I have the same problem as I see written many times in these forums i.e. I have no problem burning dvd's with Shrink and nero, but sometimes on playback the picture starts to pixellate at about 1hr and 10 mins, shortly thereafter it freezes. Now if I take that same DVD (which is now very hot to the touch) and put it in another (cold) DVD player it continues to play perfectly from the place it froze. Now, the interesting bit, if you put it back into the original player once it has been allowed to cool down, it also plays perfectly from where it froze before!!! Could the laser in the DVD player be affecting the surface of the DVD if it gets too hot? Also, if the DVD is very long, say 3 hours, it often does the same thing in the secong DVD player after about 1hr and 10 mins! I use Ritek G04 discs and burn on a Panasonic LF-D521, Sony DRX-510UL and Pioneer 104. Usually this does not happen if played back on the PC internal DVD player. Some thoughts on this would be very much appreciated. Thanks
you are not alone. i have very same problem. havnt found an answer yet though. be interested to hear what you have tried to solve this i have tried putting couple of pens under dvd player to let some more air circulate seemed to help a little bit.
I just had the same problem with one of my Ritek G04 DVDs. The problem occurs in and around the same point of the show at about 1 hr to 1 hr 15mins into the show. Somewhat consistent but not always. If I take out the disc and clean it and put it back in, it may work flawlessly for that time, but on repeated viewing of the same spot, the pixellation and freezing reoccurs again. This will occur on 2 of my standalones. On my 3rd standalone it plays fine. My dvd burner (BTC 1008IM) plays it fine, but my DVD-ROM on my PC can't even read the disc. The disc was burnt at 2X. Anyone have a solution to this problem?
Hi CSIMMS. Well I have experienced all you say and one other interesting fact. The DVD might completely stick one day and the next day play perfectly. I am totally at a loss now. There seems to be no definite rule of why it happens. It seems to be random chaos? I hope someone out there will find an answer!!!!!
I am happy to be able to say that I have solved my problem with "bad" discs. In troubleshooting, I ran scans for errors using DVDInfoPro of my "bad" discs and found "bad" scans. After scanning all my discs to compare bad vs good scans, I now know a good scan from a bad scan. The disc I spoke of in my previous reply did not have a very good scan, which I can now interpret as a scan relating to poor compatibility with DVD players (i.e. may or may not work in some, but not all players). Futher, I have come to realize that my Iomagic/MagicSpin DVDRW1008IM manufactured by Top-G may not actually be exactly the same as the BTC 1008IM as some others have stated. The reason, I say this is that LiveUpdate kept indicating the most recent firmware update was V0059 (as on the BTC website). However, the Iomagic tech support site indicates V0758 as the most recent firmware, despite their own LiveUpdate indicating BTC V0059 firmware. Upon communicating with Iomagic tech support regarding my bad burning experiences with Ritek G04, I was told to use firmware V0758 instead, which has miraculously solved all my problems. I have re-burnt all bad DVDs with Ritek G04, including the one mentioned in my previous reply, and they are now perfect. Error scans are excellent as compared to previously burnt "bad" DVDs. In summary, my problem now appears to have been a firmware issue. Perhaps it may help to consider doing some error scans of the discs and consider the reliability of the firmware being used. Good luck to you, puppetman!
Are you guys/gals using labels on your DVDs? Problems mentioned are very symptomatic of DVD labels. The glue degrades over time causing heat problems and unbalanced disks - leading to freezing/playback problems.
Thanks for the info, but I have not labeled any of my disks? Although I was seriously considering it.
