Recorded DVDs won't play on new machine.

[Vicario]

Two questions here - sorry!

1. Over the years my friend has recorded concerts from his TV onto DVD disks - his system went back to about 2000 and he has lots of disks. His player/recorder recently gave up the ghost and he has bought a shiny new LG player. This is now refusing to play some , but not all, the disks. He gets a message saying 'disk dirty' and has tried all the suggested remedies for cleaning without success. He brought a sample round to me and my (also LG) player just says 'check disk'. A few of the concerts show friends of his playing in orchestras and so he is very keen to be able to see them again. Any ideas?

2. I should add that this issue is now partly resolved as he can record through the Virgin Media system onto the Tivo box but is worried about losing his new recordings too - can the Tivo recordings be backed up somehow?

 

[freddiemercurystwin]

I suspect there will be differences with the recorded discs being incompatible with the new dvd player, which I suspect are typically not designed for use with recorded dvd's or something like that, I daresay some boring farts will be along with paragraph upon paragraph of mind numbing further info. Anyway dvd's do not last an infinite amount of time so if there is valuable stuff on them they should be backed up in different formats.

 

[Tigercubrider]

It’s possible that he used either DVD R plus or minus? Not all players like both (rare)
recordable DVDs need to be finalised before removing them from the recorder. But they will play in the recorder and not others. They can be “saved” by going back to a similar machine. Later in the design spec they made it harder to remove a disc that hadn’t been finalised.

You might need a dvd drive from Amazon or somewhere and rip the DVD to a computer file. Most PCs don’t have drives these days.

 

[foxhole]

They don’t last indefinitely, unfortunately home made dvd’s give up the ghost.

 

[Tigercubrider]

They are UV sensitive. Keeping them cool and dark helps
Also using a decent brand.
I used to run a company doing short runs, authoring dvds, making masters and duplicating hundreds.
Almost zero returns.

 

[Lucid]

Do you or your

Two questions here - sorry!

1. Over the years my friend has recorded concerts from his TV onto DVD disks - his system went back to about 2000 and he has lots of disks. His player/recorder recently gave up the ghost and he has bought a shiny new LG player. This is now refusing to play some , but not all, the disks. He gets a message saying 'disk dirty' and has tried all the suggested remedies for cleaning without success. He brought a sample round to me and my (also LG) player just says 'check disk'. A few of the concerts show friends of his playing in orchestras and so he is very keen to be able to see them again. Any ideas?

2. I should add that this issue is now partly resolved as he can record through the Virgin Media system onto the Tivo box but is worried about losing his new recordings too - can the Tivo recordings be backed up somehow?

Do you or your friend have a laptop or desktop computer with a DVD-ROM drive? A computer will have an easier time of reading a disc, so if it is salvageable then this is the route.

Once you/he has cracked reading the discs then the next stage is to make some copies. The first step is reading the disc to make a file. I use a program called MakeMKV for this. There are other programs available too. Once you have the file on the computer then you can decide about burning it.

 

[OvertonPlumber]

Get an old yamada dvd player of Ebay they will play literally everything and anything

 

[JohnD]

Do you or your friend have a laptop or desktop computer with a DVD-ROM drive? A computer will have an easier time of reading a disc, so if it is salvageable then this is the route.

Once you/he has cracked reading the discs then the next stage is to make some copies. The first step is reading the disc to make a file. I use a program called MakeMKV for this. There are other programs available too. Once you have the file on the computer then you can decide about burning it.

"That's the way to do it"

OOI, I have recently been looking for an external USB powered DVD/CD drive, to use with a tablet, TV and in the car. They are cheap, but from unknown Chinese imports

 

[FrodoOne]

Do you or your

Do you or your friend have a laptop or desktop computer with a DVD-ROM drive? A computer will have an easier time of reading a disc, so if it is salvageable then this is the route.

Once you/he has cracked reading the discs then the next stage is to make some copies. The first step is reading the disc to make a file. I use a program called MakeMKV for this. There are other programs available too. Once you have the file on the computer then you can decide about burning it.

As Lucid wrote, copy and record onto a compatible DVD - using a Computer.
ImgBurn is a free and useful program for this.