A DVD-R Disc Question Please

[leon]

Hi Guys,

I understand that their is different quality in most things we purchase, which would include i expect DVD Discs.

I am seeking out the best quality disc for burning home made movies too.

Would anyone here recommend any particular DVD-R Disc compared to another.

I burnt one yesterday and the output was terrible, so ended up putting it to a USB and the difference was just amazing.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Leon

[BeanerSA (Paul)]

Just talking about disc quality, I have always had good long term results with Verbatim media. This won't make any difference to how the movie "looks" though. You have some other issue going on there.

[sil (Steve)]

Originally Posted by BeanerSA

This won't make any difference to how the movie "looks" though. You have some other issue going on there.

Yep its not a disc issue (TDK for me)

[Merlin66 (Ken)]

It also depends on the software you're using to burn to the disk - Nero etc.

[leon]

OK, Thanks for that I will look at the burning software and/or the actual DVD burner/writer unit.

Thank you.

Leon

[AstralTraveller (David)]

If the laser in the burner is getting old and/or the optics are dirty that can cause issues. Generally, though, affected discs either play or they don't and you get 'disc is unreadable' sort of errors.

[leon]

Yes, thanks David, i do suspect that the unit is pretty ordinary, I will try it with an other burner and see the difference if any.

Leon

[BeanerSA (Paul)]

It's more likely an encoding issue. And DVD source material is 576 (in PAL), but the file on your USB could be 720 or 1080, or more lines.

[pluto (Hugh)]

As Paul mentioned below it's most likely that this is a video format/quality issue.

When you're thinking about a DVD for video there are a couple of ways of thinking about it. The first way is simply as a data disc, so you would just burn your video file to the disc in the same way that you would copy it to a usb stick.

The other way to think about it is like a DVD that you might buy with a movie on it that will play in your DVD player. When thinking about it this way a PAL DVD has a standard video format that it works with - that is MPEG2 at 720x576. If you are taking a video from any recent video camera/DSLR/phone then the video is very likely much higher resolution than a DVD - probably either 1280x720 (720p) or 1920x1080 (1080p).
So the reduction in quality is due to a a limitation of the DVD video format (and possibly also due to the losses incured by recompressing an already compressed video).

I'm not sure what software you've used to burn your disc but it sounds like it has taken your video file and re-encoded it into the PAL format and burnt the disc as a video DVD as opposed to just burning (read copying) your file to the disc in the same way as you've copied it to your usb stick.

If you don't care if it plays on a traditional stand-alone DVD player then just burn the files to the disc as data, or copy them to usb sticks.

If you do want a disc that people can play, and you want to keep the quality, then you'll need a Blu-Ray burner and use Blu-Ray discs. Blu-Ray video discs use high quality 1080p video (and some new ones in 4k).

The quality of the burner and the discs really has no impact on the quality of the video (though it will impact things like reliability and longevity) - data is data - it either works or it doesn't and if it hasn't worked then your video will either not play or will stop-and-start and skip.
The main factor in the video quality of a DVD video will be the software that encodes the video - in this case that sounds like the burning software.

[Tandum (Robin)]

Turn the burn speed down if you can.

[leon]

Thanks Hugh, a very comprehensive response and one that makes sense, not that the other responses weren't very helpful.
I do understand what you are saying, thank you.

Leon

[leon]

Well I did a few test runs at different speeds etc and although a marked improvement and going from NTSC to Pal also helped, however far short of the MP4 output one gets from the USB.

Anyway this information has given me a new out look on how it actually all works instead of just shoving in a disc and accepting the end result.

Thank You to all for your help

Leon

[leon]

Just to let you know what I am doing, and the need for a good DVD output.

I have a program that lets me put together a photo slide show with all effects, music, and any other thing that i can think of.

I can even add videos to it and content from other devices the results are just awesome and very professional looking.

At the end of creating this video it asks if i would like to publish it giving me heaps of options, and then it produces the end result in MP4 format, which gives brilliant results if loaded to a USB, but it has trouble when i want it burned to a DVD Disc.

I can create a IOS data Image File, no worries, but i have nothing to burn it with so to speak.

So if I had an other burning device, say a Blue Ray and used appropriate disc's would this sort out the problem, maybe.

Or maybe a version of Nero so that I could send this Image File to and burn it there at a higher rate,

Leon

[pluto (Hugh)]

I assume this is to distribute to friends and family?
If so it's about how you think they'll view it and I would think that these days more people would be able to view it on their computer/tablet than have an DVD player?.

Personally I would just share that original MP4 file with them either by copying it to a usb drive or something or uploading it somewhere, perhaps Dropbox, and offering a download link so that people could download it to their computer/tablet and view it.
The other option I would look at is uploading the video to Youtube or Vimeo (and make it private if it's not something you want to share with the world). Then you can just share the link and password and anyone can view it on any computer/tablet/phone that can connect to the internet.

[redbeard (Damien)]

Originally Posted by leon

Just to let you know what I am doing, and the need for a good DVD output.

I have a program that lets me put together a photo slide show with all effects, music, and any other thing that i can think of.

I can even add videos to it and content from other devices the results are just awesome and very professional looking.

At the end of creating this video it asks if i would like to publish it giving me heaps of options, and then it produces the end result in MP4 format, which gives brilliant results if loaded to a USB, but it has trouble when i want it burned to a DVD Disc.

I can create a IOS data Image File, no worries, but i have nothing to burn it with so to speak.

So if I had an other burning device, say a Blue Ray and used appropriate disc's would this sort out the problem, maybe.

Or maybe a version of Nero so that I could send this Image File to and burn it there at a higher rate,

Leon

What software are you using?

[leon]

Thanks Hugh, I do think you are right, it is just for family and friends, and most have devices that can handle it.

Thank You, for your assistance.

And to you Damien, the program is called ProShow Gold, and I reckon it is pretty good.

http://www.toptenreviews.com/softwar...show-software/


Leon