Sonic MyDVD troubles

[landrumdh]

This software is a total PIA.

It doesn't come with all the required decoders so I had to go get my old DVD writing software that had them an install it to get the decoders in place (fresh build of XP).

Now my problem is after 4hrs of 'transcoding' which is stupidly long amount of time for the shows I'm burning (I've edited many DVD's before) the program 'cancels' on me and crashes. I've tried different disks, firmware upgrades, driver reinstalls . . .

I was looking forward to using it to archive off my season finales, but it's not working!

I sent in a support Ticket to Sonic so we'll see if they have any advice.

BTW it's a Sony DRU500a which is supported.

[RonnieT24]

Originally Posted by landrumdh

This software is a total PIA.

It doesn't come with all the required decoders so I had to go get my old DVD writing software that had them an install it to get the decoders in place (fresh build of XP).

Now my problem is after 4hrs of 'transcoding' which is stupidly long amount of time for the shows I'm burning (I've edited many DVD's before) the program 'cancels' on me and crashes. I've tried different disks, firmware upgrades, driver reinstalls . . .

I was looking forward to using it to archive off my season finales, but it's not working!

I sent in a support Ticket to Sonic so we'll see if they have any advice.

BTW it's a Sony DRU500a which is supported.

Dude.. seriously.. get thee to the Nero Website post haste. 4 hours of transcoding for like and hour of video is criminal. I get a headache just thinking about it. I know there are some features missing from the demo version but it works upwards of 90% of the time. I don't know what the full release of Nero costs... but I know you can get it with some of the pretty cheap DVD burners out there. It'd almost be worth it to buy yourself a spare (cheap) burner just to get Nero. I think it sells for like 70 bucks off the website and can generally be had for 40-50 bucks at Fry's. Occasionally it goes on the $50 with $50 rebate sale effectively making it free.. That's the time to strike!

[ignipotentis]

Originally Posted by RonnieT24

Dude.. seriously.. get thee to the Nero Website post haste. 4 hours of transcoding for like and hour of video is criminal. I get a headache just thinking about it. I know there are some features missing from the demo version but it works upwards of 90% of the time. I don't know what the full release of Nero costs... but I know you can get it with some of the pretty cheap DVD burners out there. It'd almost be worth it to buy yourself a spare (cheap) burner just to get Nero. I think it sells for like 70 bucks off the website and can generally be had for 40-50 bucks at Fry's. Occasionally it goes on the $50 with $50 rebate sale effectively making it free.. That's the time to strike!

The problem is only Sonic is supported by Tivo To Go. If I could use Nero without manually transcoding the .tivo files, I would. Its not that I can't manually do that, its that manually doing so does not pass the wife test. She will not go though that hasle to make a copy of something she wants to keep.

I'll agree that the Sonic software sucks. The trascoding is horible, even with the source on best quality.

[Stormspace]

Originally Posted by landrumdh

This software is a total PIA.

It doesn't come with all the required decoders so I had to go get my old DVD writing software that had them an install it to get the decoders in place (fresh build of XP).

Now my problem is after 4hrs of 'transcoding' which is stupidly long amount of time for the shows I'm burning (I've edited many DVD's before) the program 'cancels' on me and crashes. I've tried different disks, firmware upgrades, driver reinstalls . . .

I was looking forward to using it to archive off my season finales, but it's not working!

I sent in a support Ticket to Sonic so we'll see if they have any advice.

BTW it's a Sony DRU500a which is supported.

With my TDK DVD-everything drive I noticed Mysonic doesn't work on DVD-R media.

[landrumdh]

DVD+R this time. They were cheap

Anyways I'm trying to use MyDVD as I don't want to 'find' another way to burn these shows. What's really upsetting me is MyDVD x.x shipped with my burner (never bothered to use it).

I've got Nero, the high end package at that as I used it for a project last summer so I needed the extras.

