Hi. I am not quite sure where to post this, please forgive me if its in the wrong area. Anyways, I have a problem with a DVD disc that I bought. From what I have observed, it plays fine on the computer but totally freezes on my standalone. I decided to use dvd Decrypter then burn it with nero 6.x to see if it would work better but the problem still persisted. I then burned another one using dvdshrink because I thought maybe the region wasn't compatible (since they're from China) but it still freezes like crazy. Now I'm thinking there is something wrong with all the discs. If that is the case, how do I make a new dvd of the same content watchable on my standalone that won't freeze? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

I am using WinXP SP2. My dvd burner is a Sony DRU-710A [FW byx5] and the standalone dvd player is a Philips DVP642. I am using TDK dvd-r's @ 16x right now (I know its 3rd rate media, but I'm cheap and it's always worked successfully before).

Probably your standalone is really picky.

You can use DVD shrink to create an ISO file on your HDD making the movie region free. Then you can use Imgburn to write that ISO file on a DVD disc. This will not solve your problem if your standalone is able (for example) to read only PAL and the movie is in NTSC format. DVD Shrink is not able to do conversions between these formats.

If your standalone is so picky, you can try to burn a +R disc changing booktype as ROM. Very often this trick allows to play a burned disc on a picky standalone. However, not all burners are able to change booktype on +R discs.

Another probable cause is that your standalone have a dirty optical pickup. You should try to clean it to see if this solve.

Finally, not less important, if your standalone is really so picky, you can improve quality using quality media. TDK can be cheap, but have also lower quality, and if your standalone is too picky this can cause playback problems.

I suggest to do a test with a quality media like a verbatim.

What burner do you have? Maybe also updating burner firmware can improve burning quality.