kevin_standlee | DVDs and Me

You're viewing

kevin_standlee's journal
Create a Dreamwidth Account Learn More

Reload page in style: site light

One of the things we never did after Interaction was to produce a Masquerade Video, although we do have the raw camera shots on a DVD that John Maizels gave me on the last day of the convention. I loaned this to

bovil once and he gave it back to me along with a cleaned-up version that has a bit more functionality and will play on my DVD player, not just on the DVD drive on my computer. So, I was asked to make a copy of that DVD. I have two DVD-RW drives. I have what purports to be software that will allow you to copy DVDs. The DVD I was trying to copy wouldn't have been copy-protected -- it's not a commercial release. The software said it copied correctly. I can view the copy using the DVD drive on my computer. But the copy won't run in my DVD player -- it says it's not the right format. I wonder what I did wrong.

Current Mood: annoyed

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

bovil.livejournal.com

I'm using Nero now (the nice thing is that through various machines I've bought I had a chance to try around a half-dozen DVD burning packages, and Nero is the least annoying).

It might be the type of disc you're using. I tend to stick with "+R" or "-R" discs. RW discs of either type tend to have more compatibility problems. Of the write-once discs, I think "-R" is more broadly compatible, but "+R" is a better archival format.

If your software has a disc-copy mode, it should work. If you copy the folders from the disc and burn them as a data disc, there may be format issues.

From:

cherylmorgan.livejournal.com

The discs are -R. (The stack is sitting next to me, while Kevin is in his office.)

From:

howeird

As a former tech support guy for Roxio, a word of advice. Do not use the direct copy, unless you have the same make and model for both drives, and even then it's not recommended. Best to copy to a file (ISO file if your software permits) and make your copies from that file. Drive firmware just doesn't get the sync right from model to model.

This a great if you are making multiple copies, because most DVD software now supports simultaneous burning on multiple drives from a file.

The type of disk does no matter as long as your drive supports that type of disk. Make sure you do not ask the software to burn at a speed faster than your blanks are rated for, or that your drive is rated for. It is not a bad idea to burn at one notch slower than the drive/disk allows.

BTW, I regularly use Sony, Roxio and Nero software, and these rules apply to them all.