I just got my DVD and it skips, stops,
stutters, jumps around. All my rental movies play just fine. My DVD
must be bad.....
Maybe, but not likely. Here is
why.
Commercially produced movies are replicated. That is they are stamped out in a press with the original being a glass master. This method is capable of producing large quantities in a relatively short time and are less costly to produce, but only in large quantity.
The method that we (and virtually every other event production company) use in producing DVDs is duplication, which is recording each DVD. This is known as DVD recordable (DVD-R or DVD+R). Because of the different methods of creation, some DVD players, especially older machines do not recognize recordable DVDs and will react differently, from not 'seeing' the DVD at all to partial play (with skipping). This is due to the fact that initially, when the DVD format was created, there was no such thing as a recordable DVD and the players were built accordingly. But now that DVD recordables are common place, newer players are designed to recognize the new format and will play them along with your rental movies. This is not unique to our DVDs, all small quantity DVD production use the DVD-R (or DVD+R) method, so if your player does not function with our DVDs, it will not function with ANY recorded DVD, from any source.
A new obsticle was recently introduced into the mix, higher speed DVDs. Have you ever noticed that DVDs have a rating on the, like 4x, 8x or 16x? This represents the fastest speed that the media can handle. This speed is also hard coded into the disc so that the recorder can 'see' the maximum speed that the particular DVD can run. This speed number can also be read by DVD players. What is now happening with the higher rated speed DVDs is that older DVD players can not 'see' the disc. Why? For the same reason as above, 8x and 16x media were not invented when the older players were manufactured. For a number of years, 4x media had a sucessful play rate of 99% or better, but in mid 2007 all manufacturing of 4x media has ceased forcing to using 8x discs. For the compatibility issue, 16x media should never be used for client duplication.
If you or your clients are having problems with your DVD you can
compare it to an ever-growing list of tested DVD players to confirm
if your machine is compatible with recordable DVDs (or click here
to check it yourself DVD Player
Check).
There are steps that you can take to try to
minimize compatibility problems:
- Us the best DVD media available (skip the cheap, unbranded DVDs, no matter how attractive the price may be)
- Recording at speeds known to provide maximum compatibility (no greater than 4x if you can find them, if not a high quality 8x)
- Use printable DVD and skip the paper labels.
- Digitally checking each and every DVD to the origional master DVD to be sure that the record it 100% perfect and true to the origional. If there is a single digital bit difference between the two, the recorded DVD is rejected as bad (this function is available on most tower DVD duplicating systems).