by tig2002 on Tue Oct 21, 2003 11:38 am
ozziegn,
First of all, I would not recommend using Memorex media with your DD0203. I have tried many brands and types of DVD media with my Optorite DD0203 (firmware V2.16) and found out:
1. The DVD-R media is the most compatible media format when using with DVD-ROM drives or stand-alone DVD players, including xBox.
2. TDK 2x DVD-R is the only media that I had absolutely no problem with. I also heard that FujiFilm DVD-/+R is one of the best media types, but never tried them yet.
In more than two months of owning Optorite DD0203 I tried burning DVD's using the following brands and types of media: CompUSA (Optodisk) 1x DVD-R, CompUSA (Princo) 1x DVD-R, CompUSA 2.4x DVD+RW, Memorex 4x DVD+R, Ritek 4X DVD-R and Mitsubishi Chemicals 4X DVD+R. Optorite did not make any coasters, but some DVD disks were not recognized by any DVD-ROM or stand-alone DVD player at all, although the "burn process was completed successfully". I had the "stuttering issues" with almost every DVD movie burned on Optorite while playing on my Samsung DVD-C631P stand alone 5-disk DVD changer. Most of them (not all) had the same issues on xBox and even on Optorite itself, and only a few disks played just fine on DVD-ROM drives and stand alone DVD players.
The burned DVD's with "stuttering issues" had the following symptoms: the movie would play just fine at the beginning. After approx. 30-45 minutes of playing an intermittent "mosaic garbage" would appear on the TV screen once in a while. This effect would appear more and more often, breaking up the video until the DVD player would completely stop playing the movie.
I thought that this is an issue with Optorite until I purchased TDK 2X DVD-R media (were on sale in Best Buy, 25 disks for $29.99). I used about 10 of these disks already by backing up my DVD collection, and none of these disks had the issues that I experienced in the past.
I have 30GB WD HDD as Master (with Windows XP) and 120GB Maxtor HDD as Slave (backup drive) on Primary IDE channel, and Optorite DD0203 as Master and Hi-Val 48x24x48 CDRW as Slave on Secondary IDE channel. Here is how I backup a DVD movie:
1. Rip the original DVD to created DVD_NAME\Video_ts folder on 120GB HDD using DVD Decrypter.
2. Shrink the movie using DVD Shrink 3.0 and backup the files in created DVD_NAME\Shrink\Video_ts folder of the same drive. Although the version 3 of DVD Shrink automatically compresses all files to the level that allows all files to fit on a single 4.7 GB DVD, I always adjust the compression manually to make the volume slightly smaller.
3. Open Nero 6.0.0.19 in "Create DVD Movie" mode and add all files from DVD_NAME\Shrink\Video_ts to the red "Video_ts" folder in Nero.
Although I had "Data Verification Error" a few times after burning the disk, I had absolutely no issues while playing these disks on my Samsung stand alone DVD player, xBox, Delta and EPO DVD-ROM drives.
I hope my story will help you to backup your DVD movies successfully. And always remember: DO NOT BUY CHEAP MEDIA! THE CHEAPEST MEDIA IS THE EXPENSIVE MEDIA.
