I dont know what I am doing wrong, but I am using this program called "cucusoft avi to dvd creator pro" to make playable dvds out of my avi files. The discs seem to play fine in my home dvd player but it wont play in the Z1. Does anyone have any ideas on what is going on? I dont have many legit dvds and it would really be great to watch something else. Maybe someone can recommend another program too.

When I create DVD's I use TMPGENC and either their DVD creator or IFO EDIT. TMPGEnc is the best anything to MPEG2 converter. Then their DVD author software is pretty good or IFOEDIT works too.

I haven't heard of the tool you are using. And I play a bunch of burned disks in the Z1. It could also be your brand. I use Riteks, Verbatim also work too.

Ok i downloaded the software you told me, but now I keep getting an error saying that there is no audio in my source. What is going on? I converted it to mpeg and then from there use the dvd burning software to convert it.

Ok i downloaded the software you told me, but now I keep getting an error saying that there is no audio in my source. What is going on? I converted it to mpeg and then from there use the dvd burning software to convert it.

Do you have the proper audio codecs installed on your PC for a quality convert? Use GSpot to detect what form of audio (mpg3, aac, etc) and video (divx, mpg1, mpg2, etc) is encoded. GSpot will also tell you if the right audio codec is installed. You might have a codec for a different stream that might be able to play the audio for you, but no properly function when re-encoding to MPG2 DVD's.

(GSpot is a free program. http://www.headbands.com/gspot/)

Something else with TMPGEnc, you want to go into the options and the right tab wich is VSPXX something like that with letters. You want to find the "Direct Show" option and right click on it a few times and click on "increase priority" till it goes from -1 to +1 or something like that. Otherwise it will have issues opening some files even with a codec installed.

use DVD Shrink (free program.. search the net) to rip the dvd...

then use NERO to burn it... 100% of my burned dvds work..


ps: when it comes to buying blank dvds... you get what you pay for... spend the extra 10$ and get good ones.. it is worth it in the long run.. (this is from experience of 2000+ burnt dvds)

Plus, if when using DVD Shrink, the original movie is too big to fit on your DVD, use DVD Decryptor (check out the net again) in addition to Shrink and Nero to fix the problem.

-Litos

While DVD shrink and Decrypter are great programs for copying a DVD, the original question was for making AVI files into DVD's and DVD shrink and decrypter will not do it, just make a copy of a purchased DVD.

Absolutely Ducati. That's where Netflix comes in nicely here ;)

alright so i just got my avic today and for some reason it won't play my burnt dvds...i had an alpine iva d310 before and it played them all...even my regular dvd player plays the dvds..what gives? i do the dvd shrink/nero method and i have verbatim dvds any clues?

anyone with this prob? or tell me what u use to burn dvd

You may use Verbatum DVDs but the question is what format? DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW? I have found that DVD-R will play in just about everything imaginable.

Yah, in my posts I have already stated what I use (program wise) to burn DVD's.

I guess you have to figure out what part of this problem you are having. DVD's are amazingly complicated things.

You can have:

1. Format incompatibilities between players (-R, +R, -RW, +RW),

2. Media incompatibilities (plays Riteks but not Verbatum or vise versa),

3. Content problems (if you are creating your own DVD and its not a valid vob file setup or the video is encoded at a wrong resolution or frame rate or whatever).

If you are just copying DVD's which I do to have in the car cause I don't want origianls in the car (scratching or theft or poor handling of any kind). Then #3 is taken care of. Usually a purchased dvd or copy of one is created correctly.

So your problem is #2 or #1. Like bdmpastx, I believe that -R usually play in about anything. Although since Dell put their weight behind the +R's more and more players will take that. My parrents Samsung DVD player will play +R's prefectly and -R's tend to skip and pause randomly. But -R's seem to work just fine in the Z1.

As for #2, I like Ritek and have for a zillion years (or 3-4 or whenever they started selling DVD blanks). I tend to get mine from www.shop4tech.com they seemed to have a decent selection and free shipping. I have only tried Ritek (or now called Ridata) and Verbatum because since I have owned the Z1 the only disks I have to burn are those and they work really well for me. I would get the -R's.

If you are making a DVD out of an AVI file then #3 comes into play. You need to convert them to MPeg2 and then make a dvd out of them and I already covered those tools in post 2, generally it doesn't matter what program you use to burn the disk as long as the files you are burning are DVD complient. Also if you are using Nero, make sure you set up your new compliation as a DVD Video not a DVD Data disk, some players won't like the file settings on DVD data disk. That caused a problem with a buddy of mine and my old Duabrand walmart cheapo portable.

also make sure you have selected dvd video and not dvd rom

DVD shrink will do it all (to the point i was making, that may not have been on point to the OP)...


