i have personal movies that i have burnt that seemed to work ok. able to play no problem. but if i put them away and look at them at a later date, some of them are not playing well. example, they break up in certain parts of the movie. if i play them on a different dvd player, they often work bettter but not always.
why do the play better on some players?? and not others??
and why do some just play poorley ???
is it the type of disk?? player??

2nd question how do i find my old questions i habe posted???
thanks

Cheap no brand or not well-known brand DVD-R's don't play on all DVD players and even if they do, sometimes they will and sometimes they won't.

Also even some DVD players won't work properly with certain brands of DVD-R.

If the video continues to play but still 'messes up' then check that it plays properly on the PC. The chances are that some codecs you have on the PC are messing up the video, not necessarily that the video itself is faulty.

Your old posts are here:

http://www.pchelpforum.com/search.php?searchid=402393

You can access it from clicking User CP or clicking your username in a thread and choosing 'Find All Posts'

ok tks. what brand do you use??
maxell, memorex and sony is what i have been using.
i have tried to play and reburn on my pc often it does not work. it begins to burn and then says part way through, unable to read.
but on my 4 year old panasonic dvd player i have the most success with.
if i buy a higher end dvd burner and try and reburn will that work, or any other suggestions to save a pile of movies i have.

Could be a problem with the burner you are using.

Do you have an old computer? If your computer is quite old (ie slow) then it is very sensitive to changes during the burning process.

ie if you interrupt the memory by opening a new program or ask the processor to do a new task then the burn can fail. This isn't a problem on more powerful PC's.

Also try using a software called ImgBurn:

The Official ImgBurn Website

And for best results, burn at the lowest speed (2x)

Note also that only DVD-RW discs are rewriteable. Maybe you are trying to write twice to a DVD-R disc? They can only be written to once. So if it fails, then you just lost one DVD-R.

I don't use DVD-R's anymore because I play everything on my PC and my PC is connected to my TV.

But the brands you mentioned are good reputable brands.

So your options are:

New burner
Faster PC (If current one has less than 512MB memory and less than a 3.0Ghz processor
New DVD player.

You can get some good cheap ones that play anything eg .avi files put onto CD's or multiple AVI files put onto a DVD. That is good because it doesn't require conversion and you can fit many more video files onto a DVD if they are kept as compressed AVI than if you converted them.

I used to have a Vistron brand one.

ok tks, its less than a year old (the pc)
movien generally are ok 99% the first viewing or soon after burning. but afew months later it the dvd does not always play well and this happens about 35% of the time.
i could try slowing down the speed, i use about 8x
maybe its a crappy burner too??

Most likely its your DVD player. If you have had it a long time then there could be a build up of dust inside it or maybe its laser or motor isn't working as it should be.

Although if that were the case I would expect it to happen with all DVD's from time to time, not just the ones you burned.

Your PC sounds okay and from what I've seen all burners do the same thing. The only time a burner will burn a bad copy is when the burn process fails or is interrupted as I said before.

And in that case the video won't play at all.

If the burning software says the burn process completed successfully / without errors then it should play properly. If it doesn't then in all likelihood the problem is your DVD player.

Also, if you are storing the DVD's poorly such as in dusty environments then maybe they are getting damaged by dust inbetween plays? But thats unlikely.

Do the burned DVD's play fine on your computer? That would be another indication that your DVD player is either dusty or on its way out.

as i use my dvd players a lot,i clean them quite regular,as dust can creep into a lot of places & yes i do agree that burning on 4 speed takes a lot longer,but improves the quality,also when it comes to dvd players,i have 3 different brands as some play & some don`t,i have found that expensive ones don`t always work the best !!!!!!!!