Cant' Burn DVDs in Disc Utility or iDVD

I'm trying to burn a 111 min family movie. I've tried burning it in iDVD, but it failed at the "Writing Lead in" part. I've already burnt it once, in Disc Utility, but when I used Disc Utility to burn the new DVD as a disk image, it said 'Cannot get the necessary laser power level in order to burn"
The DVD I use is TDK DVD+R DL but I dont think the disc is the problem, since I have burnt many files on these disc already (which includes the first disc of the movie I'm burning).
What is the problem? Does my burner need replacing?

You need to look at the variables since you last were able to successfully burn this project.
First, make sure that you have enough free disk space to burn: 5GB is rock bottom but 20GB is recommended.
Secondly, shut down any other power consuming programs while you are burning, including your screen saver and power saver programs, and even email. Restarting your computer helps to clean things out.
Make sure that your burner is clean.
At 111 minutes, you are close to the 120 minute max for a single sided disk. Still, I would try burning this project onto a single sided standard DVD-R (instead of +R), using a different brand of disk. Maxell, Verbatim, Sony have been recommended. I personally like HP DVD-R disks. I have heard negative comments about TDK.
If you can burn a small test project, then probably your burner is O.K, and clean enough to burn, although I have heard that they can sporadically malfunction.
If nothing works, you might want to take your computer in to an Apple store or other repair place and have them check your burner.

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Burning DVD-RL discs

Anyone successfully burned DVD-RL discs with the iMac? I'm using Toast 8.0.1 and running Leopard and so far my failure rate has been 100%. The discs fail at different places with different errors with both hardware and verify errors.

transco wrote:
Anyone successfully burned DVD-RL discs with the iMac?
I'm not familiar with "DVD-RL" -- and don't see it mentioned on any iMac spec sheet.
If you meant "DVD-R DL", it wasn't supported by the built-in "superdrive" until the most recent generation ALU iMacs. See the thread linked below for more details:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1196774
BTW, my 20" white iMac burns "DVD+R DL" media with no problem (but only at 2.5x speed, as specified).
Looby

IDVD will no longer burn DVD+R discs

After years of happily burning both -R and +R DVD's, now suddenly my iDVD will only work with -R? I'm stranded here with no -R discs (and a new 50-pack of the other), so I hope you can tell me how to restore this function of my software. I suspect it has to do with updates that make the various components incompatible, but I wouldn't have a clue how to remedy that.
I've tried closing and re-starting iDVD, emptying the trash, removing the motion function, deleting encoded assets, moving com.apple.iDVD something something to the desktop before opening iDVD, but nothing made it keep the disc in the drive. It spits it out saying to please insert a DVD-R disc.
Thanks!
Roxane

Try this:
1. Instead of burning directly to disc, use the option in iDVD to output to a disc image
2. Upon completion of creating the disc image, use Apple Disk Utility to burn the image to your new media
If that fails, it is likely a media issue; your drive is not compatible with your new media.
Outside of this, something else you can try is to simply see if the disc can be burned using Finder. While in Finder, you can mount writable discs in your drive for backing up files and folders. If Finder cannot mount and write to the disc, again you have a media issue.
What to do?
Wait for Apple to update the drive firmware to handle newer media; or get an external drive that is newer; or purchase new media. The latter is your cheapest and most timely solution.
I've got quite a selection of media here and seem to notice that some brands give me the most problem. I've found that Verbatim, Sony, Fuji, TDK, and Taiyo-Yuden seem to give predictable results time and time again.
My most recent failure was with some off-brand +R DL media I picked up at a Frys sale. While trying to burn a Snow Leopard install disk, I had 3 failures in a row - drive recognized the disc and burned it, but it would not verify. Going back to one of my tried and true brands resulted in success on the first try.
Caveat Emptor.
Mike

Burning DVD data discs?

When I insert a blank CD-R in my Superdrive(tm), the blank disk appears on my desktop, making it easy to drag and drop files to it to be burned.
Blank DVD+R discs don't show up on my desktop, however. Is that by design? I'm guessing I could still burn a DVD data disc by using a burn folder, correct? Is there a better way?
I know the disks I'm using are compatible with the Superdrive because I've successfully burned DVD movies to those disks using iDVD.
Thanks.

It is possible that when you insert a blank DVD, it is set to open up in a specific application (maybe iDVD). Open up system preferences, click on "CD & DVDs" and make sure that the category "When you insert a blank DVD", the drop down menu is on "Ask what to do" so that you have the option of opening it in the finder.

