There are a few different ways you can import DVD's into your system.

1. Ksebara. This function takes previously burned DVD's from Arabesk and imports them right into the scene bin. This function is found in the "New" button in the main Edit menu. Highlight Ksebara in the list and then click the "Import" button on the right to open it. When you open up Ksebara, you can then put in your disc. Let the disc have time to spin up. Then click on "Display Contents". It will read the disc and list the films. You can then left click on a film to put a check mark by it. Then click the "Ok" button to close the menu and it will import the film to your scene bin. More information on this function can be found on page 30 in your Bogart SE 2 manual.

2. Read DVD. This function is found in your Arabesk DVD authoring program. This reads a DVD right back into the Arabesk program so you can directly re-write it. It won't put the clip in your scene bin to trim or manipulate with filters. It's just for reloading and re-writing the way the disc is. (See page 41 in Arabesk 4 manual). To use this one, go to the Arabesk program. Simply click on "Read DVD". A prompt will then appear to insert your previously burned DVD. Insert the disc. Manually close your DVD tray. You shouldn't even need to click the Ok button to close. Once you manually shut the tray door, the disc will start spinning up. The Read process will begin after a warning message to let you know this information will remove any current information that's currently in Arabesk. Once the Read is done, you will be able to use the "Write DVD" function to re-write a copy of the disc again.

3. Connect a DVD player to the inputs of the Casablanca. This is an old school method of taking the output signal of the DVD player to the inputs of the Casablanca. As if your DVD player was a VCR. Play the DVD and then Record the footage into the machine. Just make sure your input is set correctly to see the video signal for the front or rear jacks and what kind of input you are using. This is set in the "Video" menu off of the main menu of the system. Note: You need to be working in a standard definition project as designated by your Project settings menu under "Format". 

Try one of the following:
1. Purge the RAM. If the immediate memory or buffer has gotten full, the burn process won’t take place. Try shutting off the unit for a few minutes and then power back up. We’ve seen even more success when you try this trick: switch to an empty project, shut down, power back up, and then go to the DVD program in the empty project. Just for general house keeping, we recommend that after you add a project you shut down the machine for a minute before trying the burn. This is very helpful in reducing any problems you may having trying to complete a burn of the DVD.

(Additional note: Along these same lines, you may want to disconnect the rear power plug and let it sit for more time – a few hours to overnight. We have had a couple reports from users on bulletin boards that were having failures to write on the DVD’s and were fine the next morning after powering off all night. We believe the problem may have been along the lines of RAM, heat to the hard drive, or possibly a power supply reset.)


2. The next thing to look at might be the dual monitor setup. Switch to the single monitor mode and discon-nect a keyboard if you have one. (oddly enough we have had a keyboard reported as the problem twice) Then power down for a bit and power back up and try to write the program again. This can affect the actual DVD writing process and adding the project. Working in single monitor mode has a tendency to make for more effective burns. You might want to switch to this mode when you plan to start the compiling process.


3. Also, make sure its a DVD-R and not a DVD +R disk if you are using the RW mediums. This could be the case here. And for the DVD-RW’s make sure its a DVD-RW for general use or for data and not a DVD-R for authoring. It’s also a good idea to use the Pioneer brand DVD-R’s too.


4. If the project is over 90% that could be a reason the adding project is failing. A small amount of time is required for the menu sections (title and title background) if your are riding a high memory percentage (and remember that gauge is just an estimation) it may be too much memory to recompile and add the project.


5. We had one report of a user who could not get a burn to happen after trying mulitple disks. They then went to the range in the finish window and set in a new marker slightly for the in and out points of the whole story-board. They removed the old title and refreshed and added the project again. They put in a new DVD-R disk and it worked. This might have bypassed a frame or MPEG2 GOP that was causing conflicts.


6. Finally, if all the the other tricks won’t work and the write function won’t take place, it could be that the IDE connection or the jumper for the writer have come loose. You would want to take the unit to your local dealer to have them open the unit up and check this.


7. Along the sames lines, its possible you have an older Kron running an IDE ribbon connection that can-not handle your newer 80gig drive’s speed and data. It’s on the rare side, but older Kron’s had an ATA 33 IDE cable connection and for some models of 80gig’s couldn’t hack it. We installed a UDMA 100 cable (still a 40 pin connection but has 2 extra wires in it so it has 80 leads and is able to handle more data – you can tell which kind you have by counting the lines in the IDE cable. Is it 40 or 80?) and this seems to help in those cases. Again its rare, but worth a shot if everything else we have told you has failed.

