What happens that a disk can't be finalized?

[Des]

I don't know if this question has been asked or discussed yet, but I am curious why a disk won't finalize in a stand alone DVD recorder.

I experience this from time to time in both a JVC DR-MV7 (Rebadged LG I think) and a Pioneer DVR-310, often with disks from the same cake box. The disks are usually Verbatim, sometimes TDK; it happens on short 30 minute recordings and on longer 3 hour recordings. But, over all it is basically random. Certainly it happens more with the JVC than with the Pioneer.

Is it always disk error or fault? Power fluctuations? Gremlins? Lousy content? Mondays? , etc.

Curiously yours,

--dES

[wabjxo]

Most, if not all, DVDRs don't allow a Finalize operation if there isn't enough time left before a timer rec program starts.

On the Philips 3575/3576 and Mag 2160, that time is exactly 1-hour, no less (can't start even is 59 minutes from a timer rec program). That time is pre-programmed to allow the MAX. time that might be required for a disc that has very little User Data on it... the less UD, the longer a Finalize takes.

The time-gap allowed is different for each brand/model cuz some Finalize faster or slower than others.

This *might* be true in your case? If so, you can either wait for the timer rec program to be over or do like I do, change the start time of the next timer program... or just use one of my other two 3575's, a luxury most people might not have.

[Des]

I don't use the timer on these units. I use them in the shop to copy customer's home videos to DVD.

What I do quite often though is record several tapes to one disk in either 2 hour or 4 hour mode. Most tapes have 20 minutes to an two hours on them. I do try to make sure I do not fill up the disk, typically leaving 14-45 minutes free. But, I have also had this happen with a disk that only has one 1 hour tape on it and nothing more.

--dES

[wabjxo]

deleted - question answered in OP.

[jjeff]

I'd like to know that answer to that also. I have several discs that have content on them but they failed during finalization. Now I'm not able to finalize them and they say "disc cannot be finalized". I've tried the discs in many different recorders of the same brand and all give the same error.
I'd kinda like to be able to finalize the discs so I can borrow them to people who don't have recorders like mine.

[samijubal]

The only times I've had finalizing problems is when the burners are starting to fail, that has been the first sign of death on the recorders that have died on me. The burners can last months after the first failure to finalize but failures get more and more common as time goes by until the burner finally dies.

[usually_quiet]

I have had 3 finalization failures out of hundreds. (They were all -RW, which makes sense since I rarely use -Rs for recording now.)

The first time it happened, I tried to finalize again, and the disc became completely unreadable by any method and could not be reformatted. The other two times, I just cleaned the disc surface, and took them to the PC to try to recover the files. One disc was still readable by ISOBuster. The other seemed to have all the necessary files and folders for a finalized DVD, and could be read by both my DVD recorder and by the software players I use. I put those two aside instead of throwing them away.

This week, as an experiment, I used ImgBurn to reformat them and burned some previously authored DVD files to them to see what would happen. They worked fine. I'll have to see what happens if I use them again for recording something.

I don't have a proven answer, but I think the first one may have failed because the disc was defective and the other two may have had a tiny smudge or a speck of dust on them.

[oldfart13]

Try to find a recorder with a hard drive that will accept the disc and copy to the HDD. Edit the recording by a couple minutes on the HDD and then burn it to disc. I've had to do this with the Daytek I have when it wouldn't finalize. Worked for me.

[jjeff]

With my "unfinalizable" discs I don't even need to edit the recording. Just doing a real time copy from that disc to another blank disc allows me to finalize the new disc. I just don't like to have to do that since it re encodes the title and causes picture degradation, but yes I have done that on occasion if I want to borrow the disc.
On Pannys anyway you cannot HS copy a unfinalized disc, only realtime copy.