I have had my 5005 now for about a month and have really enjoyed it. I am running the latest 1098 firmware hacked using ILOhacker and everything seems to work pretty well. All of my disks are playable on all 4 of my DVD players except for a Panasonic VCR/DVD unit (PVD-4752). I have made copies of DVDs before on my computer using DVD Shrink and DVD Decrypter and the resultant disks play on all my equipment. Note all of the tests with the 5005 are with disks that have been finalized after recording. Here is what I have done and the results:
1). Copied unencrypted “Original” DVD-R source to 5005 from the Panasonic via s-video. Recorded on DVD+R media. Result: Plays on everything except the Panasonic. (Note the “original” plays on the Panasonic since that was source used to feed the 5005).
2). Repeated test 1 but used DVD-R media in the 5005. Result: Plays everywhere including the Panasonic, but playback on the Panasonic stops and skips every so often. This test led me to believe the Panasonic did not like DVD+R media. I tried playing the same disk on the 5005 and another player and it played without skips. Therefore there are no problems with the burn.
3). Created an ISO file from the “original” source using DVD Shrink (0% compression). Burned the image to a DVD-R. Result: Plays perfectly in Panasonic and everywhere else.
4). Repeated test 3 with DVD+R media. Result: Panasonic does not recognize the disk. DVD plays perfectly on all other devices. This confirmed there is an issue with DVD+R and the Panasonic. But the difference in performance between Test 3 and Test 2 lead me to question the way the 5005 copies files compared to a program like DVD Decrypter which burns an ISO image to a disk.
5). Using DVD Shrink tried to create an ISO image from a the copy of the “original” that was created on 5005 using DVD-R media created in Test 2. Result: DVD Shrink issues the following error message: “DVD Shrink encountered an error and cannot continue. Invalid DVD navigation structure”. Also tried the DVD+R created in test 1 and received the same error.
It is #5 that has me the most confused. If the 5005 does not create a “normal” DVD navigation structure then this could have something to do with how different players react to copies produced on the 5005. When I “explore” the disk I see two folders present. Video_RM and Video_TS. When I compare this to the disk of the same source material created by DVD Shrink/DVD Decrypter of course the Video_TS folder is present but Video_RM is not. The computer created disk has a second folder named Audio_TS, but this folder is empty.
When I compare the contents of the Video_TS folders of the two disks I see another difference. If the disk was created by DVD Shrink/DVD Decrypter every file with a .VOB extension has a corresponding file with a .BUP and another with a .IFO extension. In the disk created by the 5005 that is not the case. There are 2 .VOB files that do not have related .BUP and .IFO files.
In a nutshell I’m interested to know from those of you with much more experience, is all of this a bunch of hooey or is there a distinct difference between how computer copying works and how 5005 disk copying works?
I look forward to some enlightenment.