Sending DVDs overseas
L.A.T.
local program from free-to-air TV to its HDD and then copy that program to
a DVD, that DVD is playable on friends' equipment in the U.S. Sometimes it
wont't play. It must be a problem with the region, but it is not consistent.
I assume that a DVD that is created on this device is coded as region 4. Is
there a way to write a DVD as "ALL"?
I stress that some DVDs that we write will play in the U.S. and some won't.
It seems to be random. Is there a way to ensure that we can write a readable
DVD? Have we just bought the wrong machine?
Yes, I have read the manual. Over and over. It is truly dreadful.
Sylvia Else
I'll assume that you're aware that what you're doing is a breach of
copyright, but are unconcerned.
It's not going to be a region coding issue. If it were, then none of the
DVDs would play in the US.
Have you tried getting a 'failed' DVD back from the US and playing it on
another DVD player here in Australia?
What sequence of operations are you using to copy to DVD?
Sylvia.
Mr.T
"L.A.T." <tt...@ispdr.net.au> wrote in message
news:W0%Wm.63233$ze1....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
I doubt it is a region problem, more likely the Panasonics notorious
inability to write disks readable by many players other than Panasonic.
Try the disk on a dozen players here in Australia, I bet you find it wont
play on quite a few of those either.
MrT.
David L. Jones
It won't be a region coding issue, just the usual compatibility problems
across burners and readers. Some burners produce disc that aren't very
compatible.
Dual layer or single?, single is more reliable.
Are you "closing" or "finalising" the disc?
Can you simply send as an MP4 file on a data disc instead?
Dave.
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David Eather
I've done this before. make sure you close/finalize the DVD on the
recorder. then take the disk to your PC and run DVD Shrink v3.2 and set
it to region free.
L.A.T.
"David Eather" <eat...@tpg.com.au> wrote in message
news:0YSdnV4y25CXc7HW...@supernews.com...
Yes, I finalise the DVDs and test them on the only other player I have
access to.
No, I have no qualms of guilt about sending DVDs of footy matches to
America.
I will look at DVD Shrink later today.
Sylvia Else
I think it would be worth while obtained a failed one from the USA. I've
seen DVDs deteriorate after burning - you might find that although it
worked when you tried it, it no longer works.
In that regard, with burnable DVDs, to some extent you get what you pay
for. They're not all the same.
Sylvia.
Sylvia Else
In the OPs situation, I can't see that DVD Shrink is going to be a
solution. Why would only some of the DVDs he burns end up with an
unsuitable region?
Sylvia.
kreed
I think you are better off saving it as an AVI, MPEG (or whatever)
file and sending like that
those formats are universal through the world, and will play on any
computer, and a lot of modern DVD players too.
Something like VLC media player will play just about any video format
you can find, maybe suggest this also.
DVD shrink can "rebuild" the DVD into a smaller file, this process
might also fix errors along the way ?
kreed
I wouldn't rely on these things for archival purpose, or general use
for anything important.
I had about 100 archived, and found after a few months, about 10% had
at least one error.
Believe it or not, trying different DVD readers (even of same brand
and model) did manage to recover nearly everything (with a lot of
trouble and time).
Come to think it it, this might be the problem here.
> In that regard, with burnable DVDs, to some extent you get what you pay
> for. They're not all the same.
>
very true.
> Sylvia.
Clint Sharp
<b7970628-9d7e-4f3c...@z4g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
kreed <kenre...@gmail.com> writes
>I think you are better off saving it as an AVI, MPEG (or whatever)
>file and sending like that
>those formats are universal through the world, and will play on any
>computer, and a lot of modern DVD players too.
it's not universal, you rely on the media player having the correct
codec or being able to obtain it.
>
>Something like VLC media player will play just about any video format
>you can find, maybe suggest this also.
>
>DVD shrink can "rebuild" the DVD into a smaller file, this process
>might also fix errors along the way ?
