Burning a a DVD: an idiot's tale.

Axios

I cant tell exactly never really looked at it on lInux but your
Device /dev/sro (Readonly)
So appears to me you only have a read only dvd drive

Hardinfo2 will tell you under summary what it is.

This is what mine says in dell

My lenovo T420 fooled me that way awhile back

Very good question why it didnt refuse to burn it.

Just a note: CDs where great lasted a long time but they had issues with DVD of going bad after a short period
so I would not trust any permanent data to them. (Not sure if they ever fixed that issue)
I had to trash quiet a few because of it.
I forget to say it was the R/W DVD not the DVD -R

brent

Axios so I would not trust any permanent data to them. (Not sure if they ever fixed that issue)
I had to trash quiet a few because of it.
I forget to say it was the R/W DVD not the DVD -R

that seems to make sense since a "re-write" can't be locked and open to all sorts of corruption. That's why I will buy-eventually-a few +R's for the handful of movies I have. Might only see them a few times in a lifetime so I won't abuse them.

Axios Very good question why it didnt refuse to burn it.

that did a number on my head! If it could not even write the information or throw a Read Only error, why did it insist on writing? the only folders left on the DVD were the original VID and AUD folders. What did it write?

Axios Hardinfo2 will tell you under summary what it is.

I'm updating endeavour now it's been a few days. Is hardinfo2 in solus repo?
and thanks for your info.

Axios

brent Yup in repo

BuzzPCSOS

FWIW most modern-ish DVD players (that plug into a TV) also feature a USB port that will play movies that are in the correct format (usually mp4) directly from a USB stick although they don't usually have enough power to run an external hard drive. Many TVs also have USB ports with similar features which can additionally behave like a video recorder if an external hard drive is connected. Check your TV instructions.
Thrift stores are generally turning away DVD donations. This is probably why.
Time to get some USB sticks maybe?

brent

BuzzPCSOS WIW most modern-ish DVD players (that plug into a TV) also feature a USB port that will play movies that are in the correct format (usually mp4) directly from a USB stick although they don't usually have enough power to run an external hard drive. Many TVs also have USB ports with similar features which can additionally behave like a video recorder if an external hard drive is connected. Check your TV instructions.
Thrift stores are generally turning away DVD donations. This is probably why.
Time to get some USB sticks maybe?

That's really interesting about USB slots on DVD players. I have an offline "smart tv" that I could run movies from the computer on but it's not my thing.
What's left? Burn DVDS or USB?
I wonder if someone had a USB full of mp4's the DVD manufacturer can see the individual movies, play them, show their menus? If so pretty amazing.
You said no AVI but some of my movies are AVI and Matroska (mkv) but I suppose many programs could convert those to mp4 if that was the only allowable format.
Lots of food for thought, Buzz, thank you. I don't see optical drives/dvd as this generation's obsolete 8-track tape medium yet...but apparently the digital world mostly has.

craigtoyoracer

brent I share movies with friends using USB no problems and way easier than burning DVD's.
At home all movies go to HDD and run off PC attached to TV with HDMI so easy. 🙂

Solarmass

I haven't touched DVDs for years and I don't have a DVD-drive.

BuzzPCSOS

Solarmass They were never really very reliable, especially when moving from one machine to another. I never used to burn above 2X speed to try and get maximum quality but it was still a good chance that they wouldn't read on a different drive.
I figure that you are not missing out.
A friend recently was asking for any CDs/DVDs that were going spare. Not for any mass data storage event but to make a glittery archway for someone's birthday. It's when things like that happen that you know that discs have had their day.

brent

BuzzPCSOS A friend recently was asking for any CDs/DVDs that were going spare. Not for any mass data storage event but to make a glittery archway for someone's birthday. It's when things like that happen that you know that discs have had their day.

getting to be a harder digital place to live for those of us who want to keep our life out the cloud. But I persist 🙂

BuzzPCSOS

brent My own personal air gap from the cloud exists as a collection of USB sticks of various sizes and various external 2.5" hard drives with USB connectivity.
I built my own portable hard drives from cheap cases and discarded disks recovered from laptops when they get converted to SSD or scrapped. Which is why I like to keep SMART disk diagnostic software in my go-to software kit.
For me it is not so much about security, I just don't trust anyone else not to loose my stuff 😆

brent

BuzzPCSOS
OK my movie burn adventure begins.
See if any of these settings ring a bell or you tweak them 🙂.
From what little research I did, if I'm converting MP4 to a bootable disc image I need
NTSC and not PAL:

There's basically one settings menu:

I'm inclined to leave it alone unless anything here is ringing a bell.
Thanks Buzz and anyone reading.

