Arabesk incompatability with some DVD players

[RobertCarpentier]

Hello Fellow Editors - and specifically anyone Gen 2 with Renommee + and Arabesk 4 or equivalent. At issue is the recurring "occasional" problem with a DVD created in Arabesk that will not play successfully in certain consumer DVD players. We've been advised to use the "Normal" compression setting rather than High or Maximum, and I've been gladly doing that, because I can't see any difference anyway. But yesterday I got an email from a client saying the DVD I sent him (which was burned in Normal) skips and freezes in both his DVD player and his computer.

What else am I not doing correctly? I know his DVD player is only about 3 years old. This problem bothers me, knowing my clients rent commercially available movies that always play.

Any help is appreciated even if you are a Gen 3 S-4000 person. Thanks.

Bob Carpentier CarpentierProVideo@yahoo.com

[RobertCarpentier]

Hi Folks,

This is me clarifying terminolgy regarding compression settings in Arabesk. The verbage in Arabesk is "Image Quality" - so a setting of "High" means LESS compression than if the setting is "Normal."

Anyway - Client number 2 just played the same DVD (burned at "Normal" setting and said they also had freeze and skip problems.

Thanks,

Bob Carpentier

[craigpeer]

Does the same DVD play on your dvd player? I wonder if you might need a firmware update for your dvd burner.

How long is the video?

I just burned a dvd ( with a 23 minute video ) on my Renommee Plus set at Maximum video quality and it played fine on my Oppo BD83 Blu Ray player just FYI.

[RobertCarpentier]

Craig - I have no less than 4 DVD players at home - 2 Sonys, 1 Toshiba, and 1 Pioneer. Before sending out ANY DVD I always test it in all 4 players. That's why this problem is so frustrating. I can't test 100 different players. I need someone from MSUS to either give me a rundown on which players are incompatable or which settings are recommended.

Are you in Sacramento? I'm in Granite Bay! Guess I need to work on my profile. what kind of work do you do with your Renommee?

Bob Carpentier

[craigpeer]

I'm in Cameron Park actually. I am a video hobbiest - climbing videos mostly.

I'd be interested to know what the DVD players were that weren't working.

[Alan]

Hi,

A long time ago when this problem first emerged MS said that to get best quality they used the full DVD specification to write to in Arabesk. They pointed out that some consumer players did not meet these specs. Hence the stuttering, the suggestion was to use the lower quality settings which have higher compression and so reduced data rate which out of spec players could cope with. I produced a set of DVD's to the different qualities from the same film and gave them to a friend to pick the best. He could not tell the difference. You may also find a similar problem with the Audio. Try compressed instead of uncompressed

Cheers Alan

[BobFoster]

You did not mention what brand of blank DVDs you are using nor if they are DVD-R of DVD+R. The brand can make a significant compatibility issue and usually DVD-R are more compatible. Some may argue the last point. Arabesk 4 has problems of locking up my Reno+ after completing a DVD burn but the DVDs play on everything including MacBook Pro with Leopard OS. I am using OS 6.2c in the Reno+. I only use Taio Yuden DVD-Rs and have no problems. My DVDs are mostly rented out to individuals who watch them on every imaginable DVD player and computer. No problems reported. YMMV.

[RobertCarpentier]

Ahhh, yes - the Taio Yuden solution. I've been reluctant because they are costly. Of course, the answer to that argument is that you can't really put a price on happy customers. The Verbatim DVD-R media that I've been using probably has a record of 3 failures to every 100 of them I use, so I guess this last batch is the 3!

The other possible culprit: The long "path" of encoding and compression that occured on this particular project. The original material was NOT from a camcorder, but rather a DVR, then sent via Y/C analog to a DVD recorder, then played into the Renommee from ANOTHER DVD player via Y/C. Whew! Not gonna do anything like that again.

Fortunately the clients are friends and I wasn't charging anyway. I just sent them one of MY projects burned on the RENO + and they played fine!

I thank you all for your input - but don't stop if you've got more thoughts on this. Happy editing from Bob Carpentier!

[jimmeeker]

Hello,

I would imagine that your very long path of getting the signal into the Cassie might have an impact on the play back performance.

Why not just play the DVR out through YC and into a digital camcorder to use it as a converter, and then wire that into the Cassie via firewire. (No tape in the camcorder, it's just a pass through converter) Then you have one path into the Cassie and it should cut way down on the conversions and extra conversions that you don't need to do.

If your DVR has a Firewire output you can send it to the Cassie straight without anything inbetween, but the camcorder will do an instant conversion just sitting there in the middle with YC coming into it and firewire going out of it and into the Cassie. This is a one pass capture and not three passes as in the way you are doing it.

This method will save you the time it takes to capture by three fold. You are copying to a DVD and compressing it again, then playing the DVD into the Cassie and there is another compression taking place there and the extra time that each of these takes isn't needed at all. You can save time and save compressions and end up with a better looking DVD.

I hope this helps,

[CKNewman]

You might try to make a copy of the Arabesk burned DVD in your desktop computer.