[RonnieT24]

Well I guess if you are committed to Sonic then you must endure the slings and arrows of the poorly written crap that it is. Because using it literally gave me a headache I just can't be bothered. I was able to burn a few DVDs with it but the failure rate was 25-30% .... sometimes during the write to the actual disc which as you know costs you a perfectly good DVD.. I wouldn't have minded if it would blow up during transcode or something like that but when it kept making coasters for me I had to move on.

What's funny is that it never even occurred to me to use Nero I think until I had pulled all my hair out trying to use MyDVD. I have had and used Nero for CDs for years but never for DVD. I just assumed that Sonic was better because it came with two of the burners I bought as well as bundled on two of my laptops. I should have known better. It also came with two of the video capture devices I tried out. As did Ulead Movie Factory..

I don't know this because I don't have Tivo2go but I assume the long transcoding process must be a function of having to convert the .tivo format. That being the case, and the fact that transferring the .tivo file off the DVR takes more than one hour for a one hour show it just doesn't seem like a worthwhile endeavor to me. 1-2 hours to transfer, 3-4 hours to transcode and burn.. That's up to 6 hours to process one freakin hour of video. That's not even counting editing time. I just can't see doing that. All I do is watch my show while simultaneously capturing it to my hard drive via S-video into my USB capture device. That (obviously) takes one hour for each hour ... less if I choose to FF through the commercials. I can then edit out the commercials in less than 5 minutes.. then kick off a burn.. If i was only doing a one hour show It would transcode and burn in about 15 minutes. Since I don't want to waste disc space I put two shows on each disc. That doubles my record, edit and burn time.. but the end result is I get 2 hour long shows transferred off the Tivo, clipped and burned in less than 3 hours from start to finish. That's better than 4 times faster than what folks report working with Sonic and TTG. Again I am left to ask.. "Why would anyone do that?"

[morac]

Originally Posted by landrumdh

I sent in a support Ticket to Sonic so we'll see if they have any advice.

BTW it's a Sony DRU500a which is supported.

I have the same burner and I also get lock ups if I try to burn to DVD-R discs. Sonic will burn +R fine, but will lock up on -R. I opened a ticket and was told to upgrade to the latest pxhelper engine unfortunately the one that comes with MyDVD 6.1 is the latest engine. I wrote them to tell them that and they closed my support ticket. Sonic's support really sucks.

Originally Posted by landrumdh

With my TDK DVD-everything drive I noticed Mysonic doesn't work on DVD-R media.

Well apparently it isn't just the Sony DRU500a. Maybe if enough of us call Sonic they'll fix MyDVD.

[ignipotentis]

I've been reading about using Nero. Suposadly, it will work even with version 2.1 of the Tivo Desktop. I'll give it a try next week (out of town). I'll post back on how it goes. I am by no means commited to Sonic, I just need a simple solution.

[rad1701]

I'm using MySonic (purchased version 6.1) and it's working ok so far. I burn to DVD-R media on my Pioneer 104 burner. It is a bit slow, but seems to work for me.

[rapope]

Originally Posted by landrumdh

This software is a total PIA.

It doesn't come with all the required decoders so I had to go get my old DVD writing software that had them an install it to get the decoders in place (fresh build of XP).

Now my problem is after 4hrs of 'transcoding' which is stupidly long amount of time for the shows I'm burning (I've edited many DVD's before) the program 'cancels' on me and crashes. I've tried different disks, firmware upgrades, driver reinstalls . . .

I was looking forward to using it to archive off my season finales, but it's not working!

I sent in a support Ticket to Sonic so we'll see if they have any advice.

BTW it's a Sony DRU500a which is supported.

If you were getting exception 0xC0000090 errors, then I'm in the exact same situation. Did you ever get it resolved? I have just escalated my issue, and I'll see how it goes from there.


Thanks,

Rocky

[bilbomims]

I have the same error, 0xC0000090, which I can't resolve. the software used to work fine. Only changes were upgrade to 2.1 and windows automatically updates security software on my pc.