The problem could come from 3 main factors:

1. The DVD format (DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVDRAM, DVD+R or DVD+RW)

2. The DVD blank media and who its made by (i.e. Maxell, Memorex, TDK, Pioneer etc.

3.The playback of the disc in different DVD players that have detailed permutations.

Our new Pioneer writers can use DVD-R or DVD+R. An older burner without the burner firmware added can only use DVD-R media. Its kind of like the 8mm and VHS. 8mm uses 8mm VTR’s, VHS works in VCR’s. You have to have the right type of media.
The Brand is also going to matter in determining the compatibility. Several DVD test reviews have shown that the brand has made quite a difference. Some tests showed one brand at a 45% playback rating (using multiple disks in several proven DVD players) while the highest was in the 90%’s. We recommend Maxell discs for use with this machine.

When it comes to the player or playback in a computer, there could be a few reasons the disc you burned suc-cessfully on the Casablanca editor is not playing back. The problem could be that the DVD-R itself and that its reflectivity falls outside the player’s set ranges. Some players support one type of recordable media and not the other.

More troubling is that many players exhibit inconsistencies within a media format by having perfect playback, very sporadic playback, or just failing all together.


Some other things that may be going on:

1. If you are running older DVD software (anything but 1.2c) In some cases, the conversion of MPEG projects with varying and high data rates in version 1.2 caused jerky playback of the DVD. This has been fixed in the 1.2c version and above. Go to your nearest dealer for the free update. Currently your editor should be on a 1.2c or a 1.3 for the Arabesk software.

2. We have seen some rare cases of a poorly built color or black scene added the storyboard cause the prob-lem. Either reconfigured the storyboard so as to have no chapters begin with black scenes. or replace all black or color scenes with newly built ones and I think it will help. This would also help it you had any difficulty try-ing to advance to the next chapter, reverse to a previous one, or solid stopping freeze.

3. Other “glitches” may be because you did the DVD in high quality. Remember, high quality is around 7-8 Mb per second which many dvd players are not capable of playing. Some can but they can’t quite handle the bit rate so the dvd player “hiccups” once in awhile. We recommend the use of normal as much as possible be-cause the bit rate is low enough that most players will play it. The quality is very good at normal if the quality of the original footage is good. We have seen increasingly more DVD players able to handle the “high” or “maximum” quality rates. It may require a little trial and error.

1. The first thing to check is that there is no interference with any of your external equipment. Disconnect the keyboard, the firewire cable, and any USB devices with your Casablanca turned off. Then reboot the machine and try re-adding the project. If you are working with a CRT VGA monitor try switching to a LCD model, move your VGA monitor a little farther away from your machine, or switch to single monitor mode during this process.


2. More commonly the problem is that the hard drive is nearly full. The compiling process of adding the project will take up some memory, so a drive running around the high 90% zone could run into trouble. If that is the case, get some space back by removing footage that is unnecessary to other projects.


3. Another common reason that we've seen someone run into delays or freezing of the add project, is if there is already a larger size project already in the DVD partition. By adding the next part, the combination of the two projects is too much for the DVD partition. The result will could be a delay in the adding of the project or a failure altogether. The "size req." indicator would tell you if there was any more space to add that project.


4. Also make sure the system is running the latest version of software.

5. More commonly, there is a bad scene (field or frame information) that is not converting properly during the encoding process to DVD. This will be an obvious sign if the add project proceeds to the same point each time and then locks up. If it is at the end of the storyboard or very beginning, it makes it easy to find the bad clip from the storyboard and replace it with a new scene. When it lock ups somewhere along the way, the bad scene is somewhere in this area of the storyboard (i.e. The add project locks up about 25% of the way through the progress bar. The bad scene will be located around the 25% point your storyboard.) Some things to try if that is the case:

