn't on the same quality level as Verbatim).

[BioZ]

I agree in that it's not so much a case of the DVD-R media needing improvement as that DVD players need them. If you look at many compatibility tests, the players that often have problem playing disc of one brand/from one burner often cannot play other discs/burners. It if often a case of a good player rather than disc.

In that respect, I don't expect any significant improvement in the situation, as people will keep their 10 year old DVD set-tops around, just like the old hi-fi's which won't play CD-RW's.

[Doom9]

yesterday I finally got around to reading the latest disc test in c't and I found an interesting tidbit. Apparently, the requirements for DVD+R discs are a lot stricter than for DVD-R discs. To use the official logos you have to undergo a certification process, and for the DVD-R/W logo, the certification isn't as strict.. there appears to be two kind of tests, and the A test (presumably this would be a stricter test) is not required for certification.. so the el cheapo discs haven't passed the stricter test (and probably wouldn't). An additional factor is compatibility of recorder and disc.. major brand manufacturers often work with recorder manufacturers to develop an optimal burning strategy for their product, and this optimization does not happen with cheaper disc, hence your burning results won't be as good.

@gooki: well.. since my first burner, I used to buy low price (but never unbranded silver top) blanks in the biggest store in town, and since then prices have gone down by about 70% and the discs are more reliable. I've never bothered with what I considered overpriced CD-R media then, and I won't now (if you wait a bit you'll find your favorite media brand on sale anyway in the store I'm shopping), so I can't tell if the same is the case with TDK and Co, but in the price range I'm operating the quality has definitely increased. BTW.. I've been using SmartBuy discs for the past 3 years, and with Plextor and Pioneer burners I get about 1% bad burns, and I still have no problem reading the discs I burned 3 years ago. But if I test discs I burned 5 years ago with the Yamaha (and brands like Sunstar), recovering the data isn't always easy.

[alexnoe]

so I can't tell if the same is the case with TDK and CoSome of my TDKs are almost 6 years old and in a better shape than any newly written crap disc nowadays. They were 4-5 DM per piece on those times.
and the A test (presumably this would be a stricter test) is not required for certification.. The stuff made in China and using faked Maxell IDs did not pass any test according to Maxell....and I'm not sure that those Princo 2x DVD-DW discs passed any test either :devil:

[mudda_t]

My 2 cents

You might want to take a close look at what programs your using to author and burn the discs. Do they close the disc session or leave it open? Some standalones will not play an open session disc.

The speed at which you burn can effect playback. Some of the cheaper 4x media will cause freezing and "mosaic" when burned at 4x. The reason I mention this is because you noted these problems occur "at about the mid point of the program length" thats a classic symptom of burning too fast. Look at some of these disks for rings, sometimes called cloudy, around the disk. Slow your burns to 2x to fix the problem or buy better media.

Hardware also plays a major part. I had a pioneer 105 and would burn cheap media at 4x and the result would be freezing midway through the movie. Got a pioneer 106, used the same media at 4x and the result was no freezing.

DVD burning is still in its early stages. Many of the problems people are having are very similar to those when cd-r was young. It wasn't until cd-r burning speeds reached 16x that compatibility issues and misc problems started to disappear. Right now the trick is nailing down all the variables to get the greatest compatibility, just like it was for cd-r.

To cut back on your problems do this:
1 Buy a very picky standalone to test your burns. (I use a pioneer dv-333 to test with, If it works, It'll work in anything)
2 Make sure you close the session on all dvds.
3 Buy good trusted media like Taiyo Yuden (my opinion the best)
4 If you have to use cheap media to keep costs low never burn above 2x.
5 Use dvd-r, not dvd+r if your worried about standalone compatibility. (I've never had a player reject a dvd-r, but have had players reject dvd+r)

Once again my 2 cents, Good Luck.

[BassPig]

Actually, I burn at 1X, because that's the only speed that the BeAll discs will default to at burn time.
I'm authoring in Scenarist, so I don't think that's the problem.

I remember my first realworld survey of DVD players. I burned a Pioneer brand DVD-R and went to Sears and got permission to try it on each of their players. Well, barely 50% of the players actually recognized the disc. The rest had varying degress of success playing the disc. That was on Pioneer brand media. It was in fact the disc that shipped with the A03 burner. I also am using a DVR-A04 burner. Results are about the same for both units.

I burn a lot of audio CDs too, in fact, one of the radio stations I work for uses 400 CDs in a jukebox for audio backup in case of STL failure. I burned all of those discs and I also burned discs for archives of programs. They have 100% play success on all CD player throughout the station. DVD recordable is far short of this reliability.

The information about the certification process for +R media is interesting and news to me. Sounds worthwhile reading up on. Although my early experience with +R proved to be dismal. Friend of mine bought the Sony drive and burned some discs. None of them played in his two players at home. My discs played on both his players. So he returned the Sony and got the Pioneer after that. Works fine for his needs. Would be fine for me too if all I ever played it on was my wife's Daewoo DVD player. That unit will play any disc. But unfortunately my clients do not all own the Daewoo player. Such is the dilemma.

