Does anyone still burn their movies to DVD?

Okay I'm fully aware of how ridiculous this sounds in 2023, but bare with me.

I have a wonderful neighbour, Jackie. She's in her mid-sixties, and ever since she moved in we have become very good friends, she's like a second mom to me.

Jackie loves movies and has an enormous DVD collection. One day, she was talking about how she couldn't find a particular movie, and I said "I can probably download that for you!" Her immediate reply was "Can you put it on a DVD?" I tried telling her the many reasons it would be better to use a myriad of other solutions, but she insists on DVDs.

I did them for a while using DVDStyler on Windows, and it worked fine. But then I installed EndeavourOS on a new partition on my hard drive, tried using Brasero and Devede but it wouldn't read on her DVD player. Then I tried DVDStyler on my Linux partition, and it didn't work on her DVD player, despite saying the operation was successful on my end. I then tried booting up into Windows and using DVDStyler, and that also didn't work, not even letting me burn the disc. Does anyone have any ideas what could fix this? I've tried playing around with the settings in all these apps but I couldn't figure it out.

Apologies if this isn't the best place to ask this, but I figured a community of pirates would understand my desire to get movies to Jackie without her having to pray to find them in a pawn shop!

30 comments

I still burn DVDs for my grandma who lives several hours away. She doesn't have a computer or the Internet at home, so in order to share video clips from the kids I convert them to a DVD she can play on her TV. She's so happy each time she receives a new disc in the mail and it allows her to see them grow between visits.
- USB?
  
  She finds it easier to just put the DVD in there, as it will autoplay the whole thing without any intervention, and I take the time to make a cover and everything.

Does the software have an option for closing the session? Some burning software lets you leave the session open so that you can burn additional files to the disc later if it's not completely full yet, but many dedicated DVD players will only actually play the disc if the session is closed.
(This knowledge pulled from the dim recesses of my memory, which, like DVD, isn't what it used to be, so bear with me if I'm mistaken.)
- This is the only piece I remember from burning DVDs from 10+ years ago.

Is it possible that the video isn't properly encoded in the first place?
Try transcoding to MP4 first and then burning it, even if it is already MP4.
Did you change DVD spindles recently to a new set?
Maybe you unwittingly moved from DVD- to DVD+
Will it play as a DVD on your system?
- It's done this with multiple files, even ones which previously worked. The blanks are from the same spindle, and I've also tested with another batch. My PC can't read them either.
  
  I'm guessing your writer is failing.
  Same data
  Same media
  Multiple os rules out malware, mostly
  Without being there to watch and understand your process, I have to assume you know what you are doing and haven't missed a step in the writing process, such as finishing the disk or whatever. The fact that you are using multiple applications on multiple operating systems lends confidence.
  That leaves the hardware itself. Luckily a new writer isn't expensive.
  
  How old are the blank DVDs? Consumer-writable DVDs degrade over time

You were supposed to convert it to betamax first, duh
All jokes aside, you are very nice for going out of your way to deal with obsolete tech for your friend to watch movies. Kudos to you.

I used to do this often. I'll try to remember the software I used to rip and the different software I used to burn and post here. WinX DVD Author looks good.
I got a CD/DVD duplicator off craigslist for about $50 that works great for me. Nice to have a dedicated device for it. Very easy to use and also connects to my PC as an external DVD drive. Search for this to see something similar:
Copy Mate 1 ONE DVD CD Single Target Burner Disc to Disc Duplicator with USB 3.0 External Connection to PC

What are the specific DVD discs you're using?
If it's got any type of rewriteable ability, it likely won't play in a DVD player.
If I remember I had the best luck with DVD-R discs ( NOT DVD+R ) but it has to do with the dvd burner and the final dvd player they end up in. Might be worth trying both.
edit: just read your comment that it previously worked but stopped working? In that case Id agree that maybe your DVD burner needs a replace
- This is a fair comment, and would definitely have helped me out 15 or so years ago when I was trying to figure out how to burn DVDs for myself :P

I can't remember the last time I burned a DVD for anything, possibly 15 years.

Is it an idea to get her a new DVD player which also reads USB sticks?
- Her current setup already can read files from a USB, she still insists on DVDs. I don't really think she can wrap her mind around how files are as permanent as DVDs. Any technology is basically magic in her eyes, and I think having a physical disc that plays a movie is much less overwhelming to her.
  But I adore that woman so I want to get her her movies, obsolete technology be damned.
  
  You might want to tell her about bitrot, the pixels in her beloved collection will be dying randomly without her being able to notice.
  On the other hand, it's not like a usb with fat32 is any better at all, or that a good backup system is easy to set up (maybe synology?).

there are no longer many movies i like that much and if so i usually jtst buy the dvd.
it got way too complicated nowadays. starting with megabig files you not always can easily covert and watch.
then there is stuff i saw on tv which isn't available for free often not even can be bought. i have never figured out how to crack these coded stuff. so it just is on a storage disc. i hate it but don't know a way around.
so, you certainly are not alone.

Maybe it's a bit extreme, but I'd suggest to buy an old pc with a burner from goodwill and do the burning on that device.
Or, like others suggested, a new burner for you pc. But to me that looks like a lot of trouble for not much worth. Do you use the burner for anything else than your neighbour? Probably not, right? So I'd say, a cheap, dedicated pc with an ssh connection. That you you don't clutter up your own pc too much.

Some people do still burn movies to DVD using free DVD burning software, especially those who prefer physical copies of their media or have older DVD players that do not support digital video formats. However, with the increasing popularity of streaming services and digital downloads, burning movies to DVD has become less common.

2009 when X-Men origins came out and I 5hi k I got the screener? 5lthe one that isn't quite finished yet, and gave it to a teacher

Might be worth it to give dvd flick a shot. You can play tetris while its authoring.

Yes, I still burn my movies to DVD. I especially love having physical copies of my favorite films, it somehow adds to the whole movie watching experience. If your are looking for a reliable DVD authoring software, I recommend DVDFab DVD Creator. Hope this tool can help you.

I was thinking about it, I have a couple of dvd I would like to RIP and I don’t have a DVD reader since like 15 years ago . I would need to voy an external one and spend some money. Will try to get a used one and sell it after.

I just burn a Data DVD with an mp4 file (but other formats will work), the DVD player will ready it just fine

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