BuzzPCSOS

brent A very complicated selection screen you have there.
Well... I certainly don't remember formatting media discs to a bootable format.
Apparently you are more likely to have success with your player reading your project if you use DVD-R instead of DVD+R discs. Check your DVD instruction manual and see what discs are compatible with your machine.
The main conversion process is converting your media into a format that can be read by the DVD player. Once you have done that it is simply a case of slowly copying that data into the VIDEO_TS folder on the DVD.
Programs like Brasero (from the repo) can do all this for you by selecting Video Project from its main menu. Under settings you would additionally need to select a low write speed and NTSC compatibility.
I think some DVD players have the ability to play various media files directly without conversion to a DVD format but that would be highly specific to the model and not necessarily repeatable on a different machine.

brent

BuzzPCSOS
thanks for the reply!
For three days I have wasted about 15 DVD disks...maybe 20. No matter what I did I could not create a bootable disk...
Brasero didn't work. Devede didn't work. On the Arch side I tried XFBurn, and another one...
My M.O.:
experiment with every burner software with every setting.
non stop fail.
Found DVDStyler in the AUR--a disk finally burned and launched but choppy and crappy....
so......
I researched for 48 hours and it was something obscure in superuser of something that I never read any one say before but made the most sense. the guy or girl said 'between the big screen dvd player and the computer's optical drive---not to mention the quality of the your mp4---sometimes you have to experiment with different media."
EUREKA!
I swapped out the non-functioning Verbatim brand and picked up Maxell in identical format except more minutes (200) which means nothing since 4.7GB is the cap.
I'm burning movies with the Maxell brand now.

That easy. The only thing that would blow this 'brand switch' theory out of the water is if these disks all came out of the same factory...
Back in bizness, I appreciate your response especially the DVD-R info since I have not tried that.

BuzzPCSOS

brent I appreciate your response especially the DVD-R info since I have not tried that.

Worth a little more research on that. If I have my information right that format will give the best results because of better compatibility.
Glad you are up and running anyhow. Strangely Verbatim was always my go-to media because I had the best results with it.
Most of my media gets kept on a portable (USB) hard drive nowadays. My last three TVs have supported this and can read direct from a disc formatted fat32 or exfat. Any media that will not play gets converted to MP4 using Handbrake (in the repo).
The only time I have burnt movies to DVD recently was to share old family movies with my cousins. As I had the original media on DVD it meant that I only needed to copy the VIDEO_TS folder onto my hard drive and then write it to a fresh DVD as data. Burnt at lowest write speed available. It just worked.

brent

BuzzPCSOS Strangely Verbatim was always my go-to media because I had the best results with it.

most of my usbs are verbatim including my work usb---it's never let me down. Have you ever read an obscure piece of advice and just knew that was your problem? the brand switcheroo worked for whatever reason.

BuzzPCSOS My last three TVs have supported this and can read direct from a disc formatted fat32 or exfat

noted. and nice.

BuzzPCSOS Any media that will not play gets converted to MP4 using Handbrake (in the repo).

I love Handbrake used it a long time. When I got into this burning thing, handbrake was being touted as a way too Re-encode and for making a crappy old MP4 "burn-worthy" I.E. handbrake is for when your mp4 gets rejected by all the burning software so Handbrake can 'heal' it and make it burnable.
Do I have that right? If so, please elaborate.

BuzzPCSOS The only time I have burnt movies to DVD recently was to share old family movies with my cousins. As I had the original media on DVD it meant that I only needed to copy the VIDEO_TS folder onto my hard drive and then write it to a fresh DVD as data. Burnt at lowest write speed available.

great. you have a wealth of knowledge I always enjoy learning from it. PS I have read you can burn too low (forgot the reasoning) but I've been keeping it at 6 speed.

BuzzPCSOS

brent Handbrake can 'heal' it and make it burnable.
Do I have that right? If so, please elaborate.

As I understand it that seems to be true. Some of the codecs that are used to make very small download size yet high quality movies are simply too much work for a DVD burning program to decode. Using handbrake to convert to a less compressed format will likely leave you with a bigger file that has more universally used codecs. Try not to just convert as a matter of course, each time you convert to another compressed format the image and audio content are compressed again meaning that your movie will have lost some of it's quality.
Burning too low?
As far as I understand the only issue should be if the burning program forces your DVD writer to operate at an unsupported speed. Generally writing at a slow speed is better (remember those old audio tape to tape recorders that would make a duplicate at 6x speed awful quality, I know that was analogue and not digital but even so - lots of errors). Probably more important is disabling PC power saving strategies during the conversion as entering sleep mode can easily be the death knell for your DVD.

