Maxell or DVD Recorder Problem.

[Robert the Bruce]

My DVD Recorder/Player (Sony RDR-HXD770) is suddenly unable to play one of my self-compiled music video compilations (a Maxell disc) and will also not play a pre-recorded music DVD (Queen - Live at Wembley Stadium 1986).
The music video compilation WILL play on my PS3 but not on the DVD Recorder/Player and will not play on my PC.
The Queen DVD will not play on the DVD Recorder/Player but WILL play on the PS3 AND also the PC.
Can someone tell me what is at fault, the DVD Player or the discs ?

[jman98]

It's probably both. The failure of the Queen DVD to play, which I assume you mean is a commercial DVD and not something somebody made at home, indicates that the recorder is broken. If it can't play back commercial DVDs, it's done. Repairs are generally costly and you'd probably be better off to just buy a new one, but if you want to try a cheap do it yourself method, search on how to clean the spindle and lens just in case it's either of those problems.

Maxell brand DVDs have always been very poor quality so there may be some chance that the DVD is degrading with time and has more errors on it then the PC can handle. Usually PCs play everything so the fact that only the PS3 now plays this disc probably means it's going bad too. I'd advise copying it as soon as you can. As we always say, the only consistently good quality media around these days is either Verbatim (anything but the Life series is good. Life series is low quality.) or Taiyo Yuden (you'll have to buy these online).

[DB83]

Well if the Queen disk plays on other equipment, the issue is not the disks.

Have to ask if that music compilation was actually created by the dvd-recorder. If it was and you created it by video-recording mode rather than video-mode, you did not create a standard dvd-video disk and that type only plays on the machine that it was recorded on.

To be sure, you should try other pre-recorded disks. Not ones you made yourself. If these do not play on the recorder then the fault lies there.

The actual fault ? Anyone's guess.

[Robert the Bruce]

OK, thanks for the info. The compilation was created wholly on the PC via Internet music video's.
Almost forgot to ask, how can I copy the disc if the PC won't recognize it ? My Nero burning program will copy it IF I can get the PC to recognise it.

[DB83]

Echoing what jman98 wrote as I made my reply, I would test the dvd-recorder first using good media. If the recorder does not even record with better media then, yes, it is basically a gonna.

When you say 'recognise' do you simply mean play or something else like you can not see its contents in Windows Explorer ?

If you have total un-recognition, the only way you might be able to copy it is by connecting your PS3 to the dvd-recorder and just do a stream-copy (no menus). But if the dvd-recorder is shot then that option is also of the menu.

You could try programs such as isobuster just to see if they can see the disk.

[Robert the Bruce]

Echoing what jman98 wrote as I made my reply, I would test the dvd-recorder first using good media. If the recorder does not even record with better media then, yes, it is basically a gonna.

When you say 'recognise' do you simply mean play or something else like you can not see its contents in Windows Explorer ?

If you have total un-recognition, the only way you might be able to copy it is by connecting your PS3 to the dvd-recorder and just do a stream-copy (no menus). But if the dvd-recorder is shot then that option is also of the menu.

You could try programs such as isobuster just to see if they can see the disk.

The recording part of the DVD Recorder is not an issue. The machine records fine. It's playback which is the issue, in this case a Maxell DVD and a commercial DVD.
When I insert the DVD in question (the Maxell one) into the PC (my O.S. is Windows XP) I normally go to Start>My Computer and at that point the DVD-RW Drive icon should have changed to a disc icon thereby letting me know that the disc has been 'read' or recognised and can now be played using Windows Media Player or Nero Vision or whatever. But instead the icon doesn't change, it's as if I haven't even put a disc into the machine. In other words, the PC hasn't acknowledged/read/recognised the disc. But it WILL play on the PS3 as will the Queen disc which also plays on the PC. I do think there's an element of a disc problem AND DVD player problem here.

[DB83]

Try this (I do not believe that the icon under XP is standard maybe Nero installed a driver that does this)

Install vlc. Try to play these disks with that program. Report back in due course.

