user1085: I produced a DVD a couple months ago and found out that people in the States had trouble viewing it. 
I am not totally sure what the problem is (could be PAL vs NTSC - I thought every modern US player would play both as is the norm in Europe and elsewhere). 
What needs to be done to ensure that a DVD will play uniformly well on all players?

user1072: Make sure you burn your DVDs without any region encoding.  Commercially produced DVDs often/usually are encoded only to play on players manufactured for a certain region.  Typically "homemade" DVDs are burned without this encoding--aka "region-free."  So I don't know if that's actually your problem or not.
It could also be that the media you're using just doesn't work in certain players.  This is less of an issue these days than it has been in the past, but it could still creep up--especially on cheap/old media or cheap/old players.

user1068: You can't make a DVD that plays on all players.
Unfortunately for your distribution, @Flimzy was correct with his explanation of most compatibility problems, and only left out the PAL/NTSC issue, which simply put, means that even if you don't have region encodings, or if you get them correct, then many (if not most) DVD players won't play the opposite type.
The best you may be able to do, is focus on media types.  Replicated (pressed) DVDs (not burned) are going to play back on the most devices without trouble.  After replicated disks, in a distant second place for compatibility, comes re-writable disks.  Least likely to play are single-write disks.  But, when you use writable and rewritable media, your disk is either more or less likely to play on any single DVD player, depending on the make and model.

1085: <p>I produced a DVD a couple months ago and found out that people in the States had trouble viewing it. </p>

<p>I am not totally sure what the problem is (could be PAL vs NTSC - I thought every modern US player would play both as is the norm in Europe and elsewhere). </p>

<p>What needs to be done to ensure that a DVD will play uniformly well on all players?</p>
 1072: <p>Make sure you burn your DVDs without any region encoding.  Commercially produced DVDs often/usually are encoded only to play on players manufactured for a certain region.  Typically "homemade" DVDs are burned without this encoding--aka "region-free."  So I don't know if that's actually your problem or not.</p>

<p>It could also be that the media you're using just doesn't work in certain players.  This is less of an issue these days than it has been in the past, but it could still creep up--especially on cheap/old media or cheap/old players.</p>
 1068: <p>You can't make a DVD that plays on all players.</p>

<p>Unfortunately for your distribution, @Flimzy was correct with his explanation of most compatibility problems, and only left out the PAL/NTSC issue, which simply put, means that even if you don't have region encodings, or if you get them correct, then many (if not most) DVD players won't play the opposite type.</p>

<p>The best you may be able to do, is focus on media types.  Replicated (pressed) DVDs (not burned) are going to play back on the most devices without trouble.  After replicated disks, in a distant second place for compatibility, comes re-writable disks.  Least likely to play are single-write disks.  But, when you use writable and rewritable media, your disk is either more or less likely to play on any single DVD player, depending on the make and model.</p>
