What did I do wrong in Maestro?

[brett]

I just made a rip of Terminator 2, and it'll play fine in PowerDVD and on my PlayStation 2, but it doesn't work in my standalone Sony DVP-S300. I'm sure it's some small problem with how I authored the DVD, because my DVP-S300 will play any kind of crappy media without giving me errors, even stuff my PS2 and DVD-ROM can't read at all. The error I am getting when I put in the Terminator 2 rip is "C:13:70" flashing on the screen. This is an "invalid disc" sort of error, and it's the same error that you get if you do an IfoEdit rip and forget to hit "Get VTS sectors". The really weird part is that the standalone flashes the error as soon as you put in the DVD, but then if you hit the Play button, it will start playing the main feature (title 1). So, it's not unplayable, but there's no way for me to see the Dolby / THX trailers.

I've done many rips, but this is the first one I've done with multiple titles. Here's what I did:

1) Ripped the whole DVD with DVD Decrypter.

2) The original DVD playes the Dolby Aurora trailer, then the THX trailer, then the movie, so I wanted to make my rip do the same thing. I used VOBrator to demux the Dolby and THX trailers.

3) Stripped out seamless branching, made a DVD2AVI project of the main feature, used AC3 delay corrector, made an AviSynth script, got the CCE and Maestro chapter points with Chapter-X-tractor, made the subtitles with SubRip, transcoded the main feature with CCE, used pulldown... Everything like I've done 20 times before.

4) Authored in Maestro. Now, I know I'm putting together the main feature right because I've done it many times already. So my main feature is Movie1, and I'm not making a menu. I drag my M2V and AC3 files into the asset box for the Dolby and THX trailers, and I create Movie2 and Movie3. I make Movie3 the Dolby trailer (the trailer is 4:3), and I make Movie2 the THX trailer (this trailer is 16:9, so I set that). I drag the audio/video into the appropriate areas. Now I go into the Connections window, set it to "Show Basic Sources," and set up the connections like this:

First Play = Movie 3: Chapter 00:00:00:00
Movie2: Chapter 00:00:00:00 End Action = Movie 1: Chapter 00:00:00:00
Movie3: Chapter 00:00:00:00 End Action = Movie 2: Chapter 00:00:00:00

So, it should play Movie3 (Dolby trailer), then Movie2 (THX trailer), then the main feature. Then I compiled, made an image in ImgTools, and burned with Prassi, just like I always do.

It all works fine in PowerDVD, and I can go back and forth just like the trailers were chapters that appeared before the main feature. Everything also plays correctly in my PlayStation 2, except I can't go backards from the movie and go back to the trailers. Then, in my standalone, the disc gives an error. One time I put the disc in and it played the Dolby trailer, then gave me an error when it was supposed to switch to the THX trailer. Every other time, it says it's starting to play the DVD, then stops and flashes the error message before it actually plays anything.

Any suggestions? I think the problem has something to do with the different titles being setup wrong, because it doesn't do anything when I hit the title button on the remote. I've seen a couple posts saying that there's no need to setup anything besides the end actions, though.

[alturismo]

i have that problem often, on me its the media

there im pretty sure, cause i often need to burn an DVD
twice.

almost all movies wich a large, and the "intro" parts are mostly
at the outside sectors of an dvdr.

so, that crap media i bought me 90 pcs from (luckily almost done
with them) has major problems with the outside sectors and have
then really probs to read them, i also can hit "play" and the
movie starts then, but also then check when you jump to the
latest chapters if they also still will play.

those are my experiences with "princo" media, was a good price
but when i see the 40-50 % doesnt play proper at th eend
(hanging or jumping) then it wasnt worth it

at least they all play fine on the pc, so the goodies i can
copy one day to good media.

[brett]

Thanks for the reply, but if you read my post you'll see I'm obviously not having a media problem. I've made three copies of Terminator 2, and they all behave the same, and they all work fine in my DVD-ROM and PS2. This is the exact same media as 50+ other DVD's I've made that work fine. And, as I said, the player giving me the problem will play ANY media, even media that my DVD-ROM and PS2 won't read at all. On top of that, the error that my standalone is giving me is not the error it gives when it can't read a disc. It is the error it gives when a disc has been authored wrong.

[hoops10]

@brett

I also have the Sony DVP-S300 and it refuses to play the Ritek
dvd-r's (considered generic media) I put into it. It will sometimes give me the error you mentioned and other times it will pixelate so bad the the movie is unplayable. To fix this, I started using Verbatim dvd-r's and no probs from then on out.

[brett]

Well, my rips on Ritek's have always worked fine in my DVP-S300 and every other player I've put them in. I guess media might be part of the issue, though.

When you put the DVD in, the front of the DVD player lights up "DVD", meaning it can read the disc, then it lights up "Play" meaning it has successfully read the structure and is going to start playing it. Then you can hear that the disc is spinning and it is apparently seeking to the First Play item, and that's the point that it usually gives an error. So, I think the problem may be that the DVD player has a set timeout value for seeks, at which point it will give you an error if it hasn't found what it's looking for. It doesn't get to the first play item -- the Dolby trailer -- before it times out.

See, I authored it with the movies in this order in the Project box:

1st = main feature
2nd = THX trailer
3rd = Dolby trailer

Because I wanted the main feature to be Title 1, and I thought it'd be cool to have the DVD player sort of "count down" starting at Title 3, then 2, then 1.

Apparently this isn't such a good idea, though, because it means that when you insert the DVD, it reads the layout from the beginning of the DVD, then has to seek all the way to the end of the DVD to get the first play item, then it has to seek all the way back to the beginning of the DVD to find the feature.

I fixed the problem by authoring the DVD with the items in the order they are played.

This still doesn't quite make sense, though, because when the main feature is playing, I can go straight from Chapter 1 to Chapter 81 without any problem, and it finds the chapter almost instantly, so it's not having trouble "finding" the end of the disc. I really don't know what's going on.

Anyway, I burned the disc several different ways... Going from Title 3 to Title 2 to Title 1, or going 1, 2, 3. Using the original VOB's (demux'd in VOBrator) for the trailers, or stripping them into clean files with PULLDOWN -NORFF. Using all the connections, including previous/next between the titles, or just using the basic First Play and End Action connections. They all work on all my players, except my DVP-S300 refuses to play anything except the one that goes Title 1, Title 2, Title 3, uses the original demux'd VOB's, and just uses basic connections.

[rjgn]

Is the dvdr totally full? I mean how much room is left when you write it? I've had similar problems with multi PGC movies. The trailers and intro segments generally seem to get written last and are therefore right at the very edge of the disc.

I had a stack of movies written to ICE dvdr's, no problems with them whatsoever. However one movie was giving me exactly the same problem as you seem to have. I wrote it to a TDK and hey presto it worked first time!

Some generic media even good quality el cheapo's like Ritek's may not give you ANY problems until you try and write a disc which is full to the limit.

I know you say it's not a media problem but the only way to make sure is to try a good quality disc like a TDK disc.