IAC DISCUSSION FORUMS

Dear all fellow filmmakers,
I copied one of my DVDs and found the the copy would not play at the very
end. The original, I found out had developed this fault as well! I had to
get my mums copy and use that.
Now, it has been stored out of sunlight etc.
I burn my original in the highest quality ie 1xDVD= 1hour 3mins etc.

I had a CD-R and it was by the window and a bit of the cover was folded.
The sunlight got to it and faded the ink on the CD. It didn`t work!

So the question is........

What quality mode to people here burn there 1hr master DVDs?
The earlier ones that they have burned. Do they still work?

Ian Gardner

Ian, we've been discussing this topic at length over on the IAC NLE forums.
As regards my burnt discs, the only ones I've had returned (a few years ago
now) were done on 'Zero Defex' blanks. Never again, no more, full stop.
Now I stick to Verbatims and Ryteks, dash R, and have a 100% success rate.

But I also realise the limitations of the medium. We're asking twenty quid
players to read 22p discs, and we don't want a single dropout, thank you
very much. So for school plays and even weddings I keep the encoding down
to a 'good-enough' 6 to 6.5 mbps tops, and also do variable bit rate (5 -
6
mbps) at times. I also compress the sound till it squeaks, and players then
have a much easier time of it. Ergo: no returns, happy customers, money
in
bank, bread on table, repeat orders.

For my own work I choose the highest quality settings as:

a) I find all my players are happy with this, and
b) I can see the improvements the 8 mbps setting brings.

But I do keep a Mini DV master as well. As I do of all the work I send out
on DVD.

tom.

What quality mode to people here burn there 1hr master DVDs?
The earlier ones that they have burned. Do they still work?

Ian Gardner

Thanks for the responce. I find all my DVD`s play in the highest quality
in all my players. They also play in the clubs one. Other peoples do not
always.
What about your eariest DVD`s. Do these still play perfectly?
What about other peoples. Do your CD-r`s that have software on still work
from all those years ago.
Let us know.

Ian Gardner

I cannot comment on DVDs unfortunately but I do sometimes have tremendous
problems trying to read old CDRs I've used to backup files, say over 5 or
6 years old. All correctly stored but still problematic, and slightly worrying.
As I have saved almost everything I have ever done in both final edit and
'rushes' format from whatever system I've used over the last 25+ years, it's
nice to dig out an old analogue open reel tape and it still play, or a lot
of my (music) work is stored on Betamax and VHS archive tapes for use with
the old Sony PCM system (2-track CD Quality audio system, over 20 years old)
which I still have and they all play without error.

I have had that many 'digital disc' failures, my main archive, surprisingly,
is an external hard-drive that is updated and transferred from machine to
machine, as well as the more usual DVD and CDR backups.

DVD failures = unknown as I've only just starting using recordable DVDs
CDR failures = more frequent with age
CDRW failures = gave up on them a long time ago
hard-drive and 'analogue' failures = never

Progress?

Sorry for hijacking this thread


"Ian Gardner" <ian@gardner44.freeserve.co.uk> wrote:

Thanks for the responce. I find all my DVD`s play in the highest quality
in all my players. They also play in the clubs one. Other peoples do not
always.
What about your eariest DVD`s. Do these still play perfectly?
What about other peoples. Do your CD-r`s that have software on still work
from all those years ago.
Let us know.

Ian Gardner