DVD R/W disk looks identical on both sides, which is it?

[joeAgain------]

This is confusing as heck to a new guy like me, but when I recieved my 1st DVD R/W disk it looks exactly the same on both sides.

Which side is the one that is burnable, and how do I tell the difference from looking at this rewritable DVD disk? They both look just the same.

thanks

[lattedfw]

The burnable side is usually a little more dull and gray on an RW. You could just put the RW in the drive and try to write. If it's the wrong side, you'll get an error. Once written, you'll be able to see the data area as slightly darker.

If it's a 2-sided DVD-R, then both sides will look the same, but all the -R's I've seen have a purple tint.

[joeAgain------]

well I took the DVD disk out of it's case, put it in the same way up it came out, burned(I thought)a little DVD test video onto it. I got no warning or problem messages from my burner until the message sade it was thru...but it won't play either on my computer or my APEX AD-1100W player(which plays anything, I've read)

What can the problem be???

please, anyone??

[Greg12]

sounds like a buning error

[joeAgain------]

I'm new to this...but does a burner say that the burning was successful and complete, if it really wasn't?

does that happen very often?

[BJ_M]

the dvd test video , was it a like xxxxxx.mpg file ? - if so you will need to author the video with a dvd authoring program first ..

and then with that authoring program - you would make a image file and then burn that image file with nero or prassi or such ..

[joeAgain------]

I guess I'll need to buy Nero. I was hoping to use the software that came with my capture card and/or with my DVD-R burner....called myDVD.

I captured with it and then tried to burn to DVD. It took forever and then said it was successful...but the disk won't play on my computer or DVD player. Is there no end the the amount of extra things you've got to by just to burn a captured video tape? I'm up to about $900 in computer hardware, and had hoped(thought)I'd already bought all I needed.

Ok, how much does Nero cost? (but why won't my Sonic myDVD works?)

[JimJohnD]

Check along the center hub of the disc. There may be a production lot number imprinted there. If there is, the side where you can read the numbers and letters correctly is the top. I have Diamond/Diamond CD-R that are the same way. If it wern't for the lot number you couldn't tell.

[BJ_M]

nero i see at the top of this web site page for $15,00 (i thought it was 8$ yesterday?) .. anyway nero will not author - only burn ... but sonic mydvd will do both ,,, but ive never used it and also i think it doesnt come to recommended ..
maybe others here who have used it can give some insight on why it doesnt work ..

[lattedfw]

If you put the DVD-RW in your DVD drive, you will see a VIDEO_TS folder. If you don't, something went wrong in the burn.

If this is an -RW, I have read that you should do a full erase of the disc before writing to it (not the quick erase). A full erase will take about an hour. I did that to a decent-quality Memorex DVD-RW and it started to reluctantly play in an older Panasonic DVD player, whereas prior to the full erase, it was never recognized by the player.

Burn time for me to -RW (1x) is about 50 minutes for a nearly full disc. I use write-verify when burning to -R and burn at 1x even if the media is 2x, so burning time is usually about 100 minutes.

[joeAgain------]

when I tried(the 2nd time)to burn the captured video....myDVD said there was something on the disk....did I want to erase it? I said yes...and it did...and then took about 30 mins to burn(I thought) the one minute of video tape I had captured with myDVD. I thought that was excessive, but maybe was "authoring" it too, or something.

But when it was through and said it had been successfull, I look in the content of the drive and saw at least 2 file(one of which was video)....but still the disk wouldn't play on that drive or my DVD player.

I got my Pioneer 104 DVD burner new, but on sale and it came with NO instructions or manual. How do I do a good erase of the R/W disk with it?