CANT BURN DVD's

hi
i've had this problem with my drive. I never burned dvd's before. I own a macbookpro 15' since over a year and always burned cd's but never dvd's...
until a couple of days ago, i was ripping a dvd from a party of a friend of mine and wanted to copy it with toast... toast wasn't able to copy the it giving me error messages that the source file was damaged and cannot be read.
i managed to copy it manually using "cut n paste".
i tried burning the "file" which i copied from the dvd with roxio toast, burn, and using disk utility and it also didn't work....
i tried using a different empty dvd from a different company... and it suddenly worked.
the funny thing was that the other dvd's that my mac wasn't accepting for some reason, they were accepted by my other macbook pro and i was also able to burn them using another macbook.
why?
these are the messages i got:
the device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media
could not record the disk because there's a problem with the source material - result 18771
can anyone help me please? my cd drive doesn;t to be damaged since i also burned with it different dvds and cds. but why was i getting these messages and why in particular with this dvd?
thankx.

Hi there, I had this issue before. The solution was not stable so I had to redo the configuration every time I wanted to burn a disc.
You should go to System Preferences Language & Text settings, move English to the top of the list and set the order to English or Standard, don't remember right now, then the system had to be restarted and the burn was done, sometimes it was not and I had to do the configuration again and restart so that I could burn. And also as I created a new burn folder I had to do that again to burn, otherwise I had this not calibrated message.
Search older messages here and you'll find the hole right steps to take.
Good luck.

Burning DVD from disc image

I've been burning DVD's from disc images using Encore 1.0 for some time now. ever since I upgraded to 2.0, Encore gives me error messages on my project like:
"first play not set" and
"remote control problem".
I don't see how these messages can appear when I'm using a disc image (i.e. a completed project) as the source. does anyone know?

When you click on the Build DVD button in the Disc panel, Encore does a quick check of errors
in the current project. If you have a new, empty project, you will at least get errors about First Play and Title Remote. Those errors have nothing to do with your disc image, they apply to the current project, from which you are trying to burn your disc image.
These errors may be safely ignored, since they don't have any effect on your disc image.
-Jeff

I have a late 2011 15" MacBook Pro with a Windows 7 partion. On both sides of my HD, i cant burn DVDs.

I've tried Windows Media Player, and Windows Movie Maker on Windows. On Mac, I've tried a few different things including Burn. For some reason i dont have iDVD. In my "About this Mac" it says that my optical drive can burn DVDs. It always goes through the process, then skips to the end and spits out the disk saying it couldnt complete the task. I dont understand why its so difficult these days when burning DVDs used to be so simple.

I thought about doing what you said above, but unfortunately, I didn't have any spare blank DVD's. However, I was able to sucessfully install Windows & on my Mac. What I did was when I got to the error message, I would cancel the installation and that would return me back to the install now window. At that point, I would take out the flash drive and put it into another USB port. It took a few times, but eventually it recognized the drivers and allowed me to install the software. Remember, once you get past that point, the installation will ask you to choose a drive to install Windows on. Highlight the Boot Camp drive and chose "advanced", and then chose "format" after that. After all of this, it should be smooth sailing.

Help, i cant burn dvds. I can watch a dvd or burn a cd but not a dvd

I have an intel 17 inch imac and a matshita dvd-r uj-85j. when I go to burn a dvd I get a “Untitled DVD” can’t be burned because the disc is read-only and can’t be modified (error code 0x80020042). But that is BS. Can you please help me?

Sorry if this is obvious, but reasons why the DVD might not burn include:
1. The DVD burning speed is at the maximum speed of the drive.
2. The DVD is of low quality. Never burn discs from anything other than Ritek, Taiyo, or Verbatim. Don't apply sticky labels to the DVD, and don't use markers. Buy DVDs that are stored in jewelcases, not spindles. Follow the standards set here:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2446
These issues are all platform independent.
3. The DVD was already burnt before (multi-session DVDs as far as I know are only possible for data DVDs, not movie DVDs, though double sided DVDs allow a burn on each side).
4. The capacity of the burn file is at the maximum of the capacity of the disk (try a smaller capacity).
5. The burning software is old. Make sure the version you are using is tested with your operating system version.