Originally Posted by rapope

If you were getting exception 0xC0000090 errors, then I'm in the exact same situation. Rocky

[saramj]

Originally Posted by RonnieT24

Well I guess if you are committed to Sonic then you must endure the slings and arrows of the poorly written crap that it is. Because using it literally gave me a headache I just can't be bothered. I was able to burn a few DVDs with it but the failure rate was 25-30% .... sometimes during the write to the actual disc which as you know costs you a perfectly good DVD.. I wouldn't have minded if it would blow up during transcode or something like that but when it kept making coasters for me I had to move on.

What's funny is that it never even occurred to me to use Nero I think until I had pulled all my hair out trying to use MyDVD. I have had and used Nero for CDs for years but never for DVD. I just assumed that Sonic was better because it came with two of the burners I bought as well as bundled on two of my laptops. I should have known better. It also came with two of the video capture devices I tried out. As did Ulead Movie Factory..

I don't know this because I don't have Tivo2go but I assume the long transcoding process must be a function of having to convert the .tivo format. That being the case, and the fact that transferring the .tivo file off the DVR takes more than one hour for a one hour show it just doesn't seem like a worthwhile endeavor to me. 1-2 hours to transfer, 3-4 hours to transcode and burn.. That's up to 6 hours to process one freakin hour of video. That's not even counting editing time. I just can't see doing that. All I do is watch my show while simultaneously capturing it to my hard drive via S-video into my USB capture device. That (obviously) takes one hour for each hour ... less if I choose to FF through the commercials. I can then edit out the commercials in less than 5 minutes.. then kick off a burn.. If i was only doing a one hour show It would transcode and burn in about 15 minutes. Since I don't want to waste disc space I put two shows on each disc. That doubles my record, edit and burn time.. but the end result is I get 2 hour long shows transferred off the Tivo, clipped and burned in less than 3 hours from start to finish. That's better than 4 times faster than what folks report working with Sonic and TTG. Again I am left to ask.. "Why would anyone do that?"

I have been using Sonic for a while and seem to be getting used to it. It will burn DVD-R for me. I agree it takes for ever to burn a disk with a one hour program. I also own Nero (the latest version). I actually purchased the full version when I bought my burner but never used it because of all the horror stories and have been exclusively using Sonics full purchased version
If Nero will burn faster (in simple terms) how can I get Nero to burn a .tivo DVD-R?????? I have heard of and read many posts of people who have had success as well as many failures because of the file.

[rapope]

Originally Posted by bilbomims

I have the same error, 0xC0000090, which I can't resolve. the software used to work fine. Only changes were upgrade to 2.1 and windows automatically updates security software on my pc.

I called Sonic and they escalated my problem, which is the same as yours.

It turns out the fix is to back off to v2.0x on Tivo Desktop.


Rocky

[bilbomims]

Mine works now. Had to revert back to desktop 2.0 after completely ridding my system of 2.1, and reinstalling sonic.

Originally Posted by rapope

I'll drop you a line when this issue is updated.


Rocky

[High Speed Dubb]

I “solved” a similar problem by telling MyDVD to make a disk image instead of creating a DVD. DVD Decrypter (a freeware program which whose presence on the internet was somewhat reduced recently due to a threatened lawsuit) has worked fine for writing the image file to a DVD.

[Meester]

Why does MyDVD suck so bad. What are the specific issues? I've been using it 11 days so far and have had a few problems. Mind you I've only authored and edited about 8 or 9 shows. One thing that I did find out is that the Tivo Desktop Software (version 2.1) caused me some grief when updating it. It kept crashing when I tried to edit tivo files or add chapter points. Easy fix though...I reinstalled version 2.0 and it works. The Desktop software must be installing a filter or a codec of some sort.

