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  1. So, I bought a pack of DVD-RW's and went on my merry way dubbing tapes to disc. When I went to rip the first two discs to my computer (an iMac), there appeared to be zero files on the disc (not even hidden ones), although the computer recognized that there were only 2 MB's of free space left on the disc. The discs were finalized and everything, and play without a hitch in the machine. They're not scratched, and they're Sony's, which have never given me any trouble. Did I do something wrong? Do I have to re-dub the tapes to disc again (which was no picnic!)?
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  2. You're skipping over some important information:

    What precisely is "the machine?"
    Do these disks play back on any DVD player besides the one the were recorded on?
    Have you been able to rip DVDs successfully on this imac before?
    What has changed since you were able to do it? OS, DVD software...?
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  3. *Toshiba VHS/DVD recorder ca. 2007, not sure of the model. Never had problems with it before.
    *Haven't checked that yet. I just moved into a bigger house, so my DVD player is still in a box.
    *Plenty of times. In fact, I just ripped a different disk this morning.
    *I literally just installed OS X Mavericks on my comp the other day.

    Here's some pics of disk 2 being played. It's a few hours of Live Earth 7/7/07 taped off Bravo and an hour or so of someone (younger me???) playing and beating Starfox Assault. Probably the last VHS I ever recorded (we didn't have a DVR at the beach house yet), but it's easily the most problematic (the tracking is all over the map).
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    Last edited by John97; 17th Aug 2014 at 23:15.
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  4. Originally Posted by John97 View Post
    I literally just installed OS X Mavericks on my comp the other day.
    That's a biggie. (Why didn't you mention it initially?) Almost certainly the problem. Check for compatible updates on your software, drivers and hardware.


    Originally Posted by John97 View Post
    Plenty of times. In fact, I just ripped a different disk this morning.
    Recorded in the same "machine?" When was it recorded in relation to the others? Same package of DVD media?
    Last edited by smrpix; 17th Aug 2014 at 12:30.
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  5. I don't use any software for ripping. I literally just drag the files to a folder on my HD, then use Handbrake to transcode it to a .MKV (or virtualdub for cleaning and transcoding to AVI). And I was able to rip another DVD-RW this morning the same way.
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  6. I dug out the old old old Sony 5 Disc DVD player my dad bought in 1998, and it played it just fine. So, if it plays on that thing, then I don't see why it can't play on my computer :/
    Last edited by John97; 17th Aug 2014 at 23:13.
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    Originally Posted by John97 View Post
    I dug out the old old old Sony 5 Disc DVD player my dad bought in 1998, and it played it just fine. So, if it plays on that thing, then I don't see why it can't play on my computer :/
    1. It isn't unusual for one DVD drive to be better at reading an individual DVD than another one.
    2. You just updated your OS to a new version, and the company responsible for it decided a few years ago that optical drives are antiquated energy wasters that most of its customers no longer needed.

    You should think about sending a private message to the moderators asking them to move this thread to the Mac forum.
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  8. Welp, I just tried some other discs I just recorded, and they also don't work with my computer. A couple blanks had some trouble being recognized in the DVD recorder! I'm gonna chalk this up to a bad batch of discs :\
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  9. I'm a Super Moderator johns0's Avatar
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    I would say it's an issue with the drive you have in your computer since your dvd player can play it.
    I think,therefore i am a hamster.
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    STOP posting pictures of your TV right now. They're not helping. And they are making me seriously question whether I should even tell you this stuff which might be useful to you. If you post more pictures of your TV, I'm done.

    Toshiba DVD recorders may default to VRO recording. That MIGHT be important to know. My dad has one and his defaults to VRO recording for -RW or -R discs unless you tell it otherwise. VRO discs require special handling, but others will have to tell you exactly what as I am no expert on that. Also older iMacs in my opinion were rather infamous for the poor quality of their Optiarc drives, should you have an older iMac. I updated mine some time ago to Mavericks and it didn't do anything to the DVD drive - no better, no worse, no different than it was before the upgrade. Also note that the ONLY good quality DVD-RW discs are those by Verbatim. Everybody else's are trash. My iMac can read Verbatim DVD-RW fine. I've used them a good number of times in fact.

    To summarize, I don't think going to Mavericks is the cause, but your discs may be poor quality (if it's not Verbatim then they are bad quality for sure) and it could be some kind of weird VRO issue with what you recorded.
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  11. Yeah, I went out and bought a pack of Verbatims that are doing the job nicely. I'm kinda surprised that the Sony's were so crummy. To be honest, I've never had a bad experience with any brand of disc up until now :\
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