[alexnoe]

Well, barely 50% of the players actually recognized the disc.That sounds as if you tried to burn the vob files using Nero

[gooki]

I tend to agree with alexnoe,

Can you run us through your authoring process??

[BassPig]

Complex as it is, I'll try to condense:

Capture video from VX2000 directly into Premiere (now 6.5).
Edit as needed, export the audio as WAV. Export the video with CinemaCraft SP plugin, using DVD compliant settings.
Import files into Scenarist and author the layout. Burn from Scenarist for the first few discs. Then burn the 0 folder's contents (containing the cache of DVD disc image files) using Prassi Primo DVD for multiple copies.

Now it wasn't quite like that for the first few discs. I burned my first disc on Pioneer media using the supplied MyDVD software. (That was on the evening of Sept 11, 2001, BTW, my first DVD burn as I watched the ruins of WTC burning in NYC on television.)

I progressed to DVDit the following year and had moderate results. Then I moved on to Scenarist, but the compatibility did not improve, as I had hoped.

Some people think it's the plastic labels. That could be, but I'm not convinced of it, as I have a good system of attaching them for consistent and good results with centering and controlling air bubbles.

But hearing that, the wife's talking about buying me a DVD/CD printer for Christmas. I hope we get one sooner than that, because I'm due to release an international fashion show video that we shot at Foxwood's Casino last month and want to have the discs looking as good as possible, while offering the best playability as can be managed. I'm a little concerned, because this time, a number of our discs will be going overseas and returns would become an expensive matter.

[gooki]

You've lost me at:

"Then burn the 0 folder's contents (containing the cache of DVD disc image files) using Prassi Primo DVD for multiple copies."

If doing multiple copies I recomend making a disc image of the correctly authored master disc. You can do this by usind Primo DVD's build and write global image function.

[BassPig]

The image file is contained in the folder "0" under the project folder; it is created when Scenarist does the initial burn process. These files are written to disc, then, optionally, later deleted or not, per user checkbox. I don't delete them, since they become the master copy which I burn subsequent copies via Prassi. Does that clarify what I was doing? Basically, the 0 folder contains the files to be burned to disc when Scenarist is finished preparing the burn. If they are not deleted, they can be burned to more discs by any burner program capable of handling DVD media.

[sarahjh69]

ditch the labels
buy an epson stylus photo 900 (it prints direct to printable cd/dvd)
only use ritek 4x printable media

burn everything at 4x
all your problems will have dissappeared

I'm surprised that any of your media ever worked with labels stuck on!

[BassPig]

I'll have to look at the Epson 900 more closely. To this point, the last time I looked at a disc printer, it was a very expensive, proprietary machine, or a modified inkjet printer, with an inflated price tag.
I didn't realize Epson's photo printer was able to print CDs. I hope it's not via a carrier sheet. I read about those and the reviewer commented that it was not worth the trouble and time it took and there was a high failure rate with bad or off-center printing because the disc slipped in the carrier sheet.
We were looking at thermal color printers in the $3,000 range and comparing with inkjet in the $1,000 range, but have been unable to reach a decision on which to get.
Well, only about 85-88% of our discs play on the various players that clients have. I'd like to see that number reach 100%, but if the players are the issue, attrition will take a number of years. Some of our clients are still using first-generation DVD players.
Of note, the test disc on Pioneer media that played on roughly 50% of the DVD players at a Sears showroom was not labeled. Ironically, some of the most expensive ($400+) models were the ones that could not play the disc, while the low-cost models had varying degrees of success.

[sarahjh69]

The epson stylus photo 900 has a plastic tray with a
cd shaped depression, you put the cd/dvd in the
depression and feed the tray in from the rear.
I've never had a cd/dvd come out.
If you reduce/increase the inner/outer ring sizes
(I use 41 and 120 as my settings)
in the printing software, it ensures the whole of
the white printable surface is covered. The printable
surface is dry, when it comes out of the printer. Excess
ink can be wiped off with a tissue...or wait 15 mins

In the UK these printers are selling for £75 in PC world
thats about $120.

[andyg]

Is it just me or is there a quality difference on same good brand media depending if it came in single disc wrapped or on the spindle?
Seems to me like the spindle DVDs do freeze up at the end, and none of it happening on single wrapped media?
Same brand media.
At this point I'm not buying any more spindles & never see the DVD freeze at the end.

[alexnoe]

Is it just me or is there a quality difference on same good brand media depending if it came in single disc wrapped or on the spindle?No, this is not just you...

[BassPig]

I read a review on the Epson 900 CD printer and it sounds worthwhile to try at less than $200. Although I think we will eventually get a Primera printer that's built from the ground up as a CD printer eventually.

Funny, I too use the bulk 'cakebox' packaged DVD media. Perhaps there IS a quality difference between the individual and the bulk packed. But I still have ugly memories of how poorly the individual Pioneer discs played in my Sears test.