Issues with menus after recoding DVD-9 to DVD-5 with Nero Recode

[uliudo]

Hi everyone,
I'm pretty new to DVD burning, but here's the background and my problem.
I just bought a Sony DRX-810UL burner which came with Nero Software Suite. I'm running on a computer that is also pretty new...Dell Inspiron 6000 laptop with 512 ram, plenty of hardrive space at 7200 rpm, and a Intel Pentium M Processor 770 (2.13 GHz/2MB Cache/533MHz FSB) with Windows XP Professional.
So, I'm trying to backup some of my DVDs. I'm using DVD For Free (dvd43) to decrypt and have had no problem burning 1:1 single layer DVDs. However, I have not been able to recode a number of DVD-9's to DVD-5's in such a way as to play on my DVD player (Panasonic SA-HT900) and have experienced a number of other strange occurances.
I'm using Nero Recode 2.2.6.17 along with, once more, DVD43. One thing I tried to do was to backup "Total Recall." I start Nero Recode and use "Recode an Entire DVD to DVD" (It was rather self explanatory in usage procedure, so I won't go through that, but I will say that what I did is exactly what was covered in the Nero Recode 2 Guide <http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/mpg/recode2.htm>)
I go through the recode procedure, and all works fine, but the burned disc won't play in my DVD player. It starts up, plays the first short "movie" which is an advertisement spiel for Artisan Home Entertainment's great movies, then my DVD player no longer displays the elapsed play time, but rather the word "Play" and the TV shows a blank, black screen. I can not fast forward, skip to the title menu, stop, pause, etc. and the only way to get the DVD out of the player is to shut it off, then turn it back on again to eject the tray (It's a 5 disc changer and the disc is still stuck in the reader unless I do this).
I don't know what the problem is does anyone?
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Recourse measures I have already taken.
1. I have attempted to burn the Nero Recode material after having saved it to my hardrive, then pulling it in afterword.
2. I have attempted to burn the Nero Recode material with the files stored only temporarily.
3. I have done Nero Recode, then used the "Remake" option. This actually did give me a DVD that would play and would fast forward/skip to the different chapters on the DVD, but there were no working menus. (I did expect this, but thought I'd give it a shot anyway.)
4. I've also done the Nero Recode, then used the Nero Burning ROM to make a DVD-Video... (You can tell I'm getting desperate here.)

With the exeption of #3 which would play the whole DVD without menus in my DVD player and play the menus as videos on my computer, all others worked fine on my computer but did not work on my DVD player....(except for the first "movie" as previously noted). The recoded DVD files saved on my computer also play just fine on the computer.

Further Info:
Disc, player, etc. are all Region 1.
The original disc "Total Recall" is a 8085.1 MB (7.9 GB) [4,139,616 sectors] Dual Layer DVD-ROM (Opposite Path Track), Closed, DVD-Video.
The burned discs after recoding are 4459.9 MB (4.4 GB) DVD-R, Closed, DVD-Video.
I'm burning with Sony 16x DVD-R's (made in Taiwan and purchased at Best Buy) in my 16x burner set to 16x...They have worked fine doing 1:1 single layer DVD copying.
And one more fact which I doubt anyone would ask for, but, yes, the original DVD does play just fine in my DVD player.

Okay, sorry if I was to verbose, but I figure get all the information out there and you guys might know what to do with it. Sorry if this is a stupid problem, but I was pretty sure I was doing everything correctly.
In case I misunderstood the capabilities of the Nero Recode program, I am thinking I might try DVDShrink or something to see if it will do the job. I may also try doing this with a different decrypter (AnyDVD perhaps, though DVD43 worked just fine for my 1:1 burns).....any input would be appreciated.

Thanks.

