Topic: DVDs Play on PC but not on a DVD player (Read 3794 times)

Houckster · « **on:** May 30, 2012, 08:37:59 am »

I have not found a topic concerning this and the issue does not seem to have been addressed in the updates since 17.0.117. I have updates to 17.0.160 this morning.

I downloaded some movies from Amazon in .WMV format and converted them to .AVI in another program to remove DRM. Then I created DVDs in MC 17.0.147. They play fine on a PC but on two DVD players, nothing happens. The display of the disc reveals 0 time and 0 chapters.

I'm not sure if it's something I'm doing wrong but I get no warning from MC and the DVD creation process completes without incident.

This problem (if there really is one) seems to have cropped up recently because in a previous version of MC (prior to 17.0.147) I believe I did create a DVD that is playable on a DVD player.

Any suggestions would be very nice.

bil1010105 · « **Reply #1 on:** May 30, 2012, 08:46:17 am »

.AVI files don't play on every standalone player.

Check to see if you have two folders in your root DVD directory of:

Root
|--- AUDIO_TS
|--- VIDEO_TS

The AUDIO_TS folder should (normally) be empty, but the VIDEO_TS folder should have VIDEO_TS.IFO and at least one .VOB file.

Houckster · « **Reply #2 on:** May 30, 2012, 09:00:25 am »

I checked the contents and these directories were not created. I don't know why they were not. All I have is a DESKTOP.INI file and a .WPL file plus an OTHER directory where an the .AVI file exists.

Possibly there is a setting that I'm missing that will solve my problem.

When I created the disc, I chose "BURN DISC" and chose the DVD-Video option and then dragged the .AVI file into the "BURN DISC" (Drop Files Here). Then MC created the disc.

I'm still looking for a setting that might address this issue.

JimH · « **Reply #3 on:** May 30, 2012, 09:02:16 am »

Make sure the option to close the disc is set.

Houckster · « **Reply #4 on:** May 30, 2012, 09:05:22 am »

I found this setting under "DATA BURNING" and it was set to close the disc.

bil1010105 · « **Reply #5 on:** May 30, 2012, 09:11:27 am »

I would suggest that you convert your AVI file to VOB (MPEG-2) format. I don't know if MC offers such a facility - I've never used that feature (someone else here might though)... but that's the DVD Video standard and should work on every standalone player. AVI might work on some, but it's entirely dependant on your player's firmware - and since AVI can contain Xvid/DivX/etc it's a bit of a lottery.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD-Video

glynor · « **Reply #6 on:** May 30, 2012, 09:43:29 am »

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.

JimH · « **Reply #7 on:** May 30, 2012, 09:55:28 am »

Quote from: glynor on May 30, 2012, 09:43:29 am

* 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?

It can author a DVD. This was added a few months ago.

Updating MC would be worth trying. 17.0.160 is at the top of this board.

Houckster · « **Reply #8 on:** May 30, 2012, 09:55:46 am »

I use Verbatim DVD-R discs as the problems with other types is pretty well known and I always burn at the lowest rate to get the most readable disc. But the problems is that MC is not creating the DVD-Video file structure that the DVD player is looking for.

Ten minutes ago, I finally decided I'd had it with file conversions and stuff. Since MC will play .WMV files on my computer, I'm good there. What I needed to do was either upgrade another program that copies each frame of a movie and then creates a file that can be used for a DVD-Video or I could buy a player that handles .WMV files natively. I bought a Yamaha Blu-Ray player that has all the latest connections and should allow me to just write .WMV files to a DVD disc and play them that way. We'll see. If it doesn't work out that way, it goes right back in the box.

Houckster · « **Reply #9 on:** May 30, 2012, 09:59:22 am »

Quote

It can author a DVD. This was added a few months ago.

Updating MC would be worth trying. 17.0.160 is at the top of this board.

I believe 17.0.147 could author a DVD but doesn't actually do so. At least it didn't create the Audio and Video TS directories in the root directory.

I upgraded to 17.0.160 this morning.

JohnT · « **Reply #10 on:** May 30, 2012, 10:09:21 am »

MC has a simple DVD video burner. Insert a blank DVD. Drag any video file(s) that will play in MC (except DRM protected WMV files) onto the burner. Select "DVD Video" for burn type. Click burn. A DVD video disc is created with a VIDEO_TS directory structure. It's playable on the computer and in standalone DVD/Blu-ray players. If you dragged multiple videos to the burn, you can use chapter up/down to navigate to them.

glynor · « **Reply #11 on:** May 30, 2012, 10:18:59 am »

Quote from: JohnT on May 30, 2012, 10:09:21 am

MC has a simple DVD video burner. Insert a blank DVD. Drag any video file(s) that will play in MC (except DRM protected WMV files) onto the burner. Select "DVD Video" for burn type. Click burn. A DVD video disc is created with a VIDEO_TS directory structure.

That's cool. I didn't know that. It might actually come in handy here and there.

It burns with no dumb menu system or anything? Does it loop or just stop after one play-through?

Sounds like maybe he didn't set it to DVD Video for burn type.

Houckster · « **Reply #12 on:** May 30, 2012, 11:36:02 am »

I did set it to DVD-Video. I converted the DRM-protected .WRM to .AVI and then dragged it into MC. It should have worked. Instead it just copied the .AVI to the disc.

