trouble getting client final approval

[Ted Hinkle]

Ok the CLient hired me to do an instructional DVD video 3500 copies. I sent them a final copy for approval but the client is claiming that it won't play on their laptop, and that it skips. They wan't it to function on all computers. I tested the DVD on my desktop and set-top player and it functions fine. It's my understanding that DVD are designed to play on set-top players for TV's not solely for computer use. Any thoughts on how I can deal with this client. Is anyone aware of some 3rd party printed info. that could help me.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

What software are you using to master the disc?

 

Part of the issue may be that you are giving them a DVD-R made on your computer. This is usually fine, but there are a lot of DVD devices, both in computers and set top players, which don't like them. You're likely to find that a lot of these issues do go away when you have them glass mastered - but I appreciate this is a probably not much comfort at this stage.

 

When you have the glass masters done you should get a couple (up to five, usually) check disks which should indicate whether there are still problems. Usually the data for the glass master is supplied on DLT or a similar tape format, but I've seen it increasingly being done by making a DVD on a desktop computer and having that duplicated. I think this is a terribly bad idea as you'll just be duplicating all of your problems into the bulk copies. Either do DLT or send them a hard disk with the disc image on it.

 

As for now, all I can say is make copies on various different DVD burners using various different media and at various different write speeds (slowest is not always necessarily best). You may find a combination that's highly reliable, but most likely you'll simply have to tell the client that the preview discs made on your desktop computer are not indicative of the final result.

 

Of course, if you have navigation errors or other procedural problems with the disc, that's an entirely different issue. Adobe Encore DVD does on occasion produce buggy DVD code (particularly if you use its Playlists feature a lot) and that's obviously a completely different issue to having things skip or glitch.

 

Mainly, this is par for the course. I am always at great pains to stress to clients that computer mastered DVDs are not terribly reliable. The check disks should be better - ask the mastering house to verify it all for you.

 

Phil

[Ted Hinkle]

Hi,

 

What software are you using to master the disc?

 

Part of the issue may be that you are giving them a DVD-R made on your computer. This is usually fine, but there are a lot of DVD devices, both in computers and set top players, which don't like them. You're likely to find that a lot of these issues do go away when you have them glass mastered - but I appreciate this is a probably not much comfort at this stage.

 

When you have the glass masters done you should get a couple (up to five, usually) check disks which should indicate whether there are still problems. Usually the data for the glass master is supplied on DLT or a similar tape format, but I've seen it increasingly being done by making a DVD on a desktop computer and having that duplicated. I think this is a terribly bad idea as you'll just be duplicating all of your problems into the bulk copies. Either do DLT or send them a hard disk with the disc image on it.

 

As for now, all I can say is make copies on various different DVD burners using various different media and at various different write speeds (slowest is not always necessarily best). You may find a combination that's highly reliable, but most likely you'll simply have to tell the client that the preview discs made on your desktop computer are not indicative of the final result.

 

Of course, if you have navigation errors or other procedural problems with the disc, that's an entirely different issue. Adobe Encore DVD does on occasion produce buggy DVD code (particularly if you use its Playlists feature a lot) and that's obviously a completely different issue to having things skip or glitch.

 

Mainly, this is par for the course. I am always at great pains to stress to clients that computer mastered DVDs are not terribly reliable. The check disks should be better - ask the mastering house to verify it all for you.

 

Phil

 

 

I am using Adobe Encore 2.0

 

I've asked the client to make sure and test a commercial store bought DVD to compare with. I wouldn't be suprised if it's not playing just because their computers are older and somewhat out of date, it's just that I don't want to step on their toes too much about the equipment their testing the DVD with. It's like biting the hand that feeds you, you know.

 

"make copies on various different DVD burners using various different media and at various different write speeds (slowest is not always necessarily best). "

 

Thanks for the advice It's just that I don't have a bunch of different burners to try on and I don't want to have to send them a bunch of different DVD's. But I might have to swallow my pride and do it anyways.

 

The Glass mastering company says that they won't be able to make a DVD any different or any more playable than the one I send them. CDDigital card. Do you think I should try somewhere else. They don't provide any check discs.

 

I bought a DLT drive just for this project, but I'm getting different opinions even from the Glass Mastering House depending on who I talk to, about whether they make a difference or not. Any comments?

 

I understand that when you send in a DVD-R they pull all the info off the disc that they need. But what can they get from a DLT that they can't from a DVD-R? The final outcome is a DVD#5.