[uliudo]

Okay, as a new forum member, I had to wait five days to post, so I wrote up the last post offline and told myself that in the interest of a coaster-free existence I would not burn anything else until I had posted and hopefully gotten a reply, however, I am an perhaps too much of an impatient person when I am failing at something.
With all the previous setup the same, using Nero Recode 2 and DVD43 I attempted to convert a few more titles from 9 to 5.
With another Artisan film of same specs aside from movie size to "Total Recall", "Stargate", I had no problems with the recoded disc playing in my DVD player...all extras, menus, etc. worked perfectly. And for this one, I had even been somewhat adventurous, disabling the the little Artisan Home Entertainment spiel and replacing it with a picture that just said "Artisan Home Entertainment" and replacing the FBI warning movie with a single picture of the FBI warning.--I know, not too exciting, but I'm working my way up.
Anyway, when this one worked I was of course slapping my head, saying, wow, all I had to do was try a different DVD......not quite.
I next recoded "Underworld"- Screen Gems, Dual Layer DVD-ROM (Opposite Path Track), Closed, DVD-Video, 7551.0 MB (7.4 GB) [3,866,112 Sectors].
I'm pretty sure I made no modifications, but I may have...(I think I previewed some items that were just a black screen playing for a few seconds and replaced them with "Solid Color"-black. I am considering trying this one again with absolutely no modification (other than the recode) just to make sure.
What happened with this one is similar to the "Total Recall," but not the same thing. The disc will start up in the player, and will make it to the main menu. The menu does seem to work just fine, but when I select "Play movie", it starts a little bit, showing FBI warning, international warning, mpaa rating, etc. Then it goes to a greenish-black screen. This plays for about 5 seconds, then it switches to another greenish-black screen, plays for another couple of seconds, then repeatedly alternates between the two greenish-black screens. I've let it do this at least six times, so I doubt that I would be able to simply wait it out....It is playing the same two titles repeatedly in a loop. The DVD player reads C1 -1 then C1-2 and loops between the two. Once again, the only way to get it to stop is to shut off the DVD player and restart.
However, if instead of choosing "Play movie" in the main menu I choose "Special Features" or "Scene Selection" I am able to play the movie (and special features in the special feature menu) from either. What's more, the same thing happens in my computer as happened on the DVD player (except for on the computer I am able to exit out without restarting the whole thing), whereas before, the problems only occured on my DVD player.
Next, under the hope that switching DVD's would work again this time, I tried out "Braveheart".
This is an MGM title, 8138.1 MB (7.9 GB) [4,166,720 sectors] Dual layer DVD-ROM, opposite path track, closed, DVD-Video.
I made no modifications at all after recoding this one, but it had yet another problem. When put in the DVD player, it starts up, gives a the standard warnings about copying and copyright, then proceeds to the main menu. The main menu does allow you to choose among the options present, but both "Play" and "Special Features" freeze the player at the menu screen and the only way to get it to stop is, once more, manual restart. However, from the "Scene Selections" menu I can play the movie.Further, no problems are evident when playing the title on my computer.
Lastly, I had three dual layer successes burning the "Main Movie Only" of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," "The Untouchables," and "Blade 2" to the same type of blank DVD-R. They all played just fine in my DVD player and on my computer. In the case of "Crouching Tiger..." no compression was needed. With the menus and extras cut, the main movie was 100% with room to spare on the DVD. There was however compression on the others.
Now, one last item of interest, I retried copying "Braveheart," but this time (and my first time doing it) I copied it from dual layer to dual layer. Everything seems to work fine except for a new problem with the main menu. Last time (Recoding from DVD-9 to DVD-5) it would freeze up if you chose anything but scene selection. This time all the options work, but there is no backround screen....It is just black and the four lines that would have underlined the options you can select will appear when you move the arrow keys to select them. The same think happens on both computer and DVD player. But, when I played it on my DVD player I tried accessing the title screen from many different locations (various times in the movie, from each of the other menus, etc.) and sometimes the image from where I was before stayed on the screen, other times it went back to being black, and once, the actual background that belongs there appeared (minus a transparent black strip across the top first quartile of the screen...by transparent I mean that is like a cut out...at times when I would see the old screen in place of the menu I would still be able to see said screen through this missing segment....a window if you will) This is not a controllably repeatable occurance, it may do it again, but what it decides to show in the place of the main menu so far has been a grab-bag.
To rule out the possiblity in this case that I am unable to copy Dual Layer to Dual Layer discs, I have had success doing that with a number of other movies so I don't know why this one didn't work.

