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Losing my mind with iDVD... DVDs won't play without freezing

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Hi everyone. I am new to these forums and the relatively new owner of a Mac Book Pro with Final Cut Express and iDVD.

I invested in this computer to edit the video from my wedding and make a nice, professional quality DVD. After weeks of work, it came out great... or so I thought. The final product, burned with iDVD, played fine on one or two DVD players... but on most players, it freezes up at certain parts and jumps back to the main menu. I tried re-burning it, only to have the same problem.

After perusing this and other mac forums, it seems this is not exactly an uncommon problem. The advice I came across was, instead of burning it right from iDVD, make an img file and burn it through Disk Utility, so I can set it to a slower burn speed. Also, get higher quality disks, like Verbatim.

Well, after reburning at the slowest speed and using Verbatim disks, I have the same problem. The disks skip, freeze, and crash on most players. Oddly, though, they do play fine on a select few DVD players. But, that is not acceptable, it needs to play fine 100% of the time as far as I'm concerned, especially with how much I paid for this computer and software! What's going on, and can anyone help me?
 

cwa107


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Some DVD players are picky about burned media, regardless of what burned it.

Personally, I've found that TDK DVD+R, burned at slow speeds (4x max) tend work the best. But every once in awhile, I'll run into a player that does exactly what you describe.
 
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The DVDs are crashing on more players than not. Could something be wrong with my burner?
 

cwa107


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The DVDs are crashing on more players than not. Could something be wrong with my burner?

Hard to say. Does Disk Utility do a verification following the burn?
 

bobtomay

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Texas, where else?
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15" MBP '06 2.33 C2D 4GB 10.7; 13" MBA '14 1.8 i7 8GB 10.11; 21" iMac '13 2.9 i5 8GB 10.11; 6S
In my experience, probably not - some older DVD players just will not play DVD-R/DVD+R disks very well and some not at all. Some will only read one type (-R or +R), similar to many burners only burning one or the other). Especially if these players are over 5-6 yrs old and off brands.

Older DVD players without this problem (for the most part) were companies like Panasonic, Oppo...
Players where you can expect to have these issues included Sylvania, Magnavox, Phillips...

The issue has been around for as long as there have been DVD burners / players. I gave up burning DVD's for people to use on their standalone DVD players long before I ever considered a Mac in the house. All of those years, I never had an issue playing any of my burned DVD's on any of my own equipment. But, all the relatives that only have a DVD player because someone gave them one of those $39, $50, $100 christmas bargain players; it wasn't happening.
 
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I haven't used iMovie for a while. Does one have to export the movie to QuickTime and import the QT into iDVD? That is the process with Final Cut Express. It has given me no problems playing the DVD.
 
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DVD's freezing

I had this problem yesterday. I made 30 DVDs using iDVD and some of them won't play correctly in some DVD players. Here's how I fixed the problem: Place the DVD face-down on a hard table. If you can push the center down to the table surface, the disk is bowed and it will likely freeze. In my case, the bowed disks appear to have been bowed by applying the label too fast. When I apply the label very slowly, I don't seem to get a bow in the DVD, but I'll have to wait until tomorrow to be sure. I took a pizza cutter and cut the label on one of the bowed DVDs - some of the bow is still there.

I have verified that today's batch of 30 all lie flat on the table with no room to push the center down at all, and none of them freeze...and I have not yet put labels on them.
 
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chas_m

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Wait, hold on ... you're putting a PAPER LABEL on these DVDs??

Oh dear, no. This is a bad idea. You're just BEGGING for a disc to get jammed in someone's player or computer and cause a great sticky mess.

Buy while-label (blank face) DVDs and print the "label" directly onto them using a compatible inkjet printer (almost every inkjet these days can do this).
 
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Using memorex labels - haven't had a problem with them jamming in all the years I've used them. Only problem has been the recent one where if I slam the label onto the DVD too quickly, the DVD begins to bow after about 24 hours.

I do like your idea, though, but I can't figure out how to feed DVD's through my ink jet printer - Brother MFC-5890CCM
 

cwa107


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In my experience, the labels eventually work themselves loose - and usually they cause a jam of some sort. We've had many reports of them causing jams in slot-loading SuperDrives here.

I would highly recommend against using them.
 
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chas_m

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To be fair, I used to live in Florida and the heat would make the glue separate from the labels after a while. This will happen anywhere given enough time but it will happen a LOT faster in tropical climates.

As for how to use white-face DVDs, check your printer's manual on that. Might require buying an accessory tray, and depending on the age of your printer it might not be able to do it at all. Luckily, printers that CAN do it are cheap.
 
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Thanks.

UPDATE:
1. the memorex-paper-labeled DVDs I made on the 14th (applying the DVD to the label VERY slowly - about 20 seconds per DVD) are still not bowed. The rapid assembly ones (<1 sec) from the batch of 30 are now all bowed.
2. i bought the $100 canon DVD printer & a sleeve of white, printable DVDs.
3. The printer arrives today (and goes back tomorrow if it doesn't work acceptably).
4. Update will follow after it arrives.

bob
 

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