I've also noticed that at first the transcoding was taking forever 5 - 6 hours for a frigging 1 hr program.....well turns out I was using a unsupported mpeg-2 decoder. I found out which ones MyDVD uses and raised the merrit level on them and also uninstalled the Moonlight ones that were install. Not sure how I got that one, might have been from a divX package or Pinnacle software). Takes about 1 1/2 to do a 1 hour show now and thought that was kind of odd. So I did some research on what Transcoding does. Basically its taking every frame and re rendering it to NTSC 720*480 DVD compliant standards. Now that is a beast of a process and to do it in an 1 1/2 is pretty efficient by my book! Does Nero or other burning apps actually truly transode the files to DVD compliant specifications?

I've used all kinds of burning software in the past such as nero, roxio, ulead, veritias you name it...ive probably used it. Each and everyone of them had thier own issues and quirks but nothing that a little troubleshooting or tweaking couldn't handle.

err.....i thinks me should have read the posts.....doh
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[RonnieT24]

Almost all the DVD creation packages create DVD compliant files at minimum. They may have different ADDITIONAL capabilities.. to write VCD format, to write ISO images, MPEG I and II and so on but the minimum requirement is the VIDEO_TS file structure which is the default expected by DVD players from the word go. But your original question was why MyDVD sucks. Here are my reasons:

1) Transcode times: MyDVD takes a minimum of 3 times as long as Nero to transcode the exact same input file on my system. THREE TIMES.. More than an hour and 20 minutes for one ~43 minute episode of my show. Nero transcodes the same edited file in 20-25 minutes.

2) Edit time: Nero's user interface also facilitates MUCH faster editing. I can edit the commercials out of the same one hour show in under 5 minutes using Nero, and it takes 20-25 minutes using MyDVD.

3) Failure rate: MyDVD failed about 1 out of every 3 burns for me. Nero fails less than one in 30 burns. Yes a tenfold improvement in reliability.

So in summary.. Nero has a better UI, is more reliable, and does its work faster.. Other than that.. there's really no difference..

[Bigg]

I found it is a hell of a lot easier to just use an SA burner. It has commercials, but oh well. I transfer TTG for my mac sometimes, but even that is a pain having to decrypt with files with graphedit.

[rapope]

Originally Posted by RonnieT24

Almost all the DVD creation packages create DVD compliant files at minimum. They may have different ADDITIONAL capabilities.. to write VCD format, to write ISO images, MPEG I and II and so on but the minimum requirement is the VIDEO_TS file structure which is the default expected by DVD players from the word go. But your original question was why MyDVD sucks. Here are my reasons:

1) Transcode times: MyDVD takes a minimum of 3 times as long as Nero to transcode the exact same input file on my system. THREE TIMES.. More than an hour and 20 minutes for one ~43 minute episode of my show. Nero transcodes the same edited file in 20-25 minutes.

2) Edit time: Nero's user interface also facilitates MUCH faster editing. I can edit the commercials out of the same one hour show in under 5 minutes using Nero, and it takes 20-25 minutes using MyDVD.

3) Failure rate: MyDVD failed about 1 out of every 3 burns for me. Nero fails less than one in 30 burns. Yes a tenfold improvement in reliability.

So in summary.. Nero has a better UI, is more reliable, and does its work faster.. Other than that.. there's really no difference..

I find that it doesn't take any appreciable amount longer to edit commercials out using MyDVD. I deal with 30 minute shows and I usually get this done in about 5 minutes per episode.

My problem with MyDVD is that I cannot process .TIVO files -- I get 0xC0000090 errors. I circumvented the problem by using alternate means. But I'd like to get this working under MyDVD.

Someone else here had the same error. He simply uninstalled TiVo Desktop 2.1, installed TiVo Desktop 2.0, uninstalled MyDVD, and did a clean install of MyDVD. It worked for him. I should try his method.


