DVD Problems

[hypernova]

Well, I'm not here to discuss the morals of what I'm doing.  That's a fun conversation that's taken place many many times already on these boards, in one form or another.  Anyway, here's my problem:

I'm on the Blockbuster online deal with the mailed movies and such.  The movies themselves play fine.  However, there's so many movies I want to watch/catch up on, that I decided I'd copy them, so when I do have the spare time to catch a flick, the movie will be there.

Only problem, is when I go and copy them, when I go to watch the DVD-R I put it on, sometimes I'll get garbage displayed, plus the sound fruits out.  Like I said, the original discs play fine.  I clean them ALL before attempting to copy them.  I'm wondering what my problem is.  Here are the specifics to help me figure out what my options are:

I have a Sony dual VCR/DVD combo player as my main player.  I also have a PS2.  And finally I have a Sony disc burner in my PC.  (Didn't realize until a few months ago I had all Sony crap...won't do that again.)

So anywho, sometimes, when I burn a disc, and I go to watch it later, it'll garbage up on the combo player.  Tried the PS2, but it does relatively the same thing, in the same spots, though seemingly not as much.  However, when I use my PC, it plays flawlessly so far.

Take Children of Men.  It boogered up on the other two pieces of equipment at around the "car ambush" sequence.  Since I really wanted to see this, I finished it on the PC.  Fortunately, with no problems.  Good movie, by the way. 
Now, strangely, this disc I copied this from looked relatively decent.  There were no major scratches, but being a mail disc, it had quite many of those seemingly cosmetic scratches (and it's only a few weeks old.)  I had a SkipDr. to help combat this stuff, but didn't think I'd need it on this.  So for now, I suppose I'll just start resurfacing most everything I get.

I'd rather not have to do this.  I've used laser lens duster on both the player and recorder to ensure they're clean.  Didn't really have much effect when I did it at the time.

If I try to surf the net while I'm copying a movie, do you think that'll have an impact on the burning?  I figured my 3.2 Intel would perform fine while doing just those two tasks.  But maybe not.  I'll refrain from doing anything while copying something.

How about my player and burner though?  What are everyone's experiences with different brands of these things?  I was informed by a coworker that they have better experience with lower brand name DVD players when their Sony would garbage up.

I would figure that if the problem was with the writer burning bad data, that all players would end up garbaging in the same place.  But they don't.  Any ideas?  Should I get a new laser lens duster?  The one we have is pretty old.

[boykster]

Have you tried burning the DVD at a slower or faster speed?

Have you tried a different brand of media?

Have you tried burning +R instead of -R?

All pretty easy things to try without much investment.  If the copy plays fine on the PC, then I doubt it's a "data" problem, ie you made a "good" copy of the source data.

[hyiu]

if you burn at too high speed, cheap players will not play it right towards the end of the movie...

I would suggest you use 16x dvd-r, and burn it at 4x speed. program like dvddecrypter has like "burn proof" checkbox, you might want to click that...

get decent brand DVD-Rs, not the cheapest ones... even decent brands nowadays cost around $0.30 each, so no big deal.

you can do other things (like web surfing) while encoding the movie, but do not do anything when burning the movie.

as for the player, my experience is combo players are subpar in playback.
you have to imagine, when you spin the disc, if it wobbles a little, there will be a lot of vibration towards the outside of the disc....  and that will cause the last 20 min of a movie come out with problem. the transport of the player does make a difference.

[Hockeyboy]

Well, as long as what we're doing is all legal...

Here is my equipment:

Lite-on DVD/CD-ROM drive
Lite-on CD/DVD dual-layer drive, capable of writing to 16x on DVD
Epson R220 Stylus Photo printer
Verbatim inkjet printable DVD-R, capapble of 16x burn speed, 4.7Gb (P/N: 95079 if you want to look it up and order from either Yahoo Meritline or Newegg - 50-pak runs about $20-25)
P4 3.0GHz w/HT based computer

I use DVD Shrink v3.2, VOB Blanker, and Fab Decrypter to encode - if you try to simply copy the movie (using Nero or something similar), it's too large to fit onto a single-layer DVD and it won't work or play right. That's why you have to use those programs because they encode and shrink the files so they will fit. You can also use AnyDVD and CloneDVD, but you have to pay for those after 15 days of trial use. Also, try using the other type of DVD -- if you're using +R try -R and vice-versa. I've had great luck with the -R and never had any issues playing on 4 different players and 2 computers.

It's best if you let the encoding program run without trying to run other apps - you can do it, but you might just corrupt some data and then when it writes it will write bad data and you've just made a coaster.  I've had only 1 DVD screw up, but another burn and the 2nd copy was perfect.

[Paladin]

A lot of DVD's are now copy protected with ARccOS or RipGuard.  If you look at the back of the DVD case at the bottom you may see a logo of a magnet and text about the disk being copy protected.  You must use programs that can handle it.  The DVD players that attach to your TV are very fault tolerant, but PC's aren't.  The way I understand it is that they put errors in the disc structure that your set top DVD player ignores, but your PC chokes on.

The program that I've used to back up my own personal DVD's  is "ripit4me".  It's a wizard type program that uses several other free programs to get past the copy protection.  It will open a pop up a window telling you what programs you need, and even open the webpage they are located at.  Some of the programs it needs are DVD Decrypter, IMGBurn, PGC Edit and fixVTS.

[hypernova]

Paladin and Hockeyboy, obviously, I have the proper software and knowledge of ripping, otherwise I wouldn't have even ripped the movie in the first place.  I've done this for awhile, and until now, haven't had any problems.

I'm gonna try a lens cleaner.  The one we have I actually just looked at.  All the brushes are frayed out.

[ChadTower]

Could easily be worn down hardware.  Sony isn't known for longevity.

[hypernova]

Try the discs in another DVD player, see what happens.

Gonna try, cause like I said, the PC drives generally have no problems with the discs.

I use Verbatims.

Try the discs in another DVD player, see what happens.

Sony doesn't seem to be known for anything these days...except an overpriced, useless POS console.  (I wonder if it plays movies better than the PS2 did.  Imagine, buying that thing for its Bluray capabilities, only to have it freeze and skip at the SLIGHTEST imperfections that a generic player could read.  It was pointless trying to watch anything on a PS2 unless you just bought it new.)

[hypernova]

Just got a lens duster while grocery shopping.

Children of Men had no problems where they were before.  Tried only once, but that's good enough for me.

[Hockeyboy]

I was only trying to offer up advice, not try to imply you didn't know what you are doing. Sorry if you took it that way.