Stumped on Why Unfinalized DVD-R Is/Was Playable

[Zeek]

Hello all. This is not really a problem I'm trying to solve, but more of a quest for a little general information. If anyone can provide any, please do so!

Last week, I picked up a DVD-R that was made for us using the Pioneer DVDR 320 standalone recorder. (We are skydivers, and spent some time in a wind tunnel training facility that offers video-taping as part of the package.) Like most people here, I'm a video nut, but have really never had the need to read from any DVD other than those that I've rented or made by myself, using a computer, and so I learned about stand-alone's and finalization after the fact, the hard way.

The short version here is that I ended up with a couple of DVD's that are (mostly at least...and I'll come back to this point in a minute) unreadable because they've not yet been finalized. No worries there; I've learned my lesson and the disks are now being shipped back to be fixed up and all will be well. However, one thing is really baffling me and is also the reason for this post.

I know for sure that both disks were DVD-R's of the same brand, made on the same machine, and definitely not finalized. Also, there is a visible change to the tint on the backs of both disks, so data was definitely written to both. I went through the whole process of trying every trick I could find (Isobuster, DVD-Decrypter, multiple drives and players, etc.) and was not able to access the data at all - EXCEPT for one time. On one (only one and not the other) of the two disks, for one time only, I was able, for whatever reason, to read from the disk using the DVD-ROM in my fairly old Toshiba laptop. On all other tries, manipulating every variable I could think of, I wasn't able to see anything (no files folders, no explorer, and simply "Disc is Empty" from Isobuster). And that is that.

And so my question is, what happened here? It's not really relevant to my getting access to the video/data, but it sure would be nice to know what happened or what I could do should I ever find myself in this predicament again! Hardware fluke? Dumb luck? Some more of that would have been nice yesterday, before having to send those disks back!

If anyone can offer up $0.02 or $0.03 on this, I'll give you a penny for your thoughts.


Thanks...

Zeek

[TooLFooL]

well i have no explanation, but this same thing happened to me once with a cd-rw. after like 12 attempts, it actually DID read, then it never read again...?

[Zeek]

Weirdness...

Same exact thing as mine. I guess some things are not meant to be explained.