User_007

You don't need to create a so called bootable disk. All what's needed is a data disc with the ISO9660/UDF filesystem.
Whether the dvd-player can play the files or not depends on several factors like the video codec, framerate, resolution, max. bitrate und the container (vob, ts, avi, mkv, mp4, webm...)

If the supported mediaformats are not written in the manual you have to figure it out by yourself by try and error.
Usaually the video codec needs to be mpeg2(H.262) with an maximal resolution of 720x576(PAL) or 720x480(NTSC) and a framerate of 25i for PAL und 29,97i for NTSC.
I'm not sure but I think newer players can also play mpeg4(H.263) or even AVC(H.264, Level 3.0 limit).

You can use the tool "mediainfo" to display the most relevant technical infos about a video. (text view ist recommended)

sudo eopkg install mediainfo

Better get an second-hand bluray player and use the build-in mediaplayer / playback via usb-drive

brent

User_007 Usaually the video codec needs to be mpeg2(H.262) with an maximal resolution of 720x576(PAL) or 720x480(NTSC) and a framerate of 25i for PAL und 29,97i for NTSC.
I'm not sure but I think newer players can also play mpeg4(H.263) or even AVC(H.264, Level 3.0 limit).

Handbrake can handle all this I think? EDIT: I know the I can do the pal/ntsc stuff in any GUI, but the rest not really. PS---everything I read says you can't format it PAL if you like in USA. Yes I read that at a lot of sources but never dug into it.

User_007 Whether the dvd-player can play the files or not depends on several factors like the video codec, framerate, resolution, max. bitrate und the container (vob, ts, avi, mkv, mp4, webm...)

If the supported mediaformats are not written in the manual you have to figure it out by yourself by try and error.

so many GD variables I'm learning. ^^^ I have lived all of this so far.

User_007 You can use the tool "mediainfo" to display the most relevant technical infos about a video. (text view ist recommended)
sudo eopkg install mediainfo

mediainfo here I come.

User_007 All what's needed is a data disc with the ISO9660/UDF filesystem.

I don't like this at all. No .iso I've created is bootable. The program that created it tells me that!! The dvd player I put the disk in says disk error. Why bother making an .iso if the app had no intention of making it bootable? That's clown world. I have a 100% Failure Rate with making the movie an ISO and having balena or etcher burn it to disk.
Unless ISO9660 means something else?

brent

User_007
what's relevant to success here? What do I need to pay attention to?
$ mediainfo TheParentTrap.mp4
General
Complete name : theparenttrap.mp4
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media
Codec ID : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size : 1.90 GiB
Duration : 2 h 9 min
Overall bit rate : 2 104 kb/s
Frame rate : 23.976 FPS
Movie name : The.Parent.Trap.1961.720p.BluRay.x264-x0r
Writing application : Lavf58.45.100

Video
ID : 1
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L3.1
Format settings : CABAC / 4 Ref Frames
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, Reference frames : 4 frames
Codec ID : avc1
Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
Duration : 2 h 9 min
Bit rate : 1 970 kb/s
Width : 1 280 pixels
Height : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Constant
Frame rate : 23.976 (24000/1001) FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.089
Stream size : 1.78 GiB (94%)
Writing library : x264 core 161 r3048 b86ae3c
Encoding settings : cabac=1 / ref=3 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x113 / me=hex / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=6 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=crf / mbtree=1 / crf=18.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Language : English
Menus : 3
Codec configuration box : avcC

brent

craigtoyoracer brent I share movies with friends using USB no problems and way easier than burning DVD's.
At home all movies go to HDD and run off PC attached to TV with HDMI so easy.

I know I could make my life lot easier ^^ here 🙂 if I setup my smart-tv to be a smart tv instead of just a tv 🙂

User_007

brent what's relevant to success here? What do I need to pay attention to?

The codec of your video is AVC/H.264 at 1280x720p (HD ready) and can't be played with dvd-players without transcoding first. AVC is the codec for high resolution, blu-rays use it. Trancoding you video to receive playback capability for dvd-players will result in recognizable quality loss. If you got a smart tv I would suggest to put the video files on a usb drive / stick and try to play it over the tv's mediaplayer. For some devices the filesystem needs to be FAT32.

Otherwise you need to transcode to MPEG2(H.262) and some dvd-player also support MPEG4(H.263). Further downscale to 720x404 (maintain 16:9 aspect ratio) is needed. It's also possible to downscale to 720x480 and encode the video anamorphic with the PAR of 32:27. The vertical resolution of 720 pixels will be stretched to 853 pixel during playback.

You can do this with handbrake, avidemux or ffmpeg but this is not an 1-click-procedure..

Whats the exactly model of you dvd-player? Build date und manufacturer?