Help Burning a DVD

[Dru22]

I'm wanting to back-up my DVD collection, i tried the other day to copy The Punisher, it said it had CSS protection on it. Well i got DVD Decrypter and DVD Shrink (website told me that it would get around CSS), i went to a place that had told me how to do it. Whenever i would insert the disc it would act like it was reading it and would just idle. I would close it out and it would say it wasn't responding. Well i would open DVD Shrink and try to open the movie, at first it opened but then whenever it would start reading the disc it would say cannot read disc in drive D: I tried a different DVD (Office Space) When i put the dvd in and it went to load, there was like purple lines and it was all messed up. I tried both in my DVD Home Theater system and both worked perfectly.
I closed those out and loaded PowerDVD, and the movie would skip and stuff. Took the cd out and there wasn't a scratch on it. Loaded it again and it played a little better, then tried Nero Showtime and would skip. I RMA'd the drive back to newegg.com, do you think this was my drive? or computer/hardware?
I looked for any updates on my drive but i couldn't find a single update for it, no firmware, or driver updates. I have a Sony Dru-710A 16X DVD+/-RW. Could someone help me out, or maybe, possibly tell me a program that can help me back up my DVD.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks

 

[Zepper]

Sony is basically rebadged Lite-On these days. I think you can use the firmware interchangeably. The main problem with DVD burners is media compatibility. Most firmware updates are for improving media compatibility. Perhaps a different brand of media would improve your results. Usually the drive makers web sites have lists of compatible media. It is also possible that the DVD copying programs haven't caught up with the dual layer models yet. They may have lists of compatible drives - worth checking out.
.bh.

 

[jfall]

I'm with Zepper on this one, it was more than likely a DVD media problem, you should have tried a few different brands.

 

[Dru22]

Well see its a Sony Dru 710a Burner, i was using SONY DVD+R's to burn, i figured they were both made by Sony that they would be compatible.

And also, the burner wasn't reading any of the DVD's that i would put in to watch a movie, The Punisher would read but would skip, i took it out and cleaned it and worked a little better but still skipped, it there wasn't a scratch on it. Then i tried Office Space and still no luck, there were all these purple lines all over the screen.

I used PowerDVD and Nero Showtime to watch movies and sometimes they would freeze up also.

I found this....http://www.sonydigital-link.co...ds.asp?l=en&sc=dvd

DRU-710A
Note:
- writing performance and reliability improvements.

Firmware Version by02

Download Updater - 710a_by02.exe

 

[Dru22]

But what performance and reliability does that give me? Does that let it read better or what?

 

[Tom]

It certainly could be the new firmware would help, but there isn't any way of knowing for us average Joes. All we can do is try it and see if it helps.

Another possiblity I'm thinking is that since that is a relatively new drive that DVDshrink or other software you use might not work with it until they upgrade the software for the new hardware. This used to be the case with new CDRW burners, frequently older verisons of burning software had to be upgraded to work with new drives. I don't know if this is the case with newer burning software, but I would think it's possible.

Also some newer drives may be coming with some sort of anti-copy built in, but I'm just speculating on that. Sony is in the movie business big time, and I doubt they approve of people making copies of dvds, even if it's for legitimate reasons.

 

[Dru22]

Well see the Burner isn't reading the movies when i just want to watch the movie....They were skipping and like i mentioned above the Office Space would load and all these purple things were coming up on the screen, like it was reading it right or something.

 

[Tom]

Have you got any older DVDs you could try to play on the computer ? Maybe its some kind of new copy protection.

And it could be the drive was defective, or that the newer firmware would fix it. When they tell you what the new firmware fixes, they usually aren't very specific, so it might fix things they don't mention.

 

[Dru22]

Yea i ended up trying like 10 different DVD's, i searched for updates and couldn't find any at the time. So i RMA'd the damn thing, so hopefully they get it back to me real soon, then i'm gonna put the update to it. And then if it doesn't fix it i'm gonna get a new one. Hopefully it does work cause i have NFSU2 and HL2 waiting to be installed on my rig.