Good DVD's gone bad - Emerson

[merinski]

I copied some home videos for a friend to DVD-r's on my Emerson EWR 20V4 (some onto Ridata DVD-R disks which NOW I know was a bad idea, but I didn't know at the time, and some onto Verbatim DVD-R discs). I played them back to make sure they were alright, then gave them to her, and she put them in a cabinet to store inside the regular dvd cases.
That was maybe a year ago. Recently she decided to watch them, and they DID NOT WORK. She gave them back to me, and they wouldn't work in the emerson either, or my computer. Not all of them, but some of them. Out of about 20 discs, 10 will not play on anything, 6 are just fine, and 4 will play back, but I can't copy them with my computer to make an iso. I've tried all sorts of data recovery programs, (like img burner, nero, and something else i don't remember) but the computer refuses to even acknowledge some of these dvds and others start to work right, then I run into all sorts of read errors.
Is it because of bad media? Most of the problem DVD-Rs are Ridata but a couple are Verbatim
Is it the emerson recorder? I contacted the tech support about this and the 8x disc problem, they were very prompt to tell me the solution about the firmware update, i've done that now, but I got no reply when I asked about this other problem.
It would be dumb and a complete waste of money to buy a dvd recorder with a laser so bad that after 1 year your home videos vanish. My friend promply lost the originals, and wants me to "fix" the dvds for her.
any suggestions, comments would be greatly appreciated

[oldandinthe way]

I suggest you try to research who really builds your recorder. Emerson is just a rebadger. Once you know what it really is you stand a good chance of finding other user's experiences on a site like www.cdfreaks.com.

When you bought your recorder it may have come with a list of supported media. If the Ridata and Verbatim media you used are not on the list, you screwed up.

Now that your firmware has been updated get the current supported list and use only media on it.

Media which is not on the supported list will use a default write strategy which can lead to marginal burns.

Some recorders have lousier default strategies than others.

[Marvingj]

Emerson has always been buggy...

[fredfillis]

Check out this thread. Prolly many others as well.

Good Luck

[Krispy Kritter]

About all you can do is try a program such as ISO Buster on your pc and see if it can recover the discs. Aside from that, you are out of luck.

While you are at it, you should image and reburn ALL of the discs onto quality media (Verbatim or TY) using your pc.

As a side note, it is also a good idea to always keep the original material when possible or burn two copies.

[merinski]

Thanks for the replies,
Krispy Kritter, i've tried iso buster, w/o it working. I used img burn to back up iso's of the working dvds (to Ty)
there's a couple dvds that will play but not back up, I was thinking of playing them on the standalone dvd player and importing them through my computer to get those videos, which seems to me like a bad idea. But I may try it anyway, it'd be faster than using the img burn or something like that it would seem.

oldandinthe way Thanks for the idea of the list of supported media, I'll try to look that up, but i'm not sure how to find out who actually put together the dvd player. Would there be a certain company for my model, or would that model come from different places as well?

[merinski]

oh, and
fredfillis I looked at the thread, i haven't tried img puzzle, but I may give that a shot.

It looks like this will take a looooooooong time to get the info off with these programs. I had img burner running for like a week on the last 1% of the dvd. The rest was fine. interestingly enough, after that I decided to cancel and it let me keep the incomplete iso file. I tried to burn it with nero, and the last two chapters wouldn't work right, but when I burnt it with img burner, it worked fine. I thought that was pretty cool, so I figured I'd share it.

[lordsmurf]

Lists of supported media are always bullcrap, don't pay any attention to them. Most of them list brands or other generic information that does you zero good.

[TomBrooklyn]

Lists of supported media are always bullcrap, don't pay any attention to them. Most of them list brands or other generic information that does you zero good.

I don't understand lists of supported media brands. Consumers don't want to know one brand of media from another. They want to buy media, put it in and have it work. Did VHS machines advise you had to use certain brands of VHS tape? No.

[Snakebyte1]

Brands names are mostly an illusion anyway as they change manufacturers all the time. Brand X is made by company A for one year, then Company B the next year, and Company C the year after that.

Anything that you put on a DVDR, if its really important to you (like photos, home videos, other irreplaceable stuff) needs to be backed up, and never get rid of the original if you can help it. The more important it is to you the more backup sources you should have, (ie duplicate to DVDs, to tape, to hard drive) and stored separate. All sources have potential failure rates but you'd have to have luck like mine for all of them to fail at the same time.

[merinski]

Is there a standalone dvd recorder that has been know to be of good quality in burning discs? Does the burner make a difference in the reliability of the finished product, or does the DVD and the quality of it make all the difference? (realizing of course that dvds and burners are not perfect, and that murphy's law applies here, but I mean just in general)

[Snakebyte1]

A crappy burner would produce discs that are hard to read right from the start, however, its the media that makes the difference in the longevity. If your discs read OK and look OK at first, then begin to fail after a time, its the media not the burn.

Consider as well the playback source. Some DVD players just don't like some types of media and/or the way a certain burner cuts a disc. I have an el-cheapo Walmart $20 DVD player that just doesn't like some of my burns, while my Panasonic and Sony players, and DVD ROM drive have absolutely no problems with the exact same disc. In this case its I blame the player not the burn or the media.

[oldandinthe way]

Lordsmurf

The LG and Lite-on recorder lists of supported media are not a laundry list of brands. They are the brands which the drives have write strategies for. I can't speak for what other brands may do.

We all agree that using TY media is like Type O blood, the universal donor. However the DVD media has evolved and drives have evolved and it is now possible to get good results which do not appear to deteriorate rapidly with other drive/media combinations.

