DVD recorders (how to)

[starteck2002]

I bought myself a Grundig DVDR550 recorder at the weekend and had loads of trouble creating/editing/copying the discs that it spits out :-( I looked all over the net and found nothing of any help so I've posted my work around here to help any others in the same situation.

First off it might help if i tell you my setup:

1 x AMD 2600+ / 1024 / 2 x 120 hdd / 1 x Pioneer A05 (-r!) / 2 x DVD Readers
1 x AMD 1000 /512 / 2 x 20gb / 1 x DVD reader
1 x Grundig DVDR550
1 x Chipped Xbox / 120gb hdd

For some reason, an disc from the recorder could not be copied (CRC Errors), DVD Shrink failed (crapped out) all other software gave me coasters.

Purchased a DVD +/- RW drive (This solved the CRC errors but copies still did not work). tried NERO, DiscJuggler, InstantCopy and a few others, all failed.

SOLUTION

play Xvid/DivX etc from Xbox into DVD Recorder

Copy the .VOB files from the disc onto your PC (just the .VOB files)

Run DVD-Lab and import the first .VOB as movie, select to JOIN movies (important!)

When this is done, create your menu and add your big JOINED movie to the project, then compile and burn.

If you do not join the .VOBS then the compile will fail. I don't create a menu but just make the movie the first item to play on the disc. Quality is pretty good :-)

I hope this helps others that might be having the same difficulties I was having. If on the other hand I have just re-invented the wheel, sorry. if you know of a better solution that works, please let me know.

The thing that really annoys me here is that I bought the recorder for a legitimate reason - i wanted to record some old VHS family movies onto disc and then distribute the disc to all my family (about 15 discs needed). Why Grundig felt the need to protect the discs the Grundig DVDR550 recorder spits out is beyond me. If anyone know where I can find any hacks for this (multi region, firmware upgrades etc etc) please let me know. Would particularly like to find a way of stopping the machine recording in AC-3.

Cheers :-)

[hakko504]

Sounds a bit like your Grundig actually adds CSS encryption to the discs it burns. I'm missing one thing in your list of tested methods: DVDDecrypter. Have you tried ripping the discs with that and then copy them?

[geoffman]

Pioneer DVD Standalone Recorders are like this too according to Pioneer from this Pioneer site (http://www.pioneeraus.com.au/multimedia/mm_home/index.html) . According to the site the standalone records in a "VR Format"? and you need special software to read it into DVD UDF format used on your PC's DVD-ROM or DVD+/-RW (If I read it right). Pioneer has the software here (http://www.softarch.com/pioneer/readdvd.html) .

Maybe it's the same for the situation for the Grundig?

[starteck2002]

I must admit i have NOT tried DVD decrypter yet - will give that a go tonight and report my findings. As far as the CSS is concerened, yes it is adding that as Pinnacle Instant Copy picks up on it and refuses to do a copy.

Another point I didn't mention (didn't realise my post would get any interest!) is that the .IFO file isn't standard (i think it was IFOedit that said this) and cannot be copied from the disc.

As you have probably noticed from my post and lack of in-depth techy-speak is that I have not really bothered getting well into the 'whys and wherefors' of DVD's. To be able to copy them using DVD Shrink etc has always been enough for me.

Does anyone else own one of these recorders yet? I can't believe that I am the first to have experienced these problems. I read somewhere (may have been here) that to copy the discs all I needed to do was use Pinnacle Instant Copy V8 and use it to do a copy and remove a language - any language, existant or not - and then all would be working. This was for the Philips recorders though. I can confirm this does not work for the Grundig.

[starteck2002]

Finally got around to trying DVD decryptor on this, copies everything accross with no problems at all. I end up with everthing in a VIDEO_TS folder on my hard drive which when burnt to disk will only work in the grundig recorder.

The .IFO file that is ripped(?) will not play under PowerDVD on the pc - comes up with an error.