... the problems seem to be purely from a massive conflict between the encoding created by DVDA/Vegas...

I'm curious to know how you arrived at this conclusion.

Because the company I use for replication, rather than duplication which is a totally different process, are also used by the Hollywood studios for their replication in Europe; because I can reproduce the fault with a number of different makes of DVD discs that are burnt directly from DVDA here, and because the problem is only seen on certain DVD players.

The files are there and are complete. This is also not the first time I've had this problem, however the other problem was some players assuming the DVD was Region 1 because of either the audio file used (AC3, as the project was 5.1) or because there was no regional info on the disc so the player assumed it was a Region 1 disc and refused to play it as it was a Region 2 player.

I love the software, but I need to know whatever I produce will work in every player...

It's a bit hard to help without knowing just what the problem is!
I've had about 5 titles replicated without problem so far and another Vegas user has had 5 titles replicated including 1 DL disk, again without problems.
Two things though do come to mind.
1) Your replicator should be checking the masters before they jump into the replication process, if the issue is that obvious they really should have found it.

2) It's possible to encode within the letter of the law a fully compliant mpeg stream and still have many players fail to play it properly, I've been caught out on that one and you could make that mistake on any DVD authoring program.
There's no connection between how the audio is encoded and what region a disk is, sorry cannot fathom the connection there at all. Also as far as I know DVDA creates the disk as region 0 so all player must play it regardless of what region they are.
There are companies that can test playability for you, from memory medium level certainty means they check it on 500 different player, high level, they try it on 2000 players, that's how bad the problem is for everyone in the business. The list of Hollywood DVDs that don;t play right on some players is pretty long.
That's not to say you don't have a pretty fundamental problem of course, just wish I knew what it was.
Bob.

> It's a bit hard to help without knowing just what the problem is!

Good point, that may have been worth mentioning ;-)

The DVD will happily play the menu and the 'extras' files, but there are problems playing the main feature. There are two faults, but only one problem will show its face on a specific player. Either the 'feature' file refuses to play at all, or it gets to 4 minutes from the end and stops (actually, it hangs just like a PC). But this only happens on some players.

>1) Your replicator should be checking the masters before they jump
>into the replication process, if the issue is that obvious they really
>should have found it.

Oh, believe me, this has been brought up with them.

>2) It's possible to encode within the letter of the law a fully compliant
>mpeg stream and still have many players fail to play it properly,

This is what really bothers me, because a customer won't believe that excuse and will just assume you're lying to them.

>There's no connection between how the audio is encoded and what
>region a disk is, sorry cannot fathom the connection there at all.

There certainly shouldn't be a connection, but I've actually found some DVD players that see the AC3 audio and, either because there's no regional info on the disc or because there's no PCM audio file, the player has refused to play the disc. The problem's always been recitfied by upgrading or chipping the player to multi-region (or region free).

> that's how bad the problem is for everyone in the business. The list
>of Hollywood DVDs that don;t play right on some players is pretty
>long.

Now that's truly scary...

I just want to add one more thing to check. Watch your bitrate. By the way you describe what played and didn't, you may have bumped into one of the DVD player issues. I have found that the entire stream (audio and Video)has to hit at 7.5m or lower to be handled by some commercial players. That is no matter what application the disc was authored in. The spec says much higher, but that has been the case.

It's a good thought, and may explain one of the problems.

I don't replicate at a house, I just burn lots of copies from my computer :) but I've run in to simular problems, although rarerly (and normally one disk will work prefectly on a player & another will have a problem). Does the same things for me.

I did end up getting a new DVD player because my old one wouldn't play my copy of "Aliens" from the 9 disk SE set. I've run in to other commercial DVD's that have problems too (my copy of simpsons season 5 gets the subtitles stuck on in 1/2 an episode). My parents had an entire movie that always put spanish subtitles up, only in their player, but not mine (couldn't turn them off). :)

First of all your replicator should be sending you the glass master to check, they or you should be checking that in a variety of players, all sorts of oddities can show up in what looks like a good DVD. Once you're happy with it then and only then should they start pressing the things.
I suspect your problem with the DVD stopping 4 minutes from the end maybe one of two things. Certainly as suggested never set the max bitrate over 7.5M but also you need to watch the rate of change in the bitrate, best thing for that is the bitrate viewer from www.tecoltd.com
I've had exactly that problem, many DVD players would stop dead at one point, problem was a in camera iris down to black from a static shot and then up again. As the camera gain went up so did the noise but I'd added a fade to black over the top of this in Vegas, result was bitrate jumped from the minimum to the maximum very quickly and many players cannot slow/speed up the disk fast enough to cope. Set your minimum bitrate no less than 1/3rd the average and even so check the file with the bitrate viewer.
Also do not fill a DVD beyond 95%, the last (outer) part of the DVD is the most likely to get damaged and hence have playability problems.
Bob.

> result was bitrate jumped from the minimum to the maximum very
>quickly and many players cannot slow/speed up the disk fast
>enough to cope.

Y'know, that could be a possible cause, at least for the problem where it stops 4 mins from the end.

An official complaint has been put in to the replicators, so I'm waiting to find out what their story is...

>>>...I'd added a fade to black over the top of this in Vegas, result was bitrate jumped from the minimum to the maximum very quickly and many players cannot slow/speed up the disk fast enough to cope.<<<

Not to me *that* is very scary. So really what you are saying here is that some DVD players can not handle a basic fade to black without getting confused? If so the irony of this is "back in the day" a fade up or down was the most basic film element. Now if the btrate isn't correct a DVD might freeze. Gotta love the leaps we have made in this industry.

LOL!

The key isn't the fade to black. It is when a VBR encoder thinks that during a fade to black it can drastically change the bitrate in a hurry. If you run into that problem, use a minimum bitrate that is closer to the average bitrate etc.

The more tech we have, the more the easy gets hard.

"The more tech we have, the more the easy gets hard."

How true that is! In all fairness to the technocrats we all need to make the effort to understand how any technology works if we are creating content that uses any technology. This isn't something new, it's centuries old. Going from sculpting rocks to casting bronze meant artists had to understand how their ideas would be realised just as much as we need to realise that shooting for DVD imposes certain constraints different to those when we shot for VHS.
Bob.

I've only *tried* to make one production with DVDA3, and quickly changed my mind about using it as an authoring tool. I created the DVD from elementary streams from ProCoder, AC3 audio from Vegas, and PSD files for menus. At the exact same point in the main feature, the DVD would just suddenly stop (die). I took the exact same files and reauthored in DVDLab Pro, and had no playback problems.

I for one don't have time to watch every DVD I produce from beginning to end to make sure the authoring program did its job. I love Vegas, but DVDA is on my "do not use" list.

Maestro that's strange. I've made hundreds of DVDs with DVDA and have never had a problem. When I was shopping my feature around that's what I used and not only did I not have any problems, but none of the distributors had trouble playing it.

Why did you use ProCoder instead of rendering right out from Vegas?