So, it seems like there may be a problem with the way I am dealing with menus...does this sound reasonable? Am I compressing them too much, is that possible? (I still had problems with "Braveheart" even without any compression) Or do I need to change the target size? All the recodes of whole DVD-9 to DVD-5 were set to the DVD-5 target size of 4459.9 MB and only one has worked, should I try to set it lower (This size did work on the "Movie Only" compression of "Blade 2" and also on a few other DVDs so I don't think that it is the problem)?....I'm really just guessing here, I just don't know why some things are working and others are not.
I would imagine that it is also possible my burn speed is set to high, but everything is within it's accepted range and I have had successes with the same set up in each situation.
I am also willing to try using something other than Nero Recode, but as long as I have it and am starting out, I would appreciate any comments about what may be going wrong and how to fix it over comments of "Use X-program, it is way better"...though such suggestions are also welcome.

Okay, thanks again.

[setarip_old]

Hi! I have attempted to burn the Nero Recode material after having saved it to my hardrive, then pulling it in afterword.Try playing the hard drive DVD "package" (NOT the burned media) "As DVD" (NOT simply individual .VOBs), using a software player such as (freeware) VLC. If you experience the same difficulty, the problem lies in your ripping and/or modification procedure(s). If the hard drive version plays properly (which I doubt), the problem is somewhere in your burning procedure - hardware, methodology, or media...
Now, one last item of interest, I retried copying "Braveheart," but this time (and my first time doing it) I copied it from dual layer to dual layer. Everything seems to work fine except for a new problem with the main menu.it seems like there may be a problem with the way I am dealing with menusDid you do ANYTHING to this menu?

[uliudo]

Thanks for the help,
As to the
Software player-
I will try this straight away, as I am quite certain that my "hardware,methodology, or media..." are not the problem. If they were I would not likely have been able to have any successes, though I also am uncertain how I could have had successes if my ripping/modification methods were suspect....
Menu modification-
No, I did nothing to the menu. By "dealing with menus" I didn't mean to imply any active modification of the menus, just that in each failed attempt the DVD has played the opening movies (ie. previews, company trademark things, FBI warnings, etc) and stalled upon coming to the main menu.
So I am really just grasping at straws, I'm not sure why it is working sometimes and not others.

Okay, I'm going to try the software player reply with what happens, thanks again for the response.

[setarip_old]

I'm going to try the software player reply with what happens, thanks again for the response.Let us know how it goes...

[uliudo]

Okay, I tried the software player suggested VLC. It did work, though I'm not sure if I did what you wanted me to do...I used VLC to "Open Directory" for the files from a recode of "The Yes Men."
This folder contains all the files that would be contained on a DVD VIDEO_TS folder.
When played with VLC the movie starts, but directly from the main menu rather than the initial advertisements. Otherwise all worked fine.
Note: This particular DVD was another situation in which I used Nero Recode to compress the DVD-9 to a DVD-5, burned it to a disc, and the disc plays just fine in my computer, but on the DVD player it starts with the ads and trailers then freezes when it gets to the main menu.

[setarip_old]

I'm curious to know, if you play your original, purchased DVD of "The Yes Men" on the same standalone DVD player, does it exhibit the same problematic behavior?

[uliudo]

I mentioned it with the previous titles, but no, there is no problem with "The Yes Men" or any of the other original DVDs playing in my DVD player or on the computer.

[setarip_old]

You might want to try playing your problematic burned DVDs on other standalone players...

[uliudo]

I would, but I don't have any others and I kind of got rid of the DVD's that didn't work...

Without that though, does anyone have any idea why these wouldn't work in the first place?

Thanks for the suggestions Setarip, and very quick too!

[setarip_old]

I would, but I don't have any others and I kind of got rid of the DVD's that didn't work...Burn another one and take to a local electronics store - and try it on several players...