Superdrive DVD's always skip & faulty

ScottW

ScottW

Founder
Staff member
Hello,

I was visiting my brother-in-law today for Thanksgiving and asked him how his flatscreen iMac was doing. He said fine. I said, how about those DVD's. He bought it for that purpose. He said he was really disappointed. It had yet to burn a DVD that wouldn't skip, fizzle and eventually stop working while watching it in a normal DVD player. He had tried all various brands but no luck.

While demonstrating to me, he pulled out some new DVD-R's he had bought and it wouldn't even recognize the DVD-R. So, needless I didn't get to see it happen w/ my own eyes.

I am curious if anyone who has one has had similar issues or how it might be fixed. I imagine he is not running Jaguar, probably 10.1 and has not done the firmware upgrade. He had the top of the line iMac (15" flatscreen) w/ Superdrive and 768meg of RAM.

If we can fix his issue, I am sure we will have a Mac fan once again.

Admin
 
Well, firmware updates are always important in such cases. I'd advise him to upgrade to Jaguar, anyway, as it brings all the other advantages we already know about.

He might also try and return the iMac for repair, as this certainly shouldn't be the case. I'd also test the DVDs on more consumer DVD players, as it's well known that some have more problems than others (so the problem could be with the players rather than with the writer).
 
May I bump this?

I have a similar issue in finding home DVD players that support DVD-R. Some say they do and don't, others don't say they do and do, same say they do, but can't handle the iDVD generated menus... It is a MESS!

I posted a thread but had no replies - http://www.macosx.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=27641 I have a DVD player that Apple's site said supports DVD-R, but it often fails to even recognize the disks. I only have 2 I have made to test this, but the same disks work fine on all my computer DVD players (3 - 2 Macs and 1 PC).

I found a higher end more audio-video store that will let me bring in my own DVDs to test, but over the phone they said they have seen similar issues - you have to try them out to know for sure. Still, this cannot be good for new Apple buyers like ScottW's brother-in-law, not to mention will IDVD 3 and it's new chapter marking feature be a new issue with home players? I'm going to experiment with DVD Studio made DVDs too, but it should all be the same - right?
 
My cheapo Apex DVD player handles the (only) DVD-R i burned using iDVD. It has movies of my little girl (gag, I know). Plays great.
 
If you are "backing up" DvD movies some players won't play them correctly unless you remake the files and fix the vob pointers. If you are talking about using like iDvD for home movies, you should be having this problem. The newest Superdrive Firmware should be installed for sure, and if at all possible try upgrading to Jaguar. Also, if you want great DvD media at a reasonable price try going with the Ritek brand. It is the same dye basis that is used in the very expensive Apple DvDs and Pioneer DvDs, but you can get them for about $.85 (delivered) from pricewatch.

-Juxel
 
Hi Juxel,

I am running 10.2.3 and my Superdrive meets all the criteria for not needing the upgrade (thanks for this link! I don't know why I have ignored it for so long...), but my iDVD burned DVD-Rs will not play on my Apple approved Sony home DVD player. I'm doing everything right, but following a trouble shooting logic, I think there may be issues with my DVD player (it skips a little too frequently on many disks), but still, it won't even recognize my iDVD DVDs and that has me worried, confused and a little suspicious. Until I can verify this with other home DVD players I still suspect this whole issue is less than resolved or clear to the average consumer.

I am trying to convince my PC loving sister-in-law to "switch" since she is primarily interested in editing home movies, but if she buys a Mac and can't play her DVDs on her home player (or her mothers, sisters, uncles...) I am going to catch holy he//!

I really think it is in Apple's best interest to explain and support this issue much more clearly. If new Apple users continue to have the experiences I have had or ScottW's brother-in-law had, it can't help them at all. How happy are people going to be if they invest in a new Mac primarily for movies and then are told, "Oh, by the way, anyone who wants to play your DVDs is going to have to buy a newer DVD player and/or only these certain models listed on Apple's site (that is a little out of date for newer models...) which have been tested, but may or may not really play your home made DVDs."
 
I've made dozens using a G4 with the superdrive. Imovie into IDVD with no hiccups. Menus work and dvd's play flawlessly. I've used the DVD's in sony and pioneer players as well as a Playstation
 
My experiance has been that my g/f's slightly old Apex player doesn't like iDVD generated movies, but that GE, Sony (including the PS2), and pioneer players work.
 
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