[plug] DVD burn question

[Gavin Chester]

On Wed, 2007-06-27 at 20:52 +0800, David Dartnall wrote:
> Gavin Chester wrote:
> > On Wed, 2007-06-27 at 16:42 +0800, David Dartnall wrote:
> >   

-snip-

> >> Any thoughts? Where have I gone wrong?
> >>     
> >
> > you don't say what burning app you're using, but in this case I think it
> > may be irrelevant. You also don't indicate whether there was any error
> > output, even if it completed okay. So i'm stabbing in the dark here:
> >
> > If you have one good dvd and/or the original image still, then try again
> > with another disc. I have found (and had conformed by the k3b developer)
> > that dvd burners are VERY fussy about media. I bought a spindle of
> > cheapies once and had to throw out more than half as coasters :-( With
> > good media (eg, verbatim, etc) I have near 100% success. HTH.
> >
> > Gavin  
> >   
> Thanks Gavin, I was using Feisty's 'Copy Disk" process - inserted DVD, 
> Totem started to play, closed Totem and clicked on the Desktop icon of 
> the DVD which brought up a menu offering a 'Copy Disk' option which I took.
> There were no failure notifications, and after having checked that the 
> first one worked, I carried on with the second. No dice so tried again 
> without success (and again). So I installed K3b and tried with that a 
> couple of times. I now have five coasters, all of which were flagged as 
> correctly burnt and completed.
> The medium is TDK.
> 
> I'll buy some Verbatim & try again...

Bummer ... :-( So it sounds as though you have a typical ubuntu/gnome
setup - so excuse me if my advice is "kde-centric" since I choose not to
use gnome and you might need to translate ;-) For example, I prefer k3b
over gtoaster nowadays. 

On dvd media: I have also had good luck with benq media that I bought
very cheaply on spindle - so it's really the "no name" stuff that is
false economy. You don't just have to buy benq or verbatim brand, tdk is
also good. There may be others, too. I found my drive is more fussy and
rejects dvd+r a lot of the time whereas dvd-r of a good brand has given
me 100% success. Forget some advice you may get about dvd-r good for
audio and dvd+r good for video. There is conflicting opinion on this and
I think the reality is that they are interchangeable, but because dvd-r
has been around for about 4-5 years longer as a standard it is more
universally compatible. 

On burning: I have tried several ripping and encoding programs, but
being kde-centric I have near-faultless result using k9copy which rips
and encodes, and then fires up k3b to do the burning. If you have a disc
already 4.2gb and under, or an iso image then k3b alone will do a direct
dvd copy or burn the image to disc. Sounds like you may need to do a new
copy or create a new iso image and start again?

On drives: I have found that a dvd drive can become "locked" by sleeping
processes and be unusable in different ways. I searched and searched on
this issue and in the end the only way to reclaim the drive is to reboot
- logging out isn't good enough. Maybe totem isn't giving up full
control of your drive?

Summary: I would get good quality dvd-r media, reboot and try the disc
copy process from scratch with k3b and you should have good results.
BTW: maybe change your desktop behaviour so totem doesn't start
automagically - it may be interfering with control of your drive - it
certainly will be mounting your disc before you want. HTH.

Gavin