[Robert the Bruce]

Try this (I do not believe that the icon under XP is standard maybe Nero installed a driver that does this)

Install vlc. Try to play these disks with that program. Report back in due course.

Disks ?? You mean disk, singular. As I stated earlier the Queen disk WILL play on the PC AND the PS3 but NOT the DVD Recorder.
The Maxell will NOT play on the PC or the DVD Recorder but WILL play on the PS3.

[DB83]

Wanna be pedantic then fine. Wanna explore other avenues then it's up to you.

Until then.........

[Noahtuck]

Wanna be pedantic then fine. Wanna explore other avenues then it's up to you.

Until then.........

You were way nicer about it than I was going to be, but then I decided not to reply to his last post, LOL!!

[usually_quiet]

Try this (I do not believe that the icon under XP is standard maybe Nero installed a driver that does this)

Install vlc. Try to play these disks with that program. Report back in due course.

Disks ?? You mean disk, singular. As I stated earlier the Queen disk WILL play on the PC AND the PS3 but NOT the DVD Recorder.
The Maxell will NOT play on the PC or the DVD Recorder but WILL play on the PS3.

I agree with jman98's assessment.

It isn't unusual for different drives to better or worse at reading individual discs due to wear-and-tear or design differences. Maybe at this point, the drive in the PS3 is just a little better at reading difficult discs than either the PC drive or the DVD recorder, which explains why it can read both discs, but the other drives cannot. Errors on badly burned low-quality discs (like Maxell) can gradually get worse as the disc ages, to the point where one day some (or most) drives can no longer read the disc.

If you want more definitive answers than those, it seems unlikely that you will get them. If the PC drive isn't recognizing your Maxell disc anymore, it may be difficult for you to run tests on it and none of us has access to your discs or machines to run tests for you.

[Robert the Bruce]

Wanna be pedantic then fine. Wanna explore other avenues then it's up to you.

Until then.........

I wasn't being pedantic, I thought you had misunderstood the difference between the two disks.

[Robert the Bruce]

Try this (I do not believe that the icon under XP is standard maybe Nero installed a driver that does this)

Install vlc. Try to play these disks with that program. Report back in due course.

I don't see the point in downloading VLC if the PC won't read the disk in the first instance. The PC would have to recognise the disk in order for ANY media player to play it.

[usually_quiet]

I agree that f the PC drive doesn't recognize the Maxell DVD, VLC probably cannot read it.

When I wrote about not being able to do further testing on the Maxell DVD with the PC drive, I meant using Nero CD-DVD Speed or Nero DiscSpeed to do a transfer rate read test and other testing probably would not work. http://club.myce.com/f96/cd-dvd-speed-user-guide-192563/ The transfer rate test creates a graph that shows how fast data is transferred. The relative smoothness of the graph gives some indication of the severity of the read errors. These programs can also perform a quality test that reports read errors directly, but not all drives include the scanning feature needed to perform that test.

However ISOBuster is a data recovery tool. There is some chance the free trial version of ISOBuster could recover something useful, if the Maxell DVD is your only copy.

[DB83]

Have you played that Queen dvd in the recorder before ?

I just wonder since I may have the same disk - not the ultra special edition but the one that just had the two concerts. That disk is NTSC. You might have to change a setting on the recorder to play it.

[Robert the Bruce]

Have you played that Queen dvd in the recorder before ?

I just wonder since I may have the same disk - not the ultra special edition but the one that just had the two concerts. That disk is NTSC. You might have to change a setting on the recorder to play it.

I'm not sure if I've ever even played it before since buying it many years ago. My recorder plays multi-region.........I think. I'll check that one out. You'd think though that if that was the issue some kind of text to that effect would appear on-screen rather than just the 'incompatible disc' or 'there is no title' type messages.

[DB83]

I doubt if the recorder is multi-region. And Region Code is not the issue with this disk anyway. And if you bought it years ago, it may not be the same as the one I have. Could still be a PAL/NTSC issue. Many music dvds are coded up as NTSC. Did you actually get a message since this, if I am not mistaken, is the first time you have mentioned this.