--
Clint Sharp
kreed
> In message
> <b7970628-9d7e-4f3c-b4cb-293189511...@z4g2000prh.googlegroups.com>,
> kreed <kenreed1...@gmail.com> writes>I think you are better off saving it as an AVI, MPEG (or whatever)
> >file and sending like that
>
> MPEG2 for preference, every DVD player in the world should support that.>those formats are universal through the world, and will play on any
> >computer, and a lot of modern DVD players too.
>
> AVI is just a container, the content can use a wide range of codecs so
> it's not universal, you rely on the media player having the correct
> codec or being able to obtain it.
>
> >Something like VLC media player will play just about any video format
> >you can find, maybe suggest this also.
>
> Again, if you have the correct codecs installed.
>
not much it wont play. - and it is free.
Things like windows media player are a PITA, unless you are able to
download and install the codecs. This
might be too difficult for the recipients (for all I know), hence the
suggestion to use VLC that is easy to download, install and use.
Sylvia Else
> On Dec 19, 5:11 pm, "L.A.T." <t...@ispdr.net.au> wrote:
>> We have a Panasonic DVD recorder Model DMR-EX75. Sometimes when we record a
>> local program from free-to-air TV to its HDD and then copy that program to
>> a DVD, that DVD is playable on friends' equipment in the U.S. Sometimes it
>> wont't play. It must be a problem with the region, but it is not consistent.
>> I assume that a DVD that is created on this device is coded as region 4. Is
>> there a way to write a DVD as "ALL"?
>> I stress that some DVDs that we write will play in the U.S. and some won't.
>> It seems to be random. Is there a way to ensure that we can write a readable
>> DVD? Have we just bought the wrong machine?
>> Yes, I have read the manual. Over and over. It is truly dreadful.
>
> I think you are better off saving it as an AVI, MPEG (or whatever)
> file and sending like that
> those formats are universal through the world, and will play on any
> computer, and a lot of modern DVD players too.
As far as I can see from the owner's manual, the OPs recorder doesn't
have that ability. It will only write in "DVD" format.
http://panasonic.com.au/content/library/files/F001834.pdf
Sylvia.
kreed
Record to a rewritable DVD and then convert it to the required format
on a PC.
AVS video converter is one way to do it.
Re-use the DVD RW as required.
Sylvia Else
>> In that regard, with burnable DVDs, to some extent you get what you pay
>> for. They're not all the same.
>>
> very true.
>
>> Sylvia.
>
I should add that the same applies to CD-ROMs, even though I've found
them to be more reliable. One that I burnt 9 years ago has become
unreadable by virtue of the fact that the recording medium is peeling
off the disk. Fortunately, the data is long past its use-by date.
For the record, the brand was EMTEC.
Sylvia.
Sylvia Else
If they're anything like the CD-RWs, they're a pain because of the time
taken to erase them prior to reuse.
Sylvia.
kreed
IIRC you can do a "fast erase" that just does the first track/TOC ?
rather than the entire disc.
L.A.T.
snip
> As far as I can see from the owner's manual, the OPs recorder doesn't have
> that ability. It will only write in "DVD" format.
>
> http://panasonic.com.au/content/library/files/F001834.pdf
>
> Sylvia.
Mr.T
"kreed" <kenre...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:50634e5d-c22d-422d...@f20g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
> Record to a rewritable DVD and then convert it to the required format
> on a PC.
> AVS video converter is one way to do it.
> Re-use the DVD RW as required.
Surprisingly enough mine won't finalise a DVD-RW, only a DVD-R, and that is
deliberate for some reason. (probably more copyright bullshit)
Not sure whether that applies to the OP's recorder.
MrT.
Mr.T
> I had about 100 archived, and found after a few months, about 10% had
> at least one error.
> Believe it or not, trying different DVD readers (even of same brand
> and model) did manage to recover nearly everything (with a lot of
> trouble and time).
Had the same problem with a Lite-On burner. Switched to a Pioneer and no
more problems.
What many people blame on DVD's in general, is often down to lousy burners
IME. Always test your combination of burner and media for *actual* error
rate (not just the unrecoverable ones) before relying on them to last 5
minutes.
