[Dr.G.]

I was speaking to an IT person at our university, telling him that I intended to get either a PowerBook or an iMac, specifically for iDVD and iPhoto capabilities. He arrogantly informed me that a DVD created on an PowerBook could not be transferred out to an external display (e.g., a TV). I could transfer out a commercially produced DVD, but not one that I created on a PowerBook. I told him that I knew that the DVD might not be playable on all DVD players, but I could not see how a Mac produced DVD could not be played on a Mac product.

As I incorrect in thinking that this person is either uninformed or insane?????

 

[VertiGoGo]

You are correct. The IT "expert" (term used lightly) is insane and misinformed.

 

[gordguide]

What the IT expert really meant to say was he tried it on his DELL and it didn't work, therefore it's impossible.

 

[Dr.G.]

At first, I thought that this person did not understand my point. I thought that he meant that certain displays might not be able to take the output from a PowerBook of a DVD created by iDVD. "No", he said, "DVD created by iDVD cannot be played on a Mac." "That's insane!", I exclaimed. "That's what Apple doesn't tell you about iDVD" he replied.

Now, I was going on intuition and common sense, since I had no proof that what he was saying was false. Had you MacMavens out there in ehMacLand told me that he was correct, I would have gone and apologized to him...................and then set off into the wilderness area outside of North ehMacLand (aka The Barrens) and contemplated the error of my ways. Thus, I thank you for helping me keep my status in the Clan of ehMacLanders (which rhymes with Newfoundlanders, which rhymes with understanders), and remain as the King of Korn, the Consular General in Waiting, the owner of the only two standard wirehaired dachshunds in all of Newfoundland and Labrador, the....................you get the picture. Merci.

 

[Peter Scharman]

QUOTE
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR> remain as the King of Korn, the Consular General in Waiting, the owner of the only two standard wirehaired dachshunds in all of Newfoundland and Labrador<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Careful those Newfounlands don't try to eat those little wire-haired weiner dogs. They relish them when they ketchup to them (OK,OK ,...you can nominate me for "wurst" pun award)

 

[MacDoc]

Minor bit of truth in his statement BUT IT APPLIES TO PCs AS WELL. Some fancy DVD players ( ie the typical ones Mac users own) do not like to read burned video DVDs. Something to do with their error correction. Ironically the cheapies often read them perfectly. This may be the same kind of issue that affects some Powerbooks.

Here are some notes

I've burned several DVDs for a friend who is a teacher. The video quality of some of the clips were not very good but I was careful when I encoded and the DVDs playback on a set top DVD Player is acceptable. The same DVDs when played back on my 667 Powerbook and fed via the S-Video output to an NTSC monitor appear to have occasional keying problems. For those graybeards among us who remember, the problem looks like an unevenly lit scene and an inexpensive luminance keyer. Is there a way to tweak the software player or is a mediapress type hardware decoder available for the Powerbook??"

"Personally I think a small portable DVD player would be better. NTSC DVD video from a computer has always been sketchy unless hardware decoding is available. I have not heard of one for a Powerbook. "

"http://www.powerbookcentral.com/newspro/talk/996360210,86678,.shtml"
same issue

 

[PosterBoy]

Ahh, indeed that minor glitch is true. I usually recomend that anyone looking for a laptop to use as a DVD player across to my AVS dept. to buy a DVD Player.

That said, he might have been referring to using DVD-RW disks, which Apple doesn't even support anyway. Currently (or at least the last time I looked into it) the only way to burn a DVD-RW Video Disk was to use Toast, and then they wouldn;t play back on the internal DVD player of a Mac.

But for the most part, they will play, just not necesarily at the best quality.

--PB

 

[Dr.G.]

MacDoc and PosterBoy, thanks for the info. I might just copy these off (without your names to protect the innocent) and send them as attachments to this IT person. Luckily, I have one of those less expensive and older DVD players that is on the compatibility list supplied by Apple.

Peter, actually, that "wurst" pun was actually quite good. I'll vote for you.

 

[gordguide]

In general, burned or RW disks are less reflective (to the laser pickup) than manufactured ones. The ability to read writeable media has to be built into the player as it's not part of the Red Book CD or DVD-Video standard. Since older models weren't built with this in mind, they tend to be least compatible.

A "sloppy" player that doesn't attempt to read a disk accurately but instead relies on error correction (especially when the error correction employs a data cache, like portable CD "walkman" types) to fill in any missing bits often does better on CD-R than a more expensive player that spends engineering effort on fidelity; I hadn't noticed the same difference in DVD players but I wouldn't be suprised to learn it exists.

Slower media (ie 4x CD or 1x DVD) tends to work better than fast-burn media on music CD or video DVD players. If you have a CD that "won't play" on a supposedly compatible player, try burning at a slower (less than maximum) speed and it wouldn't hurt to use less expensive (slower) media as well (different dye layers), or both.

If I were planning to send a disk to an unknown user, I would probably burn at the slowest speed and go do something else for a while.

Finally, all writeable disks are not equal; you could keep trying different brands and speeds. When you find a brand and speed that works well in your car player, for example, use that kind all the time.

Obviously a laptop is different, but I've had excellent results playing DVD and DVD-R's through both a G4/400 16MB video and a G4/867 32MB card via analog monitor out to a projector.