DVD recording format - to play on another DVD player

We recorded movies on DVD, to take with us on a weekend break, but the DVD player in the holiday home couldn't detect the tracks on our disc. (there followed a weekend of enforced conversation !)

Is it the format of the disc (DVD-R and -RW's), or how we recorded the movies (EP, on a Sony DVD recorder)? Or how we 'finalised' the disc?

I wish the Sony manual was better written -- it has reduced me to tears of frustration ;-(

thanks for any help --
S.

Where did the movies come from originally?

Sorry - Should have said: just recorded off the telly.

There's only a few potential things which could have gone wrong:

1) Its a dud disc - sometimes you do get the odd one in a pack. They are more common in the cheaper, unbranded discs you might find in a supermarket.

2) You didn't finalise the disc.

3) If they are on DVD-R, then the player you are trying to use to view them doesn't support the -R format.

Silica said:

I wish the Sony manual was better written -- it has reduced me to tears of frustration ;-(

Click to expand...

Some players just don't play recorded DVDs, then you have the + and - Format problem, I have a player which will not play recorded DVDs with the DVD Label in lower case. Branded DVD players are also less lightly to play different formats (and regions, but that is another story) than cheap generic players, so time to trade in the Sony look for a cheap player with support for DVD +/- RW, W, VCD, MP3, MPEG4 (Divx) etc

Thanks. The player we were trying certainly played "commercial" DVDs: there was a selection provided, that had come free with newspapers, and it read those, just wouldn't play ours. maybe it didn't like like our taste in movies!

Guess we'll just have to play around with formats again.