MrT.
kreed
> "kreed" <kenreed1...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Strangely most of the DVD's in question were burnt on a Pioneer burner
(circa 2004)
and read back on LG burners (made 2008-9). We had a box of new burners
available at the time, and I connected 2 of them up to each of our 3
comps at work to get all the DVD's read as fast as possible and later
shifted via the network onto a 1tb hard drive.
At this time, I found that the discs that wouldn't read, invariably
would (took 10 minutes in some cases to do it but it worked) when
tried on another of the LG units. There was no visible damage to the
discs, they were mostly Verbatim brand.
It wasn't one particular LG drive that was "bad" either. Some discs
seemed to "like" certain units more than others.
Cant do any other tests on the discs, they were smashed up and dumped
being successfully read.
kreed
> "kreed" <kenreed1...@gmail.com> wrote in message
Time for a TV card for the PC I think.
Then all these problems are gone.
David Eather
Using DVD Shrink takes the important finalize functions out of the
hands of the user of the DVD recorder and puts it in the hands of a
repeatable, reliable program writing on a highly compatible DVD drive.
The unsuitable region may just be a result of this incompatibility or a
user error with the recorder. (and I assume the two of them have worked
out the DVD-RAM, +R, -R issues)
Sylvia Else
The OPs recorder does the finalise automatically in the case of copying
a single recording to disk, which sounds like what the OP is doing. I
would expect it to work, or not work, consistently.
That's why I asked what sequence of steps the OP is using (he never
replied). There is a more advance menu for writing multiple recordings
to one disk where there is more scope for fogetting to do the finalise.
I would assume (perhaps wrongly) that the OP is using a stock of
identical writeable DVDs for this purpose, so the RAM, +R, -R issue
should show up on all, or none.
I suspect a media quality issue is behind this.
Sylvia.
David Eather
I had access to a panasoinc DVD recorder in a shared house (sorry don't
know the model). Media quality may well have been an issue, but our
problems were only solved after "re mastering" on a PC.
>
> Sylvia.
Bob Larter
Your problem is nothing to do with region-coding. Most likely, you're
using cheap & nasty DVDs. I recommend the gold TDKs.
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L.A.T.
"Sylvia Else" <syl...@not.at.this.address> wrote in message
news:008f8f1a$0$8185$c3e...@news.astraweb.com...
> David Eather wrote:
>> Sylvia Else wrote:
>>> David Eather wrote:
>>>> L.A.T. wrote:
>>>>> We have a Panasonic DVD recorder Model DMR-EX75. Sometimes when we
>>>>> record a local program from free-to-air TV to its HDD and then copy
>>>>> that program to a DVD, that DVD is playable on friends' equipment in
>>>>> the U.S. Sometimes it wont't play. It must be a problem with the
>>>>> region, but it is not consistent. I assume that a DVD that is created
>>>>> on this device is coded as region 4. Is there a way to write a DVD as
>>>>> "ALL"?
>>>>> I stress that some DVDs that we write will play in the U.S. and some
>>>>> won't. It seems to be random. Is there a way to ensure that we can
>>>>> write a readable DVD? Have we just bought the wrong machine?
>>>>> Yes, I have read the manual. Over and over. It is truly dreadful.
snip>
The OPs recorder does the finalise automatically in the case of copying
> a single recording to disk, which sounds like what the OP is doing. I
> would expect it to work, or not work, consistently.
>
> That's why I asked what sequence of steps the OP is using (he never
> replied).
I thought I did reply. :(
I record the program (in which our team usually gets done) to the HDD of the
DVD recorder.
There aren't many options.
I then write that file to the DVD. The file is long enough for the box to
write the DVD at real-time speed. (not speeded up).
The box finalises the DVD without intervention.
One part of the problem is solved: One of the recipients who couldn't read
the disks and then could read them, had used DVD-ulocker to converrt his
DVD reader to multi-region.
One other recipient has discovered he can play the disks in his desktop.
We have used DVD-unlocker to convert our reader to multi-region, so we can
read anything these guys send us in return.
Swanny
The speed at which it is burnt will also affect the readability of the
disc. Too slow a speed and you will get smearing from overexposure of
the dyes.