Playing non-finalized DVD-R (or +R or +/-RW)

[ipl]

Hello everyone,

What I want to do is this:

1. Transfer a load of pictures from my digital camera to my PC.
2. Burn them on to a DVD-R (or +R) using a burner in my PC.
3. Put the DVD into a standalone DVD player, and look at the pictures on my TV.
4. Add more pictures to the DVD as and when I take some more.

I already have the camera, PC and burner, and steps 1 & 2 should be straightforward. I think if I want to add more pictures then I have to make sure that the DVD is not finalized. So I'm looking for a DVD player that will play a bunch of jpegs on a non-finalized DVD-R as a slideshow. Does anyone know if such a thing exists?

If not then a reasonable second best might be to do the same thing on CDRs instead. So does anyone know if there's a DVD player out there that will play a jpeg slideshow from a multisession CDR with an open session?

Apologies if I've got open sessions / non-finalized type terminology wrong. Hopefully this makes sense....

Thanks,

Ian.

[Richard_G]

I wouldn't think any standalone would be able to play a non-finalised disk. Why not use a RW, finalise it and then erase and add the originals plus the new ones each time? A bit long winded, but should work (assuming your standalone will play RW disks, one of mine will, the other won't).

[jtoolman2000]

Shouldn't work. You can not do a multi session dvd. A CD???? Yes, but not a DVD-R.

I wish that were possible. The only time you can add to a previously recorded session on DVD-R/+R is when the recording were all done on a stand alone DVD Recorder. You can add sessions until there is no more room and the finalize so it can be watched outside the DVD Recorder.

[giannid]

I tried to do this with a film. I burnt it to a DVD-R and left it open. It played fine.

Then a couple of days later, I added some more films to the DVD-R. The DVP642 would only play the original first film. The others didn't even show up on the menu. They do however show up on the computer where they were burned. I will have to reburn the films again to another DVD if I want to watch them on the standalone.

[ipl]

Ok, that would seem to be a consensus :-( Can anybody recommend a standalone player that can do a similar thing with CDs? i.e. play a jpeg slideshow from a multi-session CD-R (and play all of the sessions, obviously...)

Cheers,

Ian.

[jman98]

I'm not sure that such players exist. I have seen many many warnings that media discs (ie. MP3, photos, and so on) will only play the first session on standalone players. Sorry.

[ipl]

I wouldn't think any standalone would be able to play a non-finalised disk. Why not use a RW, finalise it and then erase and add the originals plus the new ones each time? A bit long winded, but should work (assuming your standalone will play RW disks, one of mine will, the other won't).

Sorry to be so slow, but I just read something that said that DVD+RW doesn't need to be finalized. Is that true? Is it that simple? Could I then just add files without having to finalize & erase each time? I know I was originally asking about -R or +R but I think I can write +RW, so I'd just need to make sure my standalone player can play +RW.

Am I missing something?

Ian.