DVDs have recently become choppy

I've been backing up my DVDs for about two years now and for all of this time I've been using the exact same equipment. The problem I'm having is recently (within the last few days) all of the DVDs I've burned have either been so corrupted that they won't even play, or are choppy and pixelated in certain spots for a few seconds. Two of them (King Kong and Failure to Launch) aren't even recognized as DVDs in my computer and the only information the drive gives is that it's a CD (Which it isn't. I burned it as a DVD using Nero). I haven't done anything differently and I didn't get any errors during the Decrypting, Shrinking, or burning process. I normally decrypt the DVDs first, shrink them, and then burn them with Nero (I have tried in Nero itself and using the option to burn with DVD Shrink and gotten the same results). Can anyone give me some advice as to what my problem is or how to fix it?

The hardware and software I've been using are as follows: Nero 5.5.10.42, DVD Shrink 3.2, and DVD Decrypter 3.5.2.0 with Memorex and/or Maxell DVD+R discs at 12x speed. I've got an AOPEN DUW1608/AAR DVD/CD burner.

 

Memorex huh! Did you try burning at lower speeds (4X/8X)? Have you abused your burner? Maybe is asking to be replaced or at least for a firmware uptdate.

 

Heh, yeah. I normally buy decent quality discs but the Memorex came in a pack of 30 for $13. I knew that buying them for so cheap would probably come back to bite me, but they're working fine so far.

It hasn't worked with two or three DVDs and with one of them the sound and video were only corrupted for the first five minutes or so. Everything past that was fine. For all I know, there may be a small scratch or some other problem with the discs that I mentioned above. They don't have any problems in my DVD player but I bought them used so I suppose that's what I get for trying to back up a movie that I didn't buy new.

I bumped it down to 8x and tested it out and it seems to be fine. It's read in the DVD player and on the computer without any problems so far. Until I get more problems, I think I'll write those three off as a fluke.

Edit: It seems that the DVD I just burned works in my computer but not in my DVD player or PS2. I used a Maxell this time at 8x speed. The only thing that I can think of is there may be something wrong with the disc.

 

Maybe it was a bad batch. I mean, worse than Memorex usually is...LOL

 

Any suggestions on a good brand then?

 

There are countless threads that deal with that matter, but I'm gonna summarize it for you. Top Quality Brands are Two: Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim. Personally, and due to local market constraints, I use Ritek G03 for trivial things and YUDEN000T02 for important things.

Here's also a link that can help you a lot.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm

PS As a rule of thumb, Made in Japan media is superior than media made elsewhere. The one exception to this rule is Verbatim (made in Taiwan/Singapore).

 

Nitemare9...it is safe to say your media went bad. I learned the hard way myself. I even bought top brand media off eBay that ended up to be something else...even though the ID said it was the right thing.

Anyway...about fixing your problem. I have been able to recover most of my old DVD's that went bad. Here's what to do... try to run them through DVD Decrypter with AnyDVD running in the background. If you don't have AnyDVD, download a free trial. AnyDVD is a must for recovering the files. There is also a program called CD Check which can do minor repairs. It will tell you if you have a bad file that can't be recovered. http://www.kvipu.com/CDCheck/

If Decrypter stalls...then close it out...and try to just copy and paste the files, one at a time, to a HDD folder and rebuild the files. Sometimes AnyDVD will do what decrypter won't. It may take a while. I have waited for hours for just for a few bit of info, but it worked in the end.

If your computer won't even mount the DVD to be read, then try another brand of burner or DVD-ROM. It is not uncommon for one burner to fail to read, where the next one will. This has happened to me with even good DVD's.

The other thing to be aware of is that burners do fail...both burning and reading. I've gone through a few of them. Use Nero's Verify to make sure the burner is making a good burn.

I hope this helps.

 

I've heard nothing but good things about AnyDVD but never got around to downloading the trial. I'll check that out.

Thanks a lot, Doc and hermes!