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

I keep several DVD players here for checking client discs, including one that I know is deadly picky about what it plays - so I have a good idea that my DVD-Rs are reasonable. Commercial production houses do the same thing - often having a roomful of players to check that everything works OK. It's a nontrivial issue. Larger houses might have someone whose sole job is DVD QC. Not all players, burners, media are created equal.

 

> I wouldn't be suprised if it's not playing just because their computers are older and somewhat out of date,

 

Much more likely that it's just a dodgily-burned DVD-R, in which case the commercial disc is liable to work fine. Try different brands of discs. Surely you can drag up a few friends' laptops to burn trial discs on?

 

> They don't provide any check discs.

 

What, not even after having made the glass master? That's insane.

 

> The Glass mastering company says that they won't be able to make a DVD any different or any more

> playable than the one I send them.

 

Yeah, but you're not sending them a DVD, are you, you're sending them a magtape.

 

> But what can they get from a DLT that they can't from a DVD-R? The final outcome is a DVD#5.

 

Error-free data. All DVD-R discs rely to some extent on error correction; you don't want to be duplicating that, because by the time you've had one or two of the errors on the dupe line up with the errors on the master, you've got an unrecoverable error and a glitch in playback. DVD-R is not a mastering format. The only way I've ever sent DVD-Rs to mastering is where the DVD is less than the size of a DVD-R data disc, and I've then sent three or four copies of the disc with a diff utility and instructions to use whichever images agree bit for bit.

 

Phil

[Ted Hinkle]

The only way I've ever sent DVD-Rs to mastering is where the DVD is less than the size of a DVD-R data disc, and I've then sent three or four copies of the disc with a diff utility and instructions to use whichever images agree bit for bit.

 

Phil

 

 

My project takes up 3.45 GB of the 4.7GD DVD disc. How do you do this? Do you send in an iso. file or vob.?

[Ted Hinkle]

I've seen comments of other first timers sending in a DLT and having problems with errors on their master.

I'm hoping to get my client to approve before I send in the DLT to replication facility, and I found a company that can send me check discs once I do it, but I think it will be a much easier process if I can get them to approve and pay before I send in for replication. That way I won't have to front the money and I'm half debating whether I should even try if I can't get approval. It might be better for us to take the deposit and scrap the project. I've read a few nightmare stories about first timers sending DLT's and getting check discs that don't work.

 

What happens when you send in a DLT that doesn't work or that gets errors? Does the glass mastering house add charges?

[Phil Rhodes]

Hi,

 

Yes, you can send an .iso, and it seems that yours will fit on a DVD-R data disc. The nice thing about doing that is that you then get all the error checking and compensation of the DVD filesystem in addition to that inherent to the optical disc format itself. You can send a couple of copies and have the facility check that they agree bit for bit. This will be seen as a slightly unusual way to proceed, and you may have to do a bit of persuasion, but it's perfectly valid.

 

But let's be super, ultra clear on this. There are two ways you can screw up a DVD:

 

1) Coding errors produced by the authoring software. The DVD navigation coding system is nontrivial and certainly Encore is perfectly capable of producing duff code. Variances in players may make them react differently to buggy navigation code. This will manifest itself as things like menu items not linking properly, chapters stopping playback halfway through, wrong language tracks being selected, wrong aspect ratio, etc etc.

 

2) Formatting or other hardware-based errors which can be produced by the authoring app, DVD writer firmware, media faults, or frankly just sheer bloody-mindedness of certain writer/media/reader combinations. This stuff just happens with DVD-R discs and if this is what's going on, it's not unusual. If I am delivering DVD-R preview discs to a client at any point I go to great pains to explain that things may not be exactly as anticipated due to these factors. You can't fix this; it just happens. DVD-R discs are fundamentally different to a properly pressed DVD-Video disc. It is usually quite easy to find players that don't like a certain DVD-R disc on certain days of the week. This sort of fault will manifest itself as glitches, freezing and skipping in playback, pops and clicks on the audio, abrupt returns-to-menu, or the player refusing to play the disc outright.

 

Assuming you are confident that it isn't down to item 1, which you can control, the job becomes one of ensuring that the formatting or media glitches of item 2 do not get through to the master disc. For this reason, obviously the last thing you want to do is to create a DVD-R video disc and attempt to duplicate it. You need to put as many layers of error correction in the way as humanly possible (zipping or TARring the ISO is one way to do so, although it won't get you any significant compression), but the absolute best way I know of is to make several ISOs on different DVDs on different media on different burners and persuade the mastering house to check them for bit-for-bit identicality before making the glass master. Beyond that, I can't really help you.

 

Phil