Put in your dvd, open dvd shrink... go to Re-author.... then what i do is, take off ALL of the menus, and just put the main movie file in... then you go to custom ratios.... and shrink the file to about 4.3 gigs..... and rip it...

when you burn it with nero... you just add the video FOLDER....

your finished DVD comes out... u put it into your dvd player.. and it STARTS the movie.. no menus, no hoopla, no hassle.. JUST the movie... i like that 10023984039284times better..

i found out what the problem was...when i put the dvds in they were memorex dvd-rs and i forgot i had used 2 different kinds of media and soo i put a verbatim one in and it worked...so it seems like memorx sucks or its prolly just me lol

thanks for the response guys

One important thing everyone overlooked (I am surprised no one else mentioned it before) is that most DVD players do not play some media not because they cannot, but because they "think" they cannot. I'll explain:

All media is indexed with something called a BOOKTYPE. This means that it reports what kind of media it is, kinda like a signature.

Most players will read the booktype of a disk (CD/CD+R/CD-R/DVD ROM/ DVD+R/DVD-R/ etc...) and compare it with an internal "supported" formats list, and if there is no match they will not even ATTEMPT to play the media!!! The disk will be considered unreadable.

To get around this ( had to use this trick to get my DVD's to play in the Z1 ) you can change the booktype of media. Remember however that a booktype change is only possible with DVD+R or DVD+R DL media. CD+R or CD+RW will not work ( not that I know of anyway )

A lot of the better DVD burners ( BenQ for example ) supply a nice utility to force the drive in booktyping mode to always burn DVD+R and DVD+R DL as the factory pressed "DVD ROM" booktype.

DVD ROM is the UNIVERSALLY suported media format that ALL DVD players will play, regardless! Keep in mind that you still need a properly created DVD with both the "AUDIO_TS" and "VIDEO_TS" folders and the correct VOB encodding. Encryption does NOT come into play here.

HERE is a utility to enable this on you NEC drive. Simmilar utilities and fixed firmware options exist for most DVD burners to enable booktyping, among other cool things... :-) But this is dangerous so do this at your own risk!!

Ideal burning scenario for Video DVD's is:

- Burn at fastest reliable speed
- Burn with Verify ON
- Burn with DVD ROM Booktype Set on the Drive
- Burn to DVD+R or DVD+R DL media
- Burn to quality media like Verbatim
- Burn in the proper DVD format
- Ensure your content is encoded in proper DVD format.

Watch out for DTS only movies and remember that while the above will get you going 90% of the time, there is no 100% sucess rate with burned medias going beyond booktype some DVD player lasers will not like all media brands.

P.S. Booktyping works so well that I used to make backups of all my AVIC-N1 DVD9 media using DVD+R DL and ran only off of the backups to avoid damaging the originals. Without booktyping this would have never worked....

SemoTech said:

One important thing everyone overlooked (I am surprised no one else mentioned it before) is that most DVD players do not play some media not because they cannot, but because they "think" they cannot. I'll explain:

All media is indexed with something called a BOOKTYPE. This means that it reports what kind of media it is, kinda like a signature.

Most players will read the booktype of a disk (CD/CD+R/CD-R/DVD ROM/ DVD+R/DVD-R/ etc...) and compare it with an internal "supported" formats list, and if there is no match they will not even ATTEMPT to play the media!!! The disk will be considered unreadable.

To get around this ( had to use this trick to get my DVD's to play in the Z1 ) you can change the booktype of media. Remember however that a booktype change is only possible with DVD+R or DVD+R DL media. CD+R or CD+RW will not work ( not that I know of anyway )

A lot of the better DVD burners ( BenQ for example ) supply a nice utility to force the drive in booktyping mode to always burn DVD+R and DVD+R DL as the factory pressed "DVD ROM" booktype.

DVD ROM is the UNIVERSALLY suported media format that ALL DVD players will play, regardless! Keep in mind that you still need a properly created DVD with both the "AUDIO_TS" and "VIDEO_TS" folders and the correct VOB encodding. Encryption does NOT come into play here.

HERE is a utility to enable this on you NEC drive. Simmilar utilities and fixed firmware options exist for most DVD burners to enable booktyping, among other cool things... :-) But this is dangerous so do this at your own risk!!

Ideal burning scenario for Video DVD's is:

- Burn at fastest reliable speed
- Burn with Verify ON
- Burn with DVD ROM Booktype Set on the Drive
- Burn to DVD+R or DVD+R DL media
- Burn to quality media like Verbatim
- Burn in the proper DVD format
- Ensure your content is encoded in proper DVD format.

Watch out for DTS only movies and remember that while the above will get you going 90% of the time, there is no 100% sucess rate with burned medias going beyond booktype some DVD player lasers will not like all media brands.

P.S. Booktyping works so well that I used to make backups of all my AVIC-N1 DVD9 media using DVD+R DL and ran only off of the backups to avoid damaging the originals. Without booktyping this would have never worked....

http://www.k-probe.com/bitsetting-booktype-faq.php