Newbie here. I'm using CloneDVD 2.8.5.1 and AnyDVD 5.4.1.1. Half the movies I've burned come out awesome. Other half has pixels problem, like when a satellite or cable breaks up into little squares when the picture is breaking up or freezes. Sometimes the movie skips. This is very annoying! I'm tired of crossing my fingers everytime I make a back up copy hoping this one will work. This was the same for DVDShrink latest version. DVDs I've used so far are only Ascent DVD+r 8x and Taiyo Yuden DVD-r 16x. They both did the same problem as mention above. Some movies had lots of scratches and worked awesome. Some have no scratches or little scratches and worked not to good. Vice versa.
I have the latest firmware for my burner and drivers for my computer. Hope somebody can help. If ya need more info, I'm all ears.

Windows XP Home Edition
1.3 GHz
256 SDRAM
40 gig hard drive ( with 8 gig of room)
16x LITE-ON DVD-RW SOHW-1673S (type DVD\CD-ROM drive)

DVD Player Samsung DVD-V2000

reddowg

1. Use TY as it is one of the best media on the market.
2. When you make the backup don't use/run any other software, just AnyDVD and CloneDVD2, i.e. no multitasking.
3. Burn at a lower speed, it can be set in CloneDVD2.

P.S.: And update your AnyDVD (ver. 5.5.1.1).

Do the playback problems occur in your PC and your stand alone player? What level of compression are you applying?

only want to add, that the quality of your burn will not be affected by AnyDVD (it only removes the copy protection of the DVD), so this tip (update it) is just for you to make sure you can copy even the newest movies.

Taiyo Yuden DVD-r 16x are good, so is Sony. Never heard of Ascent. Don't use off brand or cheapo media.

Use CloneDVD's speed feature to burn at 4X.

Turn off AntiVirus software.

Dont multitask or cruise the web while backingup.

Best regards,
Whisperer

I get far better burns buring x16 media at x16 or x12 than at x4. You should really burn at or near the speed rating of the disc. If I do a disc at x4, I get really horrible scans with K-Probe.

Of coure, that won't matter if the media is crap to begin with!!

abrown15
I have seen your's and other's posts about letting your rig determine optimal burning speed by setting CloneDVD to burn at maximum. And I'm sure your statements are valid for your and their particular playback equiptment or you wouldn't have posted your opinions.

But I think I read posts about max speed working well if you are playing movies back on your computer or have a real compatible player. But I think many if not most users play on simpler or not the greatest standalone home entertainment systems.

It's MHO that one will get a broader compatibility with a wide variety of old and new standalone players if one limits the burn speed. And if your burner has a bitsetting utility, and you are burning +R media, finalize the backup disk as a DVD-ROM.

However, I have standardized on Sony, -R (1X-8X), and have never tried any brand of 16x because my burner doesn't do 16X. So I sure can't just write off your comments on the results of media that are rated at 16X but burned at 4X. Maybe upping the speed to 6X or 8X would resolve any player issues with 16X media.

Best regards,
Whisperer

WOW! Talk about quick replies. Thank you. No I do not do multitasking and I am running Zonealarm, but the screensaver does come on. Maybe that's the problem? Haven't tried watching a movie on the computer yet. Just once in awhile a backup movie won't run very good. I will try next time to burn at 4x. Thanks again for the quick replies.

reddowg

reddowg
Don't know what Zonealarm is but screen savers and any other background utilities can really mess up a backup. Your goal should be to have no other computer activity while backingup.

Whisperer1
Zonealarm is a firewall, antivirus and a spyware program. I will absolutely make sure nothing will be running the next time I do a backup. I will let everybody know if this works or not.

I've found that modern burners won't burn at slower speeds, so even if you select 4X (usually the lowest allowed setting for 16X burners) the burner will operate at between 6X and 8X speeds.

This can make a huge difference to the quality of burns, particularly if you have a poor quality burner, such as a Sony or Liteon.

I discovered this after putting back my old Plextor 4X burner back in my PC.

My 16X Sony was burning disks in under 6 minutes, even when set to 4X.

My Plextor takes between 8 and 15 minutes (depending on the size of the image burnt) to burn a DVD.

Obviously the Sony as a modern burner has a large buffer which works against you if you are trying to slow down the recording speed.

After switching back to my old Plextor drive, I went from getting coasters 9 out of 10 burns to getting 100% perfect disks every time, no matter what media was used.

So basically I've found that unless you go for a top quality model (Plextor or Philips/BenQ), or get an older, slower burner, you'll end up with far more problems.

I can't comment on other makes of burner as I've never used them.

I do know that even the cheapest drives that operate at speeds of only 2X produce far better results than most Sony/Memorex/Liteon models.

So the Sony is being replaced with a brand new Plextor 740 (got for the same price as the BenQ 1640 - which I understand is the same drive) and I'll soon find out whether all modern drives are this tricky with media, or if it's just down to the drive manufacturer.

As for movies pixelating then freezing - this is typical of a bad burn, you either get that or you get a disk that won't play at all.

I've heard that better media can fix the problem, but I doubt it. It's most likely the quality and the speed of the burner. Simply put, cheap, crappy burners might be listed as 16X burners, but can not reliably produce a movie DVD at any speed - and the faster you go, the worse it gets.

New firmware, expensive disks, none of this will help if the drive is so poor it produces gaps and errors on the DVD.

arcticandyb
Curiosity: did you set the 4X speed in a separate Sony/Lite-On utility/firmware or did you set the 4X speed in the CloneDVD speed select drop down menu?

I set 4X in both Nero and CloanDVD2, and both produced the DVDs far too quickly, although it was slower than if I'd selected MAX or 16X. So I'm guessing the 8MB buffer is speeding up the copying process - it's either that or the drive simply won't operate at 4X - even though it is listed in the firmware as an available option.

I have tried newer versions of the firmware, even cross patched it to a 1633S - which did work a little better, but still produces a lot of coasters.

I do think that modern burners are far more picky when it comes to media, but obviously certain makes work much better than others - which is why I'm replacing my Sony burner with a new Plextor. I've heard other makes are also good, but my experience with my old Plextor 504 (100% error free no matter what I media I use) has made my decision for me.

Actually if it wasn't for the fact that it can't use DVD 9 media, I wouldn't have bothered with getting another burner.

Sometimes, the compression ratio is so low on a DVD 5, that the quality of the backup is just not good enough.

My experiences with my Sony burner and DL media was really bad - only one disk in five would play on any of my standalone DVD players - and they're all brand name players, Panasonic, Sony and Pioneer. That's a really expensive way of backing up a $20 DVD, spending $50 in DVD 9 media...

It's working much better now. I've backed up 5 movies and they are all running flawless.
Thank u, thank u, thank u!