When you have problems if your goal is to get it running - switch to TY or MCC. If your goal is to fix the problem - upgrade your drive firmware so it supports the media you wish to use. Or use media it supports. Or replace a dying drive.

My aging Lite-ON LW-5005 refused the read two copies of a movie burned on genuine Verbatim 16x media. 2 PC's read them, my Zenith player read them. It was willing to read a copy of the disk made on CMC media. I'd guess that points to the Lite-On. Although i don't call CMC media "crap" I certainly don't think it superior to MCC either.

[hech54]

Lists of supported media are always bullcrap, don't pay any attention to them. Most of them list brands or other generic information that does you zero good.

I don't understand lists of supported media brands. Consumers don't want to know one brand of media from another. They want to buy media, put it in and have it work. Did VHS machines advise you had to use certain brands of VHS tape? No.

Memorex aren't made by Memorex....TDK aren't made by TDK....yet these companies show up as recommended brands for one reason....they (Memorex and TDK) paid for it to be in there.

[lordsmurf]

That is the key .... they either paid to be named, are related to the burner/recorder company in some way, or are a "favorite" list of some dumbshit engineer writing the manual.

I've never seen a media list in a manual that was accurate in any way.

[oldandinthe way]

Its amazing how everyone involved in the manufacture of electronics is viewed to be an idiot, on the take, inordinately greedy or a fanboy.

They just can't seem to grasp the ultimate answer - use TY media

Lite-on upgrades its list of supported media for its recorders with every firmware release, I suspect at least some other manufacturers do as well. You might have to go to the website for the latest list - so technically his comments on the manual are correct.

I suppose someone would be selling space to media vendors, but it is really no effort to provide a such a list since the firmware must provide write strategies for supported media. If MSCE supports the drive in your system you can determine what is supported.

Lordsmurf's opinions on this subject are similar to his belief that companies like HP knowingly sell inferior DVD media under their name because its cheaper - since they choose not to follow his recommendations.

There are competant engineers in this world, honest marketing people and companies that value their reputations and wish to provide their customers with value.

This ain't audio tape where cheap Irish Brand destroyed your recorder's heads, or CD's where all of the writeable media was unreliable for years until TY figured out how to make product that works.

[fredfillis]

Back on topic.

Both isobuster and isopuzzle basically do the same thing, they will create an iso file and fill the "bad bits" with dummy data and try to keep reading those bad sectors to complete the ISO.

So, if they can't read those sectors, you end up with an ISO that probably works for the most part but some of your video is missing.

I've been happy with that, I've lost a couple of minutes here and there but I've got most of my video off those bad disks.

there's a couple dvds that will play but not back up, I was thinking of playing them on the standalone dvd player and importing them through my computer to get those videos, which seems to me like a bad idea. But I may try it anyway, it'd be faster than using the img burn or something like that it would seem.

I did have a couple of disks that would not read on my PC at all. At that time, I still had the DVD camera and the disks would play fine in that. So, I captured from the camera. Not my first choice, but I was able to get my video which was my ultimate aim!

So, I would definitely hook up my DVD player to my PC and capture whatever I can get! Whether your player is playing ALL the video or skipping any bad bits only you can tell.

For the most part, when the source media is bad, it's bad. There is not much that can be done about it.

[merinski]

Thanks, I'll try it and see how it works anyway. I'll post back with what happens

[lordsmurf]

Lordsmurf's opinions on this subject are similar to his belief that companies like HP knowingly sell inferior DVD media under their name because its cheaper - since they choose not to follow his recommendations.
There are competant engineers in this world, honest marketing people and companies that value their reputations and wish to provide their customers with value.

No, that's not it. The fact is the almighty $$$ is what matters, and as long as people keep buying, they honestly don't give two shits about whether the product is "good" or "bad" (in reviews by users and watchdogs). As long as it keeps the cashflow coming in, and isn't so bad that it gets them sued, they don't seem to care. Why else would a company continue to use cheap CMC discs? If you don't like my opinion, there's a few million (at very least, many thousands) of other "CMC sucks" opinions out there too. The marketing and accounting folks probably have no idea what is in the media, they only see that it's selling okay.

You have too much faith in the company name.

The solution to this situation is to quit buying the crappy media. Those companies will have to listen, once the money goes from flow to trickle. It has happened a number of times in the past, with other brands and manufacturers.

[lenti_75]

the NAME is shit...PERIOD.

as lordsmurf said....buy good media, like TY, verbatim, NOT THE NAME on the surface, and use GOOD burner. your burner is at least questionable..

I've got good media always, even when a "good" ritek was 10 times cheaper...and that media, 4 yrs now, still plays just fine.

so, use TY, verbatim and burn it with a good player, and you'll be just fine.

if you keep counting the pennies....then sorry, you like everybody else who does it is pure dumb.

no offense

oohhh and something else THERE IS NO competent and sincere company all they want is your money, got it???

[harrisonford]

Here is another problem to consider, buring alot of type discs for different clients, I come across several brands of DVD players, laser are to hot and burn the disc further, making the disc unreadable, SONY Toshiba are the worse for this.

You can use DVD decrypter to re-rip the burnt disc, I use this often, isobuster is next, after that ... start over,

best of luck ...

[merinski]

DVD Decrypter is now basically retired by the company, they have a new program Imgburn. Have people found that to be as good?
I hadn't tried dvd decrypter, but the imgburn seems to work well. It actually copied one of the dvds that would play but not copy. But it took a week.