Open Screens® DVD helper

We at Open Screen® have seen a lot of DVDs and while most of them play just fine, some do not. We created this document in order to help folks make the correct choices in DVD media and burning.

Q. What’s with DVD formats?

A. All DVD formats were not created equal (please, I mean please, do not ask us to elaborate). You may have seen the following: DVD-R, DVD+R and DVD-/+RW – these are the different types of recordable DVD’s. Of these we have found that DVD-R tend to have the fewest formatting issues. PLEASE make sure that your burner is able to burn DVD-R before you buy them and then blame us, your humble Open Screen hosts for wasting your hard earned dollars. If your burner cannot burn DVD-R, then you can try DVD+R, or, even better - MiniDV!

Q. Does it matter what brand of recordable DVD I use?

A. All DVD’s are not created equal. Yep, that’s right, there can be significant quality changes between brands of recordable DVD’s. While we can’t really tell you which brands to buy, we can recommend a brand that rhymes with “phony” and another brand that rhymes with “fur bate them.”

Q. How will I know if it works?

A. This is probably the most important thing. Most DVD’s will work in the computer that burned them. So testing your DVD in your computer is in no way a good test to see if the DVD will work. At a minimum, you should test your DVD in your DVD player! That’s what we are using at Open Screen. If you have a lot of free time, you should test your DVD in MULTIPLE DVD players. If your disk works in every player you try it in, you are probably fine.

Q. So, what’s the deal with CBR and VBR and which one should I use?

A. Okay, I knew you were going to ask this. Well, it’s like this, which is better, someone who is set in their ways or someone who is always able to adjust to whatever is happening? Okay, maybe that’s a really bad analogy. Basically a CBR is a Constant Bit Rate and a VBR is a Variable Bit Rate. What this means is that a CBR will make no adjustments as it encodes your DVD. It finds a bit rate and then sticks with it. A VBR will adjust as the encoding becomes more or less necessary. For example, if you have a still frame for 30 seconds, there will be very little change from frame to frame (it’s the same frame) so the VBR is like, “whoa, I’ll just kick back for a moment and catch my breath.” Then if you have a lot of change, let’s say a sudden amount of movement or radical shifts from dark to light then the VBR is like “okay, I’m getting serious now and I am going to encode like there is no tomorrow.” In the end, CBR’s tend to take up a bit more room (memory wise) but encode faster, whereas, VBR’s take up less room, but take longer to encode. So, in short, it depends on what you need.

Q. There is a certain DVD application that leaves this little annoying watermark in the corner that resembles a piece of fruit with a bite taken out of it, is there anyway to get rid of that?

A. You betcha. Go under preferences and then go under the “general” tab. There is a little check box there that takes care of that.