a).Make a scene of the whole storyboard and move it to another project using the clipboard function. Then try adding that project.
-The steps: Load up to the project you are working on in "Project Settings".
-Go to "Image Processing";
-Select the "Scene" button and hit "Range" and then select "OK"to open it.
-Then select "Range";
-Left click to set the "In" and the "Out" buttons so that you are highlighting the whole -storyboard; Hit "OK" once you've got those set
-Go to the Edit menu to see the newly built layer of your storyboard. Re-name it if you need to.
b).Next you will want to move it to a new project location using the Clipboard function.
-Make sure the layered scene is highlighted in the scene bin.
- Click on "Special" and in the list at the top find "Clipboard"
- Choose "Scene-> Clipboard" to save this scene to the temporary memory called the Clipboard
-Hit "OK" to close the Special menu.
-Go back to the main menu and go back into Project Settings and select a new empty project
-Once you've opened a new project, go to the Edit Menu and click on "Special"
-Find the "Clipboard" option. This time we will take the scene from the clipboard and move it into the scene bin of this project. Click on "Clipboard-> Project". Find the scene in the list and hit "OK".
-Hit "OK" to close the Special menu. Now in the scene bin will be the layered scene. Add it up to the Storyboard and now try to re-add this film. (If Chapters are needed, use the split button to split the layered scene into pieces to assign a chapter point for each split)

c.)If this doesn't work, stay in the new project with the new storyboard layer and try one of these steps:
1. Render the NOP effect from "Image Processing" across the whole storyboard.
2. Try replacing some of your scenes with their same copy from down in the scene bin. Then try adding the project again.
3. Place silent samples of audio across an empty track in the Audio Mix window. Have them fill the whole storyboard. Render and then try and add the storyboard into Arabesk.

6. If you are adding a project and the title of the project is pretty long (maybe over 20 characters) try shorting the film name. We've had one reported case of a film locking up over and over because the name of the film was really long. If this is the case, try to shorten the film name.

It totally depends on the complexity of the video.

There is no set amount of time although it usually ranges somewhere around 90-100 minutes on the average with normal video quality and uncompressed audio quality.

However, we have seen projects as little as 80 minutes and some that go up to just at 2 hours when using the uncompressed audio and normal video quality.

The projects with lower data levels to compress (i.e. more static movement, photo transfers) will give you more space during the MPEG2 conversion for DVD.


You can always just go into the Add Film (Arabesk 2.0) section and see what it estimates the project will take up under size requirement. This can give you an idea of whether you can try to shorten the project, change the compression to get it to fit, or see that everything is alright to add the project.

A project set for normal video quality and compressed audio will fit approximately two hours.

The Pioneer DVD burners used in every Casablanca have a nice feature: they can be programmed to take advantage of new technology such as faster burning speeds, wider compatibility with players, etc.

Periodically, the manufacturer releases software updates for the burners called a "firmware update."

While there have been multiple updates for the burners, we have combined them into one. This is a comprehensive firmware update for all of the Pioneer DVD burners that have ever shipped with Casablanca products. The new firmware will make sure that your burner is running optimally, and that it is compatible with the widest variety of DVD media types and players.

This Update must be loaded at bootup from the smartmedia card. Because this product loads at bootup, the firmware software cannot be combined on a Smart Media Card with a Casablanca OS.

This version of Firmware Update V1.4 is the first that can also be loaded from the All Software CD! You can obtain this CD from your Casablanca dealer or download your own copy on our website here.

Casablanca DVD Firmware Version 1.4 contains the following firmware versions (listed by Pioneer DVD drive):
Pioneer DVR-103: V2.0
Pioneer DVR-104: V1.41
Pioneer DVR-105: V1.33
Pioneer DVR-106: V1.08
Pioneer DVR-107: V1.22
Pioneer DVR-108: V1.20
Pioneer DVR-109: V1.50 (new)
Pioneer DVR-110: V1.37 (new)


Once you launch 'DVD Arabesk 2', you can look under "Settings" to see which DVD burner and firmware are installed on your device. If the installed version is lower than the relevant value in the table above you should carry out a firmware update. This Firmware Update is available from your Casablanca Dealer.

Important notices
* This software is considered an 'executable file' and does require a SmartMedia Card separate from a card with an OS.
* Your projects that are stored on the hard drive will not be affected by the installation of the DVD firmware update. You can therefore carry out the update at any time.
* Please install the firmware update immediately so as to avoid possible damage to the DVD burner due to new "HighSpeed" DVD media ("4x" or "8x").