Hey there, I've read through a lot of forums and seen similar problems that I have. I've noticed that the responses seem consistent. I have tried many of these solutions yet I'm still having problems, ok. My Dvd burner used to work awesome. It's a Creative DVD+/-RW 8x. I use Verbatim DVD+R and DVD+RW's. What happens is I burn the DVD with DVD Decrypter and it says that it was burned successfully. When I play the disc on my DVD player 2 things tend to happen. Either the disc plays fine for about an hour then starts to skip and scramble --or-- it skips and scrambles through the whole movie. I've tried many different movies and arrive at the same results. Like I said, I use Verbatim discs, and they've worked before and this is the same batch that I'm now having problems with, so I'm kinda ruling out the fact that it's the media. Other things I've tried: 1) Burning slower - I used to burn at 4x with no problems, now I get problems even if i burn on 1x. 2) Freeing Up Memory - I close as many background programs as I can, and I also read that Antivirus programs good mess with the burn process so I disabled Norton. 3) Dirty Lens - I've used a CD-Rom cleaner many times and it doesn't help. I've also burned some video CD's with my dvd burner using CD-R's and those play fine. I'm not sure what is wrong but for the last few months my burner seems useless for DVD's. Any help will be much appreciated, Thank You. ~Fred
Have you tried playback on different DVD players? DVD players have differing sensitivities to different media - I have found el cheapo Chinese players to be the most reliable. From previous posting - methods I have found successful. Almost daily there are posts in relation to DVD playback - generally in relation to skipping/freezing of DVD's on playback. While these posts have been answered many hundreds of times over a wide variety of threads/topics, the question continues to reappear (generally due to inabilty to use search button at top of page or to read/comprehend previous threads/answers). Listed below is my recipe for successful DVD burning - Have burnt between 500 and 1000 without any major burning or playback problems. People are free to accept or reject this advice - it is not prescriptive, merely advisory and has worked very well for me. 1. Do not use labels on burnt media. 2. Keep your hard drive defragmented. 3. Ensure you have plently of free hard disk space. 4. Ensure you do not have sypware/virus on your system. 5. Keep you start up menu lean and clean. 6. Use a program such as HijackThis to ensure your start up log is lean and clean. 7. Avoid conflicting programs on your system e.g., Nero/Roxio do not play well together - choose one only. 8. Avoid the use of packet writing software e.g, INCD, Direct CD. 9. Avoid multi-tasking when ripping/encoding/burning. 10. Do not install problematic programs such as Interactual Movie Player and remove from system if installed. 11. Do not burn too fast (max 4x recommended). 12. Ensure definitions for virus and spyware programs are up to date. 13. Avoid burning unnecessary extras - do movie only in reauthor mode if using DVD Shrink <http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/dvd_shrink.cfm>. 14. Use brand name, quality players for burning - e.g., Plextor, Pioneer, Lite-On etc. 15. Use an el cheapo Asian/Chinese standalone for playback - they are much more versitile and reliable than name brands and normaly handle both Pal and NTSC formats. 16. Use quality DVD media - Ritek, Verbatim, TY's recommended. 17. Reduce target size of burnt DVD to approx 4400 if using DVD Shrink. 18. Store safely and keep away from children. 19. Be very wary of downloaded movies - in most cases they are not worth the time or effort to reproduce. 20. Ensure that DMA mode is enabled in your system settings. 21. Load and skip through chapters on computer DVD player (e.g, Power DVD, WinDVD) prior to burning. My System Specs (don't laugh) PIII - 800 - 256Mb Ram Programs used: DVD Shrink (98%), DVD Decrypter (approx 2%), Nero (almost 100%) for burning. Success rate: 99% plus. Burner: Pioneer 106D ROM: JLMS - Lite-On Rip/Encode time: Between 10 and 50 minutes (depending on movie) - normally under 35 minutes. Burn Time: Between 12 and 15 minutes.
Actually, I thought I tried everything but then I forgot to check if DMA was enabled, sure enough it wasn't. I uninstalled and reinstalled and the burner works like new. Thanks.
Labels affect playback in several ways. The 2 most common are making the disc off balance causing it to wobble. It can also absorb extra heat causing the disc to warp. DMA is Direct Memory Access. Its the fastest way to transfer data between devices. Jerry
