PS3, DVD's, Nero and PAL

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A thank-you to the people who have helped me to work through a DVD burning
problem. I had assumed it lay in the wmv file but one respondent correctly
pointed me to the DVD burner, Nero. Another emphasised the complexity of the
burning process, and by following his advice (closing down all unnecessary
applications first, boosting virtual memory, etc.) I started getting better
results. Then I found that Nero seems to prefer better quality DVD's than the
ones I was using before, and also prefers DVD-R's to DVD+R's, and a speed of
2x works very well. I'm now getting consistently good DVD's, starting in PS3
with a wmv for viewing on a computer, 1024x768, then transcoding and burning
in Nero . As someone explained, the 1024x768 profile assumes that a NTSC
video is going to be made, at 30 fps, while PAL calls for 25 fps. There's no
option for 25 fps in Nero, but once you have selected PAL Nero transcodes as
necessary, automatically. (I'm also going to follow up the option of creating
one's own custom profile mentioned by JL4VIDEO).An unrelated wp3 creation problem has cropped up but it'll wait for another
day.
 
Jeremy said:
A thank-you to the people who have helped me to work through a DVD burning
problem. I had assumed it lay in the wmv file but one respondent correctly
pointed me to the DVD burner, Nero. Another emphasised the complexity of the
burning process, and by following his advice (closing down all unnecessary
applications first, boosting virtual memory, etc.) I started getting better
results. Then I found that Nero seems to prefer better quality DVD's than the
ones I was using before, and also prefers DVD-R's to DVD+R's, and a speed of
2x works very well. I'm now getting consistently good DVD's, starting in PS3
with a wmv for viewing on a computer, 1024x768, then transcoding and burning
in Nero . As someone explained, the 1024x768 profile assumes that a NTSC
video is going to be made, at 30 fps, while PAL calls for 25 fps. There's no
option for 25 fps in Nero, but once you have selected PAL Nero transcodes as
necessary, automatically. (I'm also going to follow up the option of creating
one's own custom profile mentioned by JL4VIDEO).
Click to expand...

I'm glad that you've solved your DVD-burning problems!

But one note--Nero has no preference for DVD+R's or DVD-R's.
What *does* have a preference is your DVD player. Ironically,
the more expensive the DVD player, the more likely it is to be
picky about what it plays. The $39 players that are made in
China will play anything!

-michael

Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."
 
Thanks, Michael, you've saved me trouble - I suppose I'd have worked round to
that by a process of elimination, but harbouring an illusion in the
meantime! What confuses the issue for beginners is that we've become used to
DVD players that take practically any film we buy or rent, and we don't
realise at first that this is a different ball-game! But I think my point
about disk quality's correct, I'm sure that sticking to Fujitsu instead of
nameless cheapies has helped.
 
I sure am glad that you could solve most of your problems.
I checked and indeed the high resolution PAL profile on PapaJohn's website
is for 1280 x 960. If that doesn't suit you, download it and make the
necessary changes using the Windows Media Profile Editor as I explained in:

http://www.windowsphotostory.com/Forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=264

There you can also find a link to a site where WMPE can be downloaded

Good luck
 
Jeremy said:
Thanks, Michael, you've saved me trouble - I suppose I'd have worked round to
that by a process of elimination, but harbouring an illusion in the
meantime! What confuses the issue for beginners is that we've become used to
DVD players that take practically any film we buy or rent, and we don't
realise at first that this is a different ball-game! But I think my point
about disk quality's correct, I'm sure that sticking to Fujitsu instead of
nameless cheapies has helped.
Click to expand...

There are certainly variations in recordable DVD blank quality, but it's
harder to tell from the label than you might think. There are a few
large producers who re-badge their product for various brand names.
Very few large (expensive) brand names actually make their own discs.

I've had just as good luck with super-el-cheapos as with major name
brands. My rule for 2005 was "never pay more than 40 cents per disc".
For 2006, it looks like it's shaping up to "never more than 25 cents".

It is true that some burners have more trouble with some kinds of
blanks, but, as I said, it's hard to know just what kind of blanks
you're using.

My solution is to buy in large lots. If the first dozen work well,
then I'm golden. If I have more than one failure, I take the lot
back.

-michael

Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."
 
JL4VIDEO said:
I sure am glad that you could solve most of your problems.
I checked and indeed the high resolution PAL profile on PapaJohn's website
is for 1280 x 960. If that doesn't suit you, download it and make the
necessary changes using the Windows Media Profile Editor as I explained in:

http://www.windowsphotostory.com/Forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=264

There you can also find a link to a site where WMPE can be downloaded

Good luck
Click to expand...

And I've been very happy with the built-in 1024x768 .wmv profile (which
creates a smaller file in less time).

-michael

Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/

"The wastebasket is our most important design
tool--and it is seriously underused."
 
Hi Michael

You probably have missed the first discussions with Jeremy in this forum. A
few days ago he reported problems with the standard profile 4 for PC (1024 x
768). When he went to Nero Vision Express with his wmv file asking for a PAL
DVD output he got some kind of error message about his source material being
NTSC.
The reason is that in the standard profile 4 for PC the frame rate is set to
30 fps, but then who cares, it's intended as a PC-screen show! And if you go
for a DVD in the USA it's OK, but over here in Europe we have PAL so we need
25 fps.

That is why I said that he should download PapaJohn's profile (but it turned
out to be 1280 x 960) or else edit the original profile 4, which is rather
easy once you know how to. Its only a matter of: import the file, change one
parameter from 30 to 25, adapt the text of the description (e.g. MY 1024 x
768 PROFILE), export it with a new filename and exit with "close".

But if I understand it well Jeremy now seems to say that if one persists,
Nero will do the job and produce a DVD of good quality. Am I right Jeremy?
That means that on top transcoding from wmv to mpeg, frame rate must be
changed, and I fear that this means some extra loss of quality. So my advice
would be: make your own profile, it's realy peanuts!
 
Yes, JL4, Nero does it all for me, but is inconsistent , sometimes offering a
dialogue box which says in effect, "Hey! There's more NTSC stuff here than
PAL! Do you really want PAL?" and sometimes just getting on with the job
without asking.
In fact my experience of Vision Express 3 is that it is frequently
inconsistent, 3 or 4 good burns being followed by one or two failures, the
most common one being a transcoding that rushes all the 100 or more pix
through in a few seconds while the sound chugs on correctly. I now check
every step as I go against a list. I preview the .wmv file, push up virtual
memory, close down everything in sight,
leave the room without slamming the door, and wait until the bell rings.
Sometimes it works, sometimes not, there MUST be a variable but I haven't
isolated it. I read somewhere that there were bugs in Vision Express 3, but
I'm stuck with it for the nonce.It isn't disks, anyway, I was wrong there as you point out. The only slight
preference Nero seems to have, if any, is for a brand-new, unused disk... But
to be fair, Nero's been excellent at doing straight copies of a DVD,
including on a re-used DVDRW's, and here if it finds some traces which I
thought had been thoroughly erased and formatted, it offers to complete the
erasure, does so, and then picks up the burn where it left off. Very
considerate!I take the point about loss of quality where Nero has to transcode for PAL
and shall go to PapaJohn after I've finally sorted out the Nero problem plus
a PS3 problem which I've mentioned before and which a Microsoft case manager
started giving me help with, only he seems to be pretty busy with other cases
at the moment. I am going to make a new thread for this one.Thanks again for your continued interest.
 
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