JohnT · « **Reply #13 on:** May 30, 2012, 02:30:13 pm »

Quote from: glynor on May 30, 2012, 10:18:59 am

Does it loop or just stop after one play-through?

It loops.

glynor · « **Reply #14 on:** May 30, 2012, 02:37:26 pm »

Quote from: JohnT on May 30, 2012, 02:30:13 pm

It loops.

Wow.

That's perfect for my needs here and there. I'm going to try this soon.

Houckster · « **Reply #15 on:** May 30, 2012, 03:01:07 pm »

I think this thread has been hijacked. I'm still up-in-the-air about why MC won't create a properly formated DVD-Video disc. AFAIK, I did everything right.

JohnT · « **Reply #16 on:** May 30, 2012, 03:27:40 pm »

Quote from: Houckster on May 30, 2012, 03:01:07 pm

I think this thread has been hijacked. I'm still up-in-the-air about why MC won't create a properly formated DVD-Video disc. AFAIK, I did everything right.

I'm still looking at your issue. I just burned some AVI files to DVD-Video with both build 147 and the latest build and they created the VIDEO_TS file structure and played ok on my computer and on two different Blu-ray players we have sitting around (Sony and Samsung). However, I did see something strange when I burned just one video file that was very short (about 30 seconds) to a dvd. It created the disc ok and played ok on the computer, BUT it would not play on either of the Blu-ray players (Invalid format or something like that). I did another burn with two copies of the same video (so 1 minute total), and that played fine everywhere. I then burned a single 2 minute video and it also worked fine everywhere. Then I burned a single 1 minute video and it played on the Sony but not on the Samsung.
Weird.. maybe some players have a minimum DVD duration requirement for some reason.

Is the video you are having trouble with very short? What brand is the player?

You said it's not creating a VIDEO_TS structure on the disc, that's very strange and I'm not sure how that would happen if you picked "DVD Video" from the first dropbox after clicking the "Burn Disc" button.

Houckster · « **Reply #17 on:** May 30, 2012, 04:09:00 pm »

OK, I created three discs last night and maybe on the third disc I did something different. It just has an .AVI file in the OTHER directory. Since I don't remember anything different about how I created the discs I just assumed that all three would have the same files. They don't. I was looking at the contents of the third disc when I reported that the TS directories were not being created.

On the first two, the TS directories are there but the problem is that on two players I tried, the discs load and I get a "PLAY" indication but they never play. The Sony S2000ES indicates 0 chapters and 0 minutes. A LG DVD player exhibits the same behavior.

To recap, I received the movies as .WMV files that I converted to .AVI files with a program that links into another program to strip out the DRM stuff. The .AVI files were then dropped into MC and I chose the DVD-Video format to burn. At no time does MC indicate a problem.

glynor · « **Reply #18 on:** May 30, 2012, 04:11:42 pm »

Quote from: Houckster on May 30, 2012, 03:01:07 pm

I think this thread has been hijacked. I'm still up-in-the-air about why MC won't create a properly formated DVD-Video disc. AFAIK, I did everything right.

I'm going to test it for you.

Houckster · « **Reply #19 on:** May 30, 2012, 04:13:36 pm »

Thanks to everyone for their help.

glynor · « **Reply #20 on:** May 30, 2012, 04:31:17 pm »

Quote from: glynor on May 30, 2012, 04:11:42 pm

I'm going to test it for you.

Hmmmm...

Is there any way to get MC's burning engine to record to an image file (ISO, IMG, whatever - just something like that)? I have a disc duplicator and I wouldn't ever actually burn the discs on the machine that has MC.

In fact, the machine I just tried it with doesn't have an optical drive at all (other than a fake one from Daemon Tools). It just gave me an error though and wouldn't bring up the burn AW at all.

glynor · « **Reply #21 on:** May 30, 2012, 04:40:55 pm »

Further... Even if I connect a DVD burner, it is failing to "detect" it for some reason.

I have a drive connected with a blank disc inserted.
Windows sees it and sees the blank disc (it popped up the auto-play thingy).
ImgBurn sees it and can use it.
MC says: "Burn Disc" is current unavailable. Please ensure that a suitable burner is installed.

I tried closing and re-opening MC, but it made no difference. Most of my burners that I have here at the office are external jobs that I connect either via eSATA or Firewire or whatever. This one happened to be from a VM, but I tried my external drive too. I didn't try rebooting, but I suppose I can try that tomorrow. I'm done for today.

Houckster · « **Reply #22 on:** May 31, 2012, 08:35:44 pm »

Any further progress as to this problem?

JohnT · « **Reply #23 on:** June 05, 2012, 04:06:51 pm »

I found some issues with a Samsung player we have here and fixed them. Try the next Media Center build, hopefully it will fix the problem for you as well.

Houckster · « **Reply #24 on:** June 11, 2012, 01:15:54 pm »

I have tried creating a DVD-Video disc and a single layer disc seems to be OK - I think. I then tried to burn a DVD-DL disc but I'm getting a message: "Logical unit not ready - long write in progress." I think I've got a problem here. The write has been going on for a long time.

Houckster · « **Reply #25 on:** June 12, 2012, 02:36:19 pm »

Anyone with an idea what the message means?

JohnT · « **Reply #26 on:** June 12, 2012, 02:40:46 pm »

The drive may have been taking an abnormally long time to close the disc.
If you had logging enabled, please send me a log at johnt at jriver.com

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Author Topic: DVDs Play on PC but not on a DVD player (Read 3794 times)