Pleeeeease please please please help!

[envious]

Okay, here's the deal. I'm a total newbie to DVD copying ect. I bought my Playstation 2 about a month ago for NZD$400 (US$200) second hand with a modchip and 20 (crappy) imported copied japanese games. The big problem is that the guy who sold it to me (who is also Japanese, and who is now also ignoring my e-mails) didn't know what kind of modchip was in there. And neither do I. The PS2 plays some professionaly copied games that I bought off a guy and the imports. I recently bought a DVD burner Panasonic Matshita SW-9581 for NZD$270 (about US$135).

I bought 1 Mitsibushi DVD-RW media and 2 Imation DVD-rw (these are the only brands they sell in my rather small city).
I burnt a game on the Mitsubishi with Alcohol 120%, put it in the PS2 and it didn't pick up the disc at all.

I then tried burning a DVD movie (that I had previously copied to the Harddrive, dont have the disc anymore but had all the files from the disc - vob's ect) so I made an .iso out of the dvd files, burnt them to disc. Good news, it played on my computer. Bad news, there was no menu and chapter selection (GAY!!) and MORE bad news, wouldn't play on my PS2 because of Disk Error (GAYER!!). Movie was Up In Smoke Tour and burnt using Imation DVD-RW with latest Nero.

Lastly I tried doing a direct copy of an original PS2 game (Jak & Daxter) to my second Imation DVD-RW. Copied successfuly, but again just a disk error when trying to play on PS2.

This is really gay, I've forked out all this money for all this crap, and am getting nowhere. Does this sound like it's because of the modchip or my burner or WHAT!!? I just want to get this sorted out so I can enjoy copying DVD media.

Please help!

[uns97]

This is quite complex to answer, as there might be several reasons why your burns do not run. First, you did not mention which version your PS2 is. As known older machines do not play DVD-RW. (just DVD-R). And, if you say disc reading error, what do you exactly mean ? Do you get a Disc Read Error at the browser ? You should check it with a DVD-R, and/or an original DVD movie or game. If those also fail, you probably have some kind of hardware problem. (laser, BA, modchip, etc) If DVD-R works, then give up trying with DVD-RW's and use DVD-R, it's much reliable anyway. Test the things I said, and tell us the results. This will narrow the problem, and we can go on.

regards, Stephen

pS: anyway, if the machine boots any DVD based backup, - no matter how crappy Japanesse one it is - then the mod (and its wiring) and your laser seem to be ok.

[alanisfan]

Look at the bottom of the PS2 and put the model information on here.

The fact that it is self-booting Far Eastern Silvers suggests that it is some kind of ripped Messiah/DMS/Magic mod etc, because only those chips really have the capability to do that. However you do get some odd chips in HK, that behave differently from the expensive home-brew Western ones, so that's another possibility.

In all honesty, there could be a number of issues that this PS2 has. If you can put up the Model info and any boot procedures that you have to go through normally etc, I'm sure somebody on here will be able to help you out.

[CheezX]

best thing to do is try with a ps1 game that has worked in the past if u have one. That way you can rule out the disc media. And if you have to hold the reset button for a few secs to load the ps2 game, then ur modchip is most likely a magic3-ish

[envious]

The Playstation is an SCPH18000. Is there any additional information you require? The only reason I bought DVD-RW were because they were a lot better deal compared to the -R which I believed might end up being a waste of money because of failed burns (I don't have money to burn on lots of media unfortunately...). Umm, apparently with this PS2 the guy has told me that sometimes when changing from different video format (NTSC to PAL) you must turn the PS2 off at the back, then on, then press the On button and hold it until the logo appears, then release when the logo disappears and this changes to the different video format. Sometimes games come up with the 'Please insert PS or PS2 format disc' screen, but doing this trick 2 or 3 times fixes the problem. But it is not working with these DVD backups I have burnt. Disc boots to Browser screen, then remains idle, then when going into Browser gets a Disk Read error.

[envious]

If it's because my PS2 is incompatible with DVD-RW then sweet as, I'll get DVD-r considering my writer seems to be burning alright. Also any ideas with the Up In Smoke movie? why I do not get a menu/intro ect?

[envious]

I have access to other media types, such as Ritek, Prodisc, TDK ect through www.trademe.co.nz - Ritek DVD-R's selling for about US$3.50 per disc.

[RAISTLIN]

I would investigate the media first. Try the DVD-RW movie burn on a set-top that is known to play DVD-RW. If you don't have access to one, you might be able to take the disc to a store and feed them some BS that you are looking to buy a DVD Player that will play your homebrew DVD-RW's and see if you can test it in a few display models. If it plays, then you know your burn is DVD-Video compliant so it burned "properly" even though it doesn't have menus, etc. This would narrow it down to the media issue at least. (PC software DVD players can play non-compliant streams ok).

PS2's aren't too picky about DVD movie playback. Mine will play DVD's that my Apex set-top rejects. As long as the data can be streamed at 1X and it's a DVD-Video compliant stream, it will usually play them. They may skip, stutter, pixellate like hell--but you'll get the DVD video routine text messages and it will try to play the movie. A game,however is different. It may need to stream data at 2x-4x in order to boot properly. I've run into this problem before while testing various DVD-RW's and confirmed that data rate is crucial in succesful game boots on my v5 US. Memorex are horrible for games, but usually do fine for movies--they stream an average of 1.1X when I test them in CDSpeed. My favorite TDK does fine for both and streams an average of just over 2x (2.08 typically). My pressed PS2's stream at about 3.2x typically.

Good Luck!

Raist

[envious]

I'll be honest, I didn't understand 70% of what you just said. What's a set-top? How do I get the PS2 to play something at a certain stream? So you're saying that my PS2 should be able to play the movie despite not having the menu? because the movie was also getting a disk error, which makes me think this might come down to DVD-rw not working on my PS2. Might be a good idea to test out a DVD-r.

once I get one I will post the results

[envious]

CheezX, when is this button-holding method necessary to use? I was told it was to change from PAL format to NTSC and the other way around.