[Robert the Bruce]

I doubt if the recorder is multi-region. And Region Code is not the issue with this disk anyway. And if you bought it years ago, it may not be the same as the one I have. Could still be a PAL/NTSC issue. Many music dvds are coded up as NTSC. Did you actually get a message since this, if I am not mistaken, is the first time you have mentioned this.

I only mentioned because you brought it up. Anyway, the DVD is PAL.

[DB83]

Well I brought up the encoding since there seems to be three versions of this concert out there on dvd.

The last two are NTSC. Quite happy to accept that you have the earliest (2003) version which is PAL.

Do you have any other dvds you can test on the recorder ?

And, as I previously asked, have you received any error messages.

Not sure if this has also been asked regards the Maxell disk. Have you, at any time, actually played that on the recorder ? The reason for asking this is that I do know that atleast one model of Sony Recorder does not accept both types of blank media.

[Robert the Bruce]

Well I brought up the encoding since there seems to be three versions of this concert out there on dvd.

The last two are NTSC. Quite happy to accept that you have the earliest (2003) version which is PAL.

Do you have any other dvds you can test on the recorder ?

And, as I previously asked, have you received any error messages.

Not sure if this has also been asked regards the Maxell disk. Have you, at any time, actually played that on the recorder ? The reason for asking this is that I do know that atleast one model of Sony Recorder does not accept both types of blank media.

Yes, I've played the Maxell disk many times on the Sony DVD Recorder without a problem.......until now.

[DB83]

Your reluctance to answer the other questions, asked more than once now, makes further analysis difficult.

You might say that your OP was self-explanatory and the issues are only with these two disks - yes ! disks - neither of which will play on the recorder. But it sure would assist if you, in simple words, stated that you have tested other commercial and/or self-created disks in it.

If absolutely nothing plays on it then consider a replacement.

[Robert the Bruce]

Your reluctance to answer the other questions, asked more than once now, makes further analysis difficult.

You might say that your OP was self-explanatory and the issues are only with these two disks - yes ! disks - neither of which will play on the recorder. But it sure would assist if you, in simple words, stated that you have tested other commercial and/or self-created disks in it.

If absolutely nothing plays on it then consider a replacement.

I thought I had answered everything. I did say back at the start that other disks were fine. Didn't you see that ?
Although in the last few days that has changed. Now other disks (about 3) are also failing. Strange though, these 3 discs won't play then I try again with the same discs later and then they will play. Not including the Maxell or the Queen discs which just won't play.
BTW, my recorder is a Sony HXD970 not the model mentioned earlier.

[DB83]

Well you said it and you didn't

And you also did not seek to correct any other respondent who also assumed that you could not play back any disks. I am no engineer but these intermittent problems could be a dying laser or even the power supply circuitry which is not providing enough current to the laser consistently.

Your analysis that it could both a disk issue and a player issue might well be correct. Do you have any mates you could test these disks on their machines ?

[FulciLives]

If your computer can't "see" this Maxell disc then you are shit out-of-luck.

If you have access to other computers with DVD drives then you might want to try them as some DVD drives may be able to read the disc. As stated some drives are better at it than others. But if your own computer's DVD drive can't "see" it then there's not way of tricking it into working.

Your only option of saving this disc would be to either ...

1.) Find another computer that can read it and then rip it and burn it back to another new DVD-R
2.) Play it back on the PS3 and record it to a stand alone DVD recorder

I suggest using Taiyo Yuden DVD-R discs with stand alone recorders. You can find TY DVD-R discs that are rated at 8x and 16x but the 8x rated discs seem to work best with stand alone recorders.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Robert the Bruce]

Well you said it and you didn't

And you also did not seek to correct any other respondent who also assumed that you could not play back any disks. I am no engineer but these intermittent problems could be a dying laser or even the power supply circuitry which is not providing enough current to the laser consistently.

Your analysis that it could both a disk issue and a player issue might well be correct. Do you have any mates you could test these disks on their machines ?

Yes I could test on friends machines.