Every single time I split a dvd9 to 2-dvd5s the first disc works flawlessly but the second disc always fades in and out of focus about every 3 seconds. Any help appreciated.

That is the craziest thing I ever heard! Possibly the focus of your players laser beam(?)

That doesnt make any sense because the first of the two always plays fine.

Have you tried any other splitting software to see what happens?

such as....? Right now Ive got dvdclone 3.6, and the most recent dvd decrypter and dvd shrink. I just realized i havent checked dvdsanta but Im not sure if that even does that.

DVDFAb is one. By the way, this is the forum for CloneDVD2 by Elby. The latest version is 2.8.5.1. Is this the program you were using when you had the problem?

Im using clonedvd 3.6.0.0. I will check out dvdfab. thanks.

Another one gets screwed. Wish Elby could figure out some way to get them to quit using that name.

Did CloneDVD even produce a version 3.6.0.0? Maybe you have the fake CloneDVD.

kenakin, CloneDVD2 is great for splitting discs. Give it a try too.

the weird thing is, I had 2.8.5.1 elby and every disc I made with it would not play in either of my stand alone players.

its the one from clonedvd.net

Oh my god! Use the "right" elby CloneDVD http://www.slysoft.com
clonedvd.net is complete garbage.

I think Im figuring that out

but like I said, the one from elby made discs that would not play in my stand alone player. they played fine in the pc but not in either of my two standalones.

Sorry to hear that. What kind of media did you use? This is usually only a media problem, not a problem with (elby) CloneDVD.

Well, normally I would agree with you but my standalones play both -r and +r and I only use ritek. They both play fine when using other burning software. The only one I used with clonedvd was 16x +r. Maybe -r would make a difference but doesnt make sense that it would since both formats work for all the other software.

Do your players play +R without bitsetting to DVD-ROM? elby CloneDVD does not do bitsetting of +R media by default. This could be the reason for the trouble.

Of course Ive kind of gotten away from what my original problem was. The fact that the first disc doing a split would play fine and the second would play blurry.

Are you, by any chance, using the same RW (re-writable) disk for your second split backup disk?

if so, maybe that RW has become unusable.
if not, back to my original comment: it makes no sense that disk one works and disk two is blurry... crazy!!!

Are you playing the second disk on your computer or a standalone player. I wonder if a lense cleaning would help. I always worry about knocking the laser lense out of alignment with those cleaner disks with the little brush-dealie things on them.

If the laser wasn't in alignment - it wouldn't make the picture blurry - it is only reading 1's and 0's - it would more likely not read the disc or give you lots of digital artifacts. Most likely explination is the demon spawn that is CloneDVD 3.6!! Only wish Elby could do something about the name - how many poor people have thought they were getting the excellent CloneDVD and ended up with that muck?

kenakin, we can't help you here with a problem with clonedvd 3.6. You might try to contact their support and see if they can help.

Im not using an rw disc. And I agree, whats happening is just crazy. Its not a hardware issue because everything else works fine....including the first of a 2-disc split. Its always the 2nd disc that does that.

CloneDVD 3.x ist garbage. Sorry, nobody can help you with this.

Tru, when you say CloneDVD doesn't do it by default, do you mean that you have to change a setting in Clone or do you mean that you need another driver, firmware or program?

I haven't tried booktyping yet. I've just used -R these last 3 years because they were the original DVD Commitee recordable industry standard and because all my JVC home entertainment equiptment likes -R more than +R. And because -R was cheaper than +R till just recently.

Booktyping the new -R DL blanks interests me too if it will become possible.