DVD recording and playback

March 4, 2005 7:09 PM

I bought recently a DVD recorder and burned a few of my old video tapes on DVD. I played them back on my laptop's DVD drive but when I tried the same on my desktop's DVD drive, I couldn't play it. Can anyone explain why?
posted by gazoo to technology (9 comments total)

Some drives play only DVD+R, while others play DVD-R. Does your recorder handle both? If so, you may want to try switching types to see if the other type is compatible with both your desktop and laptop.
posted by MotorNeuron at 7:36 PM on March 4, 2005

Can you be more specific about the problem? Do you get the "Please insert a CD" message, or are you getting the DVD menu, but not able to play anything?
posted by odinsdream at 7:59 PM on March 4, 2005

MotorNeuron beat me to it. That is the most likely scenario.

Keep in mind that DVD recording is a lot... touchier? than just burning CDs. Different brands of media work don't work well with some burners, for example. Videohelp is your friend-- they have a list of recorders with reports from people who have tried various media with them.
posted by synecdoche at 8:00 PM on March 4, 2005

re: videohelp.com - It's really a shame, but according to their reports, DVD compatibility and reliability vary quite a bit.

I never had a full on failure, but I had one batch of DVDs that would take hours to transfer chunks of data larger than 300MB, clicking and wheezing all the while. I searched through videohelp and used DVDidentifier to figure out exactly what discs I was using, and wrote down some SKUs of discs that had good reports. Reburned the problem discs on the new media, and they're golden.
posted by Jack Karaoke at 9:33 PM on March 4, 2005

If it turns out your drive is +R/-R compatible and that's not the issue, I would recommend updating the drive's firmware. I recently upgraded my drive's firmware and now have more compatibility and faster burn times across different brands of media.
posted by Otis at 5:29 AM on March 5, 2005

Unlike the CD formats, burned DVDs are not virtually indistinguishable from pressed DVD to reading devices. The major studios and content industry associations saw what happened when CD-R really and truly worked like CD for end users, and didn't want that to happen to DVD. Thus, they interfered with the technical standards process and you now have the mess you face today.

There are two major factors in terms of DVD+-R compatibility: media quality and the +-. Media quality varies tremendously, and to further complicate things, a given brand or batch of media may have either poor write compatibility or poor read compatibility with your devices. The only "sure thing" as far as media goes is Ritek, although Ritek products are often re-branded or available unbranded.

The +- thing is a source of much debate, but generally speaking you will get better compatibility with arbitrary consumer devices using a -R disc over a +R disc. +R compatibility was a bit thin on the ground until just a few years ago, and the early claims of +R discs requiring no special compatibility on the part of readers turned out to be more or less untrue.

So: use Ritek (or other decent quality) DVD-R media and burn to -R and you'll have more successes than failures.

Oh, and don't even bother with the rewritable +RW / -RW discs. Almost nothing reads them except the drive what burned it.
posted by majick at 6:36 AM on March 5, 2005

majick, Ritek is CLOSE to a sure thing, but not quite-- I bought a printer that can print onto their printable discs and so far have been trying to find media that will work with my burner and the printer.

I've tried some Ritek G04's and Ritek G05's. The G05's have not worked-- it burns fine but when it gets toward the end of the disc, the disc starts freezing and eventually stops altogether. The GO4s are giving me the same problem, though videohelp rates them highly with my burner (an LG4040B). I have tried updating the firmware, but am still having problems with every disc I have burned (4 now with the G04s and 3 with the G05s).

So, (and I don't want to hijack the thread), there is no sure thing with DVD burning, yet. :) Just a caveat. The best thing to do before you go out and by a cakebox spindle is to get samples of various media and see what works for you.

Oh, and also (this may be a long shot) try rebooting your computer before you burn and make sure that you have as few programs running as you can. This MAY help.
posted by synecdoche at 8:31 AM on March 5, 2005

"The best thing to do before you go out and by a cakebox spindle is to get samples of various media and see what works for you."

This is fantastically good advice. I have a carton of 600-ish blanks that are pretty much unusable to me to show for it. (The store switched the "house brand" supplier between my sample purchase and bulk purchase, and I got screwed.)

In addition to everything said above, there is one more factor: with marginal media or burner quality, you can sometimes achieve better compatibility by using a slower write mode. If you can live with 1x burn speeds -- which can be maddening, I warn you -- you might find the resulting disc to be playable. This is something worth trying with your existing media and writer before you run out and buy replacements.
posted by majick at 9:39 AM on March 5, 2005

Oh, and "sure thing" is in quotes in my above comment for a reason. It's about as sure as it gets, which isn't really all that sure.
posted by majick at 9:41 AM on March 5, 2005