Regards,

Rocky

[lukepickard]

I was told by a sonic guy to revert to old 2.0 version of tivo2go the only problem is I don't know where I can get the older version. I called tivo and they can't tell me where to get it either... any ideas guys? can someone send me the .exe?

if so please do...

my email is rpickard (at) comcast (dot) net

thanks

[rapope]

Originally Posted by lukepickard

I was told by a sonic guy to revert to old 2.0 version of tivo2go the only problem is I don't know where I can get the older version. I called tivo and they can't tell me where to get it either... any ideas guys? can someone send me the .exe?

if so please do...

my email is rpickard (at) comcast (dot) net

thanks

Hi,

I managed to find the file. I found it by doing a Google search. It is roughly 10MB. Does your email server allow attachments this large?


RP

[landrumdh]

I got a response from them with suggestions, but I haven't had time to try it yet as I was cramming to get ready for vegas and last weekend I was recouperating, we'll see if I get to it this week or not.

[rcarltontivo]

I also had problem with MyDVD 6.1 just canceling prior to burning a DVD. I uninstalled TIVO 2.5 and then installed TIVO 2.0. Everything works fine. I've burned about 10 movies using Ridata and TDK -R's.

[webjunkie]

I have Tivo Desktop 2.0 and MyDVD 6.1 and cannot get DVDs to burn they always come out choppy... and I am not sure what to do to fix it... I have a Sony DVD burner.

I have also tried Nero which sometimes works but it isnt a regular thing...

Any ideas?

[RonnieT24]

Originally Posted by rapope

I find that it doesn't take any appreciable amount longer to edit commercials out using MyDVD. I deal with 30 minute shows and I usually get this done in about 5 minutes per episode.

My problem with MyDVD is that I cannot process .TIVO files -- I get 0xC0000090 errors. I circumvented the problem by using alternate means. But I'd like to get this working under MyDVD.

Someone else here had the same error. He simply uninstalled TiVo Desktop 2.1, installed TiVo Desktop 2.0, uninstalled MyDVD, and did a clean install of MyDVD. It worked for him. I should try his method.


Regards,

Rocky

With all due respect if it takes you 5 minutes to edit a 30 minute show you're already saying that your edit time takes at least double what my time is with Nero. As I've stated before 5 minutes is what it takes me to edit an hour show in casual, no worries mode. When I am focused and trying to get it done quickly, like say I try to do an edit and burn in the morning before I go to work I can do it in between 2-3 minutes. Even at 5 minutes per episode after you've done 4 or 5 episodes and are ready to burn them to a disc you would have spent 20-25 minutes editing. I will he done editing and have moved on to creating my fancy menus and be 5-10 minutes into burning by then. Still if anyone cat MyDVD to work for them and is happy with it more power to them. I have neither the time nor the patience (not to mention no hair left to pull out) for it. Especially when Nero has been virtually flawless for me.

[corbishley]

Does anyone know where I can get the Desktop 2.0 version? That seems to be the key to get the MyDVD to work. Thanks!

[corbishley]

I used google and found a site that had 2.0. Now MyDVD works fine, if slowly.

[morac]

I don't think people should have to revert to TiVo Desktop 2.0 to get MyDVD to work. Sonic MyDVD says it works with TiVo. TiVo's latest desktop is 2.1 so MyDVD should work with 2.1. If it doesn't than Sonic should fix their software to make it work. Telling people to go back to 2.0 (which doesn't allow syncing with portable players via WMP 10) is a cop-out.

[greg_burns]

Originally Posted by corbishley

Does anyone know where I can get the Desktop 2.0 version? That seems to be the key to get the MyDVD to work. Thanks!

Believe it or not you can still download from Tivo's site....

www.tivo.com/desktop/TivoDesktop2-0.exe

BTW, buy.com has a pretty good deal on Nero. $19 after rebate

buy.com

[wtb]

My impression with MyDVD is that it responds faster at the beginning and end of the video (maybe faster at the end?) but can be exceedingly slow in the middle. For a multi hour video, this is painful. I have to wait about 10 to 20 seconds after moving a frame ahead before the video updates. Also, I've found no way to do anything with the audio (like to use for the menu sound) or save an image for the menu picture like I can on the Mac.