Media Center will no longer burn recorded TV shows to video DVD

[tom982]

DVR-MS Converter Download

Sadly, the free demo/trial version is only good for a 1 minute video. I'm not likely to buy the converter when I don't even know whether it will fix my problem. However....

It does give me a good idea, which is to take some AVI files and see if I can get the Windows DVD Maker to burn a video DVD from them. My digital camera makes AVI video files, so I'll give that a try.

>>>> Clay >>>>

Oh sorry I didn't realise about the trial. Yes good idea, let me know how that goes.

Tom

 

[Clay]

It does give me a good idea, which is to take some AVI files and see if I can get the Windows DVD Maker to burn a video DVD from them. My digital camera makes AVI video files, so I'll give that a try.

I pulled together 50 AVI files and successfully burned a video DVD using Windows DVD Maker. So that shows that Vista can still burn a video DVD.

Normally in the past, I have burned three 30-minute TV shows to one video DVD. This is what has been failing for the last few months. So I tried burning just one 30-minute recorded TV show using Media Center, and the burn was successful. This says to me that it really isn't a CODEC issue. Next I tried to burn two 30-minute shows to a video DVD disk, and the burn operation failed.

I think that this narrows down the problem a bit. I can burn one 30-minute program to a video DVD, but not two (or three). I will see if I can find some longer recorded TV shows to try to burn in order to determine whether the problem is with the amount of total show time that is burned, or the number of individual programs being burned, regardless of length.

The search goes on...

>>>> Clay >>>>

 

[stoneys-nutz]

Hello Clay,
Can you tell me the file size of the TV shows, and the capacity of the DVD's you are using.
Seems strange it will happily burn one, but not two or three.

 

[Clay]

Can you tell me the file size of the TV shows, and the capacity of the DVD's you are using.

I was originally using Verbatim and Memorex DVD+R media, but every time the burn failed, it destroyed the disk. Now I am doing my testing on TDK DVD+RW media, which still fails the burns, but I can still recover and reuse the disk. They are all 4.7 GB capacity.

The TV shows that I am trying to burn were recorded off the air in Windows Media Center and saved as DVR-MS format files on hard disk. They are 30-minute shows, around 700MB each in the DVR-MS source files. I can easily burn six of these files to a data DVD. But when I try to burn a video DVD disk is where I start having the burn errors. I have a full recap of the details a few messages back, in case you haven't been following the thread.

I am attempting to burn a 60 minute Nova show to a video DVD now. Should have results shortly.

>>>> Clay >>>>

 

[Clay]

I've done a few more tests using Windows Media Center to burn recorded TV shows to video DVD. I can burn one 30-minute show, but not two. I can burn one 60-minute show, but I can't burn one 90-minute show. I may try to convert some of the DVR-MS source files to AVI format and then try the burn again.

>>>> Clay >>>>

 

[Clay]

Well, the results just get more confusing. The show that I was trying to burn to DVD is called Zoboomafoo. I burned 12 episodes to DVDs, and then started getting the burn errors. Now I can burn only one episode, but not two (or three). But when I tried burning three 30-minute episodes of Curious George to DVD, that burned successfully and played back on the video DVD player just fine.

So now I'm starting to just think that Vista and/or Media Center are just a bit flaky when it comes to burning video DVDs. So my next approach will be to convert the DVR-MS source files to MPG files first, then burn a video DVD with something other than Media Center. I just installed VLC and will try that first to convert the files. There is also a DVRMSToolbox that I might try to convert the source files.

Still, it is frustrating to know that all this used to work just fine in Media Center, and now it gets Burn Errors (sometimes) when doing the same things. Since I can't find anything else broken, I'm starting to think that something in one of the Windows Vista updates is causing the problem, but it doesn't give me any details to know exactly what the problems, so I can't fix it.

Maybe I'll try Linux....

>>>> Clay >>>>

 

[Clay]

Although frustrated that I can't figure out why some recorded programs will burn successfully to a video DVD and others won't, it looks like I have a plausible workaround. The DVRMSTool makes it fairly easy to convert the DVR-MS source files to MPG format, and most DVD players today are able to play MPG files. So after converting to MPG files, I can now burn six 30-minute shows to a data DVD.

I think it is time for a beer!

>>>> Clay >>>>

 

[stoneys-nutz]

I have to say, I'm impressed with your patience on this issue, most would have given up ages ago.
I hope you stick around to help others.

Now go on, spoil yourself, have two beers.

 

[wheelsmith]

could be a buffering problem, check hardware settings for timed powering down, screen savers etc. its also worth checking out active apps, a/v , sheduled events in task manager.
some demo/trial codecs can even have timers built-in or just bug-out, this app can help sort out the badly installed/corrupt ones, klcodectt442.exe and investing in rewritable disks is worthwhile for testing or sampleing before finsihing a job.