BURN DVD Using Disk Utility not Bootable

I have downloaded TechTool Deluxe for Intel and PPC. Following instructions in Disk Utility, I made/Burned DVD's of each .dmg for Power PC & Intel based computers.
Neither DVD will boot on computers using OS 10.5.6. The PPC DVD has OS 10.4.4 and the Intel has OS 10.4.5. I have tried restart using System Preferences, the "C" key, and "Option".
Can someone tell me how to boot from the DVD's or tell me what I may have done incorrectly?
Bud

There must be some misunderstanding here.
It is the TechTool CD that must boot. If an operating system was installed on the CD via Disk Utility Burn then it should start up on that CD. It does not, even though it will show up in System Preferences/Startup Disk and "Options". I see it as a matter of how Apple installs the .dmg onto the CD as a legitimate startup disk.
All my computers work fine with 10.5.6 or lesser for older machines. The purpose of Techtools for me is to assure that they continue to do so.
The reason for a second G5 is that the first one had an LED light "on" on the logic board making it somewhat inoperable. The second machine comes clean. 10.5.X was installed nicely.
Bud

Cant open DVD ram discs

I have a 27 inch imac but it won't open my dvd ram disc, they have family videos on them and i am trying to save them to the imac, any help would be great thanks

Intervideo WinDVD is a movie player, not a movie format.
Could please look at the contents of the DVD and look at the file name of one of the tracks?
The suffix is the key. It will be "something.xyz"
That is the information you need to figure out if there is a way to play the movies on a Mac.

L305-S5921 cannot burn DVD-RAM discs, help wanted please

Dismay!
TOSHIBA Satellite L305-S5921 NoteBook cannot write Panasonic DVD-RAM disc, but read already written ones?!
What is the problem!?
thanks in advance.

Bastumante wrote:
Dismay!
TOSHIBA Satellite L305-S5921 NoteBook cannot write Panasonic DVD-RAM disc, but read already written ones?!
What is the problem!?
thanks in advance.
DVD-RAM disks must be formatted first. Could that be the issue?

Cant burn dvd

I have a wedding video with transition pics and music at the end. In the vid is the wedding with pastor talking then at the end I changed to ken burns effects and underlying music.
- I have finalized the movie serval times. Put it on the desktop even.
- I put in a dvd +rw and nothing happens...or the photo still come up blank and no music.
- Not even the burn button shows up?
- Can someone walk me thru this?
- I am new to mac by 4 months and have customers waiting too long. I have tried Macs tutorials that were of no help.
- I have never been able to get this thing to burn.
- It also had to play on a standard DVD player for TV and on PC computers.

Using DVD +rw is not a good idea. It's best to use top quality media which have a high dye concentration in its layers. Verbatium, Maxell or Taiyo Yuden DVD-R are the most recommended in these forums. The -R disks seem to be more compatible with set top DVD players particularly older player..
Save the iDVD project as a disk image, File ➙ Save as Disk Image, mount the disk image and play it with DVD Player. If the porject plays correctly then the encoding is good. The next step would be to burn to disk with Disk Utility at 2X-4X to assure the best possible burn quality. I, being retired, have lots of time so use 2X.

Why cant burn dvd message says there where errors durring project validation

when I try to save as disc image I get a message that says errors durring project validation and wont let me burn my project used to work fine.can anyone help

Hi
My thoughts.
• Free Space on Your Start-Up (Mac OS) Hard Disk - How much ?
• Brand of DVD used ?
• Type of DVD used ?
• Video-Codec, photo file format and Audio file formats used ?
There is so much that can go wrong - so we need a lose end to start to unwind the problem.
Yours Bengt W

Cant burn dvds!??

I have googled and googled but can't find anything online that says anything about why all of a sudden I can't burn any dvds?
Got my imac in Julyish of 08' and I have the "MATSHITA DVD-R UJ-875:"
I don't know anything in terms of if I need to clean it or if the drive is just broken or ? I went through after reading something online and verified the disc and then repaired the disc permissions.. I was able to burn one dvd and then ever since.. nothing. Is it just broken? If so, how much am I looking at to get it fixed or replaced?
I checked to make sure everything is updated.. tried restarting.. I have no clue what else to try.
The error I get when I put in the dvd is : Burning the disc failed because communication to the disc drive failed.
I have memorex dvds- and have tried burning from the finder and from a burn folder. neither work
Any help or ideas would be so appreciated

Welcome to the Apple discussions.
Are you able to read from the DVD? If you insert your first OS X disk that came with your system (or a retail OS X disk), and reboot holding the C key down, does that work (that would cause it to boot from the DVD)?
Or, can you reboot holding the D key down? This may bring up the Apple hardware test if it's on your system, otherwise, you need to insert the first OS X disk that came with your system and reboot holding the D key (or hold the alt/option key and choose the AHT). If that works, choose the extended test.

Cannot burn dvd with disk utility

Hello together,
i try to burn a dvd in my Mac mini with superdrive using the disk-utility.
It is possible to delete a DVD +RW (fast or normal)
It is not possible to set a new name for the disk
It is not possible to burn the disk ("not enough space")
I'm logged in as admin.
Whta do i have to do else to burn a dvd?

thank you, now i can go on

Cant' Burn DVDs in Disc Utility or iDVD

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