Unable to get both Mac and PC to recognize discs recorded on Toshiba D-VR5

[ladytanaka]

I got a dvd-vcr recorder because I wanted to clear out my old non-commercial videotape collection. While the recorded discs (on DVD-Rs) play fine on the Toshida D-VR5, both of my computers (a PowerPC Mac and a brand new PC) refuse to recognize the discs at all, much less play them.

Both computers have no problems either playing or at least allowing me to see the file contents of commercial DVDs, but BOTH my Mac and PC absolutely refuse to handle the recorded discs.

On my Mac, the disc won't even show up on my desktop. It apparently treats the recorded disc like a blank disc and opens Toast. Toast does show that there are tracks recorded on the discs, but that's it.

On my PC, File Explorer acts like no valid disc is present and keeps asking me to insert a disc into the DVD drive.

I don't have immediate access to another standalone DVD player, so at the moment, I don't even know if the recorded discs will even play in other standalone dvd players. Since I'm attempting to use my dvd recorder for archival purposes, this is a significant issue.

Now, I've seen other people say that they don't have problems playing DVDs recorded on Toshiba dvd recorders on their computers, so I'm curious to know whether anyone has any suggestions how to remedy the problem so I can play the recorded discs on computers, or whether I'm simply out of luck.

[samijubal]

Have you finalized the discs?

[ladytanaka]

Have you finalized the discs?

As far as I know, I finalized them -- when I stopped the tape to disc dubbing, I received a message to that effect.

[samijubal]

Writing the info to the disc and finalizing isn't the same thing. You need to finalize the discs.

[ladytanaka]

Writing the info to the disc and finalizing isn't the same thing. You need to finalize the discs.

What I meant was that when I stopped the recording, I got a message saying "Finalizing disc" or something to that effect.

[samijubal]

It was just writing the record info to the disc. You need to make menus and finalize the disc. Look up finalizing in the manual.

[ladytanaka]

Edit: I've already resolved the problem. Apparently, I was under the mistaken impression that DVD-R discs were automatically recorded in Video mode (not VR mode), but apparently I had to set my DVD recording preference explicitly to Video mode for both DVD-RW and DVD-R discs.


Well, after checking various status screens, it appears that the discs were NOT finalized. Okay, so that's the problem.

So, after an exhaustive reading of the manual, I finally located the "finalize" option.

Setup Menu -> System Setup -> Disc Setup -> Finalize

Unfortunately, for my previously recorded discs (DVD-R), the option to access "Disc Setup" is unavailable (grayed-out).

So does anyone have suggestions as to how I can finalize those discs?

[samijubal]

Did you just let the recorder read the disc then try to go to finalize? My Toshiba recorders won't go to finalize if I try to go there when the disc is playing. If it was on play, I have to hit stop twice to get the finalize option.

[ladytanaka]

Did you just let the recorder read the disc then try to go to finalize? My Toshiba recorders won't go to finalize if I try to go there when the disc is playing. If it was on play, I have to hit stop twice to get the finalize option.

As mentioned in my EDIT above , the problem I mentioned has already been resolved. The manual give me the erroneous impression that DVD-R discs were automatically recorded in Video mode and therefore I thought that the VR/Video preference only applied to DVD-RW discs. I was apparently incorrect. Once I set the Disc Setup preference for Video mode and re-recorded the video tape to a new disc, I had no problem finalizing the newly recorded disc (once recording had stopped).