ok, first of all. im sortof computer illiterate so please refrain from using huge words that an average 8 year olf cant handle.

i bought nero 6 a couple days ago thinking i could just drop in a DVD and a blanc disc and coy it. Turns out they need to be decrypted.

SO, i downloaded DVD shrink and DVD decrypter. First a decrypted it, seemed to work fine. Then i opend up the decrypted files and ran them through DVD shrink
( am i doing it right so far?)

after shrunk, i opened the files AGAIN in nero (nero express (DVD) )


NOW for the fun part. The "BURN" icon doesnt highlight, so it wont let me click copy (it was over 4.7gigs, so i deleted alot of the files to make room, and the burn icon then showed up.

I clicked burn and some crap poped up telling me about how i couldnt,

Is there an easy step by step you guys could give me? Or point out what im doing wrong?

thanks alot!

See the DVD Shrink Guide here and if you still have problems let us know.

http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/dvd9_to_dvdr_with_dvd_shr...

To make a long story short, you need to use DVD Shrink to reduce the size of the image file so it will fit on a single layer disk.

alright, i tried it again, and i think it worked, but Nero is saying to insert a DVD+R/RW, DVD+R9 double layer. are these regular discs to use? or are they some special kind.

Im using staples brand2 hour 4.7gb DVD-r recordable DVD

are these not going to work?

Quote:

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DVD+R/RW, DVD+R9 double layer

---

- for one it's saying your drive doesn't support -R format discs (ie your discs are DVD-R) . For two, that msg means it will accept the following formats -

DVD+R
DVD+RW
DVD+R dual layer

plus staples don't always use very good manufacturers, to add insult to injury!

perfect. SO, you saying i need DVD+r instead of DVD-r?

what does the "R" stand for?

wait a tick, i use CD-R discs for music and it works fine, so does that mean it supports CD-R's but not DVD-R's??

'Recordable' ie write-once

:)

depends on the make of your drive

try this -

download Nero info-tool from here - http://www.snapfiles.com/get/neroinfo.html

Run it, click on the drive tab, and paste here. Here's what mine shows -

click on the drive tab, note down the drive name and the firmware version

or you could post your own pictures - i do this the same way, but i copy/pasted this from one of the moderators' posts -

Step 1: push ctrl + PrintScreen (above the insert button)

Step 2: Open paint .. click start -> programs -> accessories -> paint

Step 3: push ctrl + v

Step 4: crop your image. I crop what I want to show -> cut it -> open new -> paste it. Crop only what you want to keep

Step 5: save as jpeg

Step 6: Host the jpeg here: http://imageshack.us/

heres mine. Can you tell me what disc would be best?

thanks alot for your help BTW..

the quick answer is it IS a dvd burner. must pay a visit, be right back :)

no worries. Right.... We have two choices here -

1. Buy decent discs (i would suggest Verbatim datalifeplus +R 8speed discs (you could always burn at 4x))

2. I found a little nugget. It would appear -R writing is possible, but it's a tad involved - http://club.cdfreaks.com/showthread.php?t=119622

That involves 'cross-flashing' the firmware to effectively change the drive into a different drive -

Quote:

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LiteOn SOHW-822S is a DVD+R/RW only (single format) version of the SOHW-832S, which is dual-format

---

If you stick to option 1, there's a slightly newer version of your current firmware here - http://forum.rpc1.org/dl_firmware.php?category=4&manufactor=17 . BUT if you're going to go to the trouble of doing this it might be better to take option 2

Cor, you wouldn't believe how much editing this took !

it looks to me like it says that i CAN use DVD-R's, but ill wait for somones opinion on what will work

Its a HP A720N computer if it matters.

ps The only thing i'm not sure about is the speed of media your drive supports. I said 8x earlier, bit now i'm trying to fond a list somewhere to prove it

oh hang on i found this. your firmware from your screenshot is VPPA, the newer similar one i suggested is VPPE. I didn't think VPPA sounded too old, but someone quoted that VPPA is really old - http://forum.digital-digest.com/archive/topic/50707-1.html

Still looking to see whether you can buy 8x media ...

whats the differance between 8X and 4X? is it quality>? or speed?

speed doesnt matter.. i jsut want it to work. :(

and whats the differance between VPPA/ VPPE (and what are they)

thanks for putting up with me. you deserve a thumbs up!

i know you just want it to work, it's a bit heavy all this isn't it !! (pity me writing stuff like this every night lol)

Burning at a lower speed means less chance for error and playback problems. I myself have long burned at 4x even on top quality 8x media. Only lately have i started burning at 8x as my setup & media can sustain it. Also any players i use my burnt discs on (my equipment or other people's) play them with zero problem.

I just can't see if your drive will support 8x media. You can still buy 4x media so i'd look for 4x Verbatim +R datalifeplus discs like i mentioned earlier..

ok, so the point is

DVD+R WILL work? and verbatim / datalifeplus are good brands to get?

ill take a trip downtown in a bit i guess,
thanks alot!

you're quite welcome, i do this partly to keep my brain/knowledge active (which is stupid cus i do Unix support at work). However i watch as many DVDs as i can eat most nights as well as postign on here.

Anyway, one of the things firmware does is educate your burner to recognise different types of media/speeds of media, how fast to write to media blah blah blah. If your firmware is old it can't for instance use or recognise more modern or maybe more obscure media.

Firmware can also make your drive region-free (looks from your screenshot that yours already is region-free - look at the RPC II info at bottom of your scrrenshot) ie you can play/use DVDs from different region (countries) on your drive. The industry don't like that so ppl tweak firmware to allow drives to get around the stupid region protection.

OK, +R as a format WILL work on your drive, however as your firmware is out of date i can't guarantee you won't waste discs if you don't do the firmware. Tell you what you can do, buy 4x datalifeplus (i keep doing that in bold as they are top quality, plain old datalife are generally crap)

Verbatim are one of THE top quality brands you can buy. So is TY (Taiyo Yuden) but thse are faked a lot. You could do lots more searching as there is a resident expert on here who posts like mad on TY media (he even got me buying them and i'm a staunch Verbatim freak). Lite-on drives love Verbatim plus i think you should just get some Verbatim and get burning instead of reading up even more stuff!

When you've got them home, try a 'simulation' burn in Nero, so Nero will go thru the motions and not use the disc. Then we can get at the logfile and see what's what before actually using or wasting any of these quality discs (plus they don't cost any more than crap media by the way)

(phew this is one of the longest posts i've done (no problem i can refer to it at other times and paste the same sort of stuff for other people)

Finally, Nero's logfile is in c:\program files\ahead\nero\nerohistory.log. ALL burns, good and bad are appended to this log, so copy/paste the last section (which would be the simulated burn). Anyway, don't paste your serial number which usually begins with '1A21'. The serial number is a good pointer to look for in the log anyway, as it helps differentiate the sections (ie each section is a different burn)

Hope i've explained all that correctly and you should be burning soon.

ps i got a tip re a simple setting or 2 in Shrink, but i'll add that in a bit

Right, last thing for now.

- this makes sure DVD Shrink limits all movies to 4300MB, therefore not writing to the very edge of a disc. I've always done this and still do it on top quality media as you're hardly sacrificing any space -

last thing i can think of, (honest), just for future reference as the Nero logfile will show these settings anyway -

in Nero info-tool -
click on configuration tab, note down the DMA fields, ie are they on or off


it may be worth clicking on the aspi tab, and note down anything that might be missing