cannot watch tv recorded programs on a stand alone dvd

[tercarsha]

i have been recording tv programs on my toshiba d-vr5 recorder. the programs record but when i try to watch them on a stand alone dvd player they do not play

[louv68]

Try using different media. Your standalone may not like the discs you are using. I have the same problem with some discs on my recorder (different than yours). Some discs play on some of my players, but not all.
Have you tried playing them on several players?

[edong]

In my recorders, I have to finalize the DVD -/+R. For the +rewriteables, I didn't have to.

[jman98]

Could be a lot of things, but be sure your discs are finalized. One of my friends who has used DVD recorders for a long time (I have never used them because I prefer to use my PC for recording) told me that he has only been able to play back discs made on DVD recorders on other DVD recorders. It could be your media. Verbatim generally seems to work well in recorders. It could also be that you might be using rewritable media and if so, you need to know that older DVD players may not play any brand of re-writable DVD at all. My old (5 or so years) Apex DVD player won't play DVD+RW or DVD-RW discs, but my 3 year old Philips DVD player will play both.

[tercarsha]

thanks to all replies i had forgotten to do one thing " finalizing" thanks again

[Seeker47]

Could be a lot of things, but be sure your discs are finalized. One of my friends who has used DVD recorders for a long time (I have never used them because I prefer to use my PC for recording) told me that he has only been able to play back discs made on DVD recorders on other DVD recorders. It could be your media. Verbatim generally seems to work well in recorders. It could also be that you might be using rewritable media and if so, you need to know that older DVD players may not play any brand of re-writable DVD at all. My old (5 or so years) Apex DVD player won't play DVD+RW or DVD-RW discs, but my 3 year old Philips DVD player will play both.

Despite all the supposed standards and compliance in DVD technology -- whether the recording was done in the computer or a good standalone, and for the purpose of this comment let's assume the use of good quality, non-RW media -- I find it hard to believe that things have ever been as standardized as they seem to have been with VHS. Back then, you could pretty much take any tape to any decent VCR and play it -- so long as the tape was not damaged, and the VCR wasn't in need or repair or major adjustment. Tape by tape, deck by deck, you might run into some tracking issues, and it might look somewhat better from one playback deck to another, but you could pretty much just play the damn thing. Not so much with DVD. I've noticed so many anomalies and variations, depending on where you try to play the DVD. (The pressed, commercial releases are much more consistent, much more likely to be trouble free. Is it a matter of pressed vs. burned, or are they that much more compliant ?) The ones you burn will play in some standalones, maybe not at all in others. Or they'll play, but you might not have use of FF / Rew., jumping chapters, etc. I've seen recorded Verb DL's freeze up dead the moment you try to FF them, but mainly on some (older) players.

I think these problems may be diminishing with some of the better standalone players on the market the last couple years. Sure hope I'm right about that . . . .