DVDs lock up Gxine, then won't play in other players

[Henry]

This is such an odd question I didn't know where to ask it, or even *if* I should ask it in a puppy forum. Well, here goes.

I created and market a how-to video on cello making. A local video company made me a DVD from my tapes. It worked well on ordinary DVD players, also in puppy with Gxine 5.9. Very clean, ordinary puppy. No other multimedia programs. No problems.

Then I had the same video company do some very minor editing and re burn it. Clearly they did something different this time. It still works fine in ordinary DVD players, and probably in ordinary computers. (With DRM? and special codecs required for WMP, etc. I really don't know.) But at least the ones I tried did not damage the DVD.

However - when I simply try to play it in puppy with Gxine, it won't. It immediately locks up Gxine, locks up puppy, and the DVD then will not play at all in the machines that it previous worked in. I have observed and carefully repeated this for as many DVDs as I care to waste :-(

Bizarre, yes, but this happens every time. I'm shipping DVDs to customers and hope they don't experience something like this. I'm expecting to hear back from the video company in a few days. Their expert is out of town. Any ideas or similar experiences? I'm not making this up.

Henry

[NinerSevenTango]

Did you try it on any other computers? Could there be a hardware problem with your DVD burner?

--97T--

[Flash]

The DVD specification is independent of anything in Windows. If the software the company used to edit and create your DVD creates DVDs correctly, then any DVD player or DVD playing software should play your DVD.

From what you said, the company burned the DVDs for you. Is that correct or did you burn the DVDs from a file they provided?

[Henry]

97T:

I tried an undamaged one on my wife's XP. Looked normal but needed a $15 codec to play. Tried it on a win2000, similar, no harm done..

The DVDs damaged in my puppy computer wouldn't play in anything.
I use it's burner for all sorts of things daily no problems ever.

Flash:

Both the first and second dvds were burned by the same video company, not by me. They're definitely different since the puppy computer kills only the second version. I also did a virus check on the second version in XP. Negative. I don't think it's a puppy problem because version one works perfectly with puppy. Just baffled.

Thanks,
Henry

[Flash]

The only way I can imagine to physically "kill" a DVD is if the DVD were a.) writeable -- either a DVD-R or RW -- and, b.) played in a drive capable of burning DVDs. If Puppy somehow tried to write to your DVD, it could screw it up. That's the only explanation I can think of. I wonder what would happen if you played one of the DVDs in a computer with a drive that only plays DVDs but can't burn them? Some "combo" drives can burn CDs but only read DVDs.

Have you tried mounting one of the DVDs that Puppy "killed" to see what's on it? Compare that to one that still works.

To leave the most obvious for last: have you asked the company that made the DVDs if they can explain what's going on? What do they say?

[Henry]

Flash, you wrote:
"The only way I can imagine to physically "kill" a DVD is if the DVD were a.) writeable -- either a DVD-R or RW -- and, b.) played in a drive capable of burning DVDs. If Puppy somehow tried to write to your DVD, it could screw it up. That's the only explanation I can think of. I wonder what would happen if you played one of the DVDs in a computer with a drive that only plays DVDs but can't burn them? Some "combo" drives can burn CDs but only read DVDs."

I don't have a drive like that, but it's much the same as the regular home DVD player, which doesn't have a burner, and doesn't damage the DVD.

"Have you tried mounting one of the DVDs that Puppy "killed" to see what's on it? Compare that to one that still works."

Excellent suggestion. I'm not very familiar with the files but there are four sets, including:
video_ts.vob (menu)
vts_01_1.vob (chapter 1)
vts_02_1.vob (chapter 2)
vts_03_1.vob (chapter 3)

I can "open with" gxine and run all three chapters. But the menu displays only for an instant and goes away. There is nothing obviously wrong to me -except that the "damaged" DVDs don't play. I can compare files etc, but haven't time now, off to work. One would expect the damage to be at the very beginning.

"To leave the most obvious for last: have you asked the company that made the DVDs if they can explain what's going on? What do they say?"

As I said at first, I am expecting to get that, but the company's technical expert is out of town for several days. I'll report what I hear.

Thanks,
Henry

[Henry]

OK, the plot thickens. I have 3 of the damaged DVDs. None could be read/played by an ordinary DVD player. Since I have been test playing individual .vob files on 2 of these mounted CDs as just described, they have changed.
Now 2 of them play on the home DVD player, but completely skip the menu and start in chapter 1.

So something in the first part of the DVD is being altered (overwritten?) by my computer DVD drive. Why it only happens in the second version of these professionally burned DVDs is a mystery. The first version and other commercial movie CDs work fine with Gxine in puppy. (maybe it's like an ATM that eats a bad bank card ;-) Shouldn't happen.

Henry