Assuming that the disc is a properly authored DVD* (MPEG-2 with the proper GOP, muxed right, and all of that), is honestly quite likely to be specific to the media you are using, the burner you are using, or a combination of both.
DVD-R media can be touchy with set top players (and DVD-Rom drives too, though they usually are bigger and have more robust optical systems and error correction capabilities). Plus, readers vary in sensitivity to the various different types of dyes used in the "burnable" layer of the discs, so a disc that works fine on one player may fail completely on another if the latter happens to have trouble with that particular dye-type. Same goes with burners (some work well with some types of discs and poorly with others). Whenever you run into a problem with an optical disc where one player works, and another fails, the media itself is the most likely culprit.
The best and most compatible media by-far is Taiyo Yuden, though Verbatim makes nice discs too. Other "brands" (Sony, Magnavox, Maxell, TDK, etc) aren't really "brands" of media, they're brands of labels. The media itself is usually bought on the open market, and can vary substantially in quality from one batch to the next (occasionally even within a spindle you can have two or three different manufacturers of the discs).
Try burning at a lower burn speed. This will often allow your burner to write fewer correctable errors, which will make it easier for a touchy set-top player to read the disc. Also, try a different brand of media. Try Verbatim if you aren't using them already, or maybe Imation, and if you want to be "sure" use Taiyo Yuden discs (though these will be tough to find other than via mail-order and are expensive).
* I should note, I have not used MC's DVD authoring capabilities ever, so I can't comment on this part. Does MC even have the ability to author a DVD, or is it just burning a data-disc with the AVI file on it? I don't even know. Optical discs are so annoying. I stopped using them myself ages ago. However, if you can open the disc up in Windows Explorer and see the AVI file (and not a VIDEO_TS folder) then you have a data disc that will only ever work reliably on a PC.