Why doesn't my DVD play in a DVD Player?

Question

OK...frustration has set in....
I finally got a DVD out of a week's worth of effort, but when I put it in a DVD player I get nothing!
I'm using Sony DVDs (Memorex was even more of a nightmare). How do I get my movie burned correctly?
I built the DVD straight from an HD mp4, and it plays just fine in the Mac, but the DVD player doesn't recognize my effort...HELP!!!!

Answer 1

Hello, Mikemacx,
Just for information, what are you burning to DVD? Video, photo slideshows?
Can you burn a disk image from your iDVD project? (From within your iDVD project, select File->Save as Disc Image). This will look like the burn process and take just as long for the encoding, but the end result is a disk image file, not a burned DVD disk. You can test out this disk image file by clicking on it to open/mount it, then open the application DVD Player. The project should begin playing on your computer. If it plays correctly, then the disk image has been successfully created. You can use it to burn the actual DVD disk using Disk Utility )or Toast, if you prefer that).
The advantage of a disk image file is that it is a self-contained file. You can safely move, change or delete all the original files/videos/photos used in the project and still retain the ability to burn DVD disks of this project in the future. A disk image saves wear on the iDVD project, which is not self-contained, but merely aliases pointing to the actual media. Sometimes there are glitches in iDVD's retrieval of the media.
A disk image can be easily moved to another drive for storage, or to another computer.
Do use a good brand of DVD-R disk, such as Verbatim, Maxell or Taiyo Yuden. Sonys are also usually good.
Memorex and TDK are not recommended here because their disk layers are thinner; more likely to produce burning/playback problems. I must add that I have noticed recently that the Memorex disks seem thicker, but I have not gone back to them since my first DVD burn. I use Verbatim gold archival DVD-R SL disks, burn at 4x or 2x, and have not had a problem with my DVD disks playing on most players.
Often it is the DVD player itself that is the problem. Trying your burned DVD on several players may prove that the disk is fine; the player is not. One of my DVD players would not read the audio tracks correctly, but the Sony always worked fine.
Burn at a slow speed to get a more consistent burn. Choose 4x or slower.
Post back if these suggestions do not resolve your issues.