DVD+R and older player

ducnbyu wrote on 1/7/2005, 10:06 AM

I am having no luck getting my DVD's to play on an older player... but it's not real old maybe 3 or 4 years old. I originally thought it was the label so I burned one and didn't label it and still no luck. The player plays commercially produced DVD's. Is it because I'm using DVD+R or perhaps my burner is doing something wrong? The burner is a cheapy EMPREX but it's good enough for DVDA to work with directly.

My DVD+R's play fine on newer players. Any ideas on perhaps other blank formats I might have better luck with on the older player?

Thanks,
Rye

Comments

shmulb wrote on 1/7/2005, 10:10 AM

I have an old Toshiba (3-4 yrs) that will play -R but not +R or any RW

Former user wrote on 1/7/2005, 10:13 AM

Even some new DVD players cannot play burned formats.

go to www.videohelp.com.

They have a list of most DVD players and the formats they support.

Dave T2

ScottW wrote on 1/7/2005, 10:23 AM

3 or 4 years is ancient. It's likely that your player doesn't lke the booktype. All DVD's have a small section that the player can read that says what type of DVD it is. +R is a relative latecomer to the game so a lot of older players don't recognize the +R booktype and hence won't play it.

The neat thing with +R though is that you can change the booktype burnt, if the firmware of your burner allows this, and a lot of the later single layer burners finally started allowing you to do this - so you could set the booktype as DVD-ROM and the player (usually) couldn't tell the difference).

Many of the new Double Layer burners will let you change the book type when burning DL media (since the DL media has yet another new booktype that gives even newer players problems); some of them will also let you change the booktype for SL media.

--Scott

ducnbyu wrote on 1/7/2005, 11:43 AM

Thanks for the info. I have a Toshiba also SD1600 and found it on the site. The info there matches your experience (shmulb). Looks like I will need to start using -R.

Unless the booktype is something that can be specified in DVDA otherwise I don't want to bother using other software to perform the burn. I'm not at my computer that has MS installed is booktype an option in DVDA?

Thanks,
Rye

tceaves wrote on 1/7/2005, 12:22 PM

I have read on more than one video forum that +R disks are not compatible with many DVD players. I always use -R at 1x burn speed.

ScottW wrote on 1/7/2005, 1:19 PM

There's a seperate utility that you can get called dvdbitsetter (you should be able to find it via google) that will set the booktype if your burner firmware supports it - DVDAS will then use whatever booktype was set (since it doesn't provide support for doing this itself).

ducnbyu wrote on 1/7/2005, 1:53 PM

That sounds worthwile if it is a one shot deal.

I found dvdbitsetter in www.videohelp.com, but it says Ricoh only and someone else says "and Ricoh clones". Is is there a way to tell if I have a Ricoh clone or is it just something I should just try and if it works it works and if not then not.

Also videohelp lists the following for what I think is the writer I have...

Connection
Buffer, Bit
-------------
EIDE, 2MB
BitSetting

does that mean I will be able to use dvdbitsetter or will I need another utility?

Thanks,
Rye

ScottW wrote on 1/7/2005, 3:27 PM

Try it. If it doesn't work it won't do any damage.