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NobleMatt · Feb 20, 2009, 03:20 PM

This ones not actually for me, its for my mum who phoned me to ask why our DVD +/- recorder wouldn't accept the DVD's she has just bought, i couldnt help her but said i would ask on a forum to see if anyone has any ideas

We have a DVD recorder +/- recorder and have user DVD RW- in the past with no problems, but the times my mums backing up old videos of me as a kid and she couldnt see the point in using the RW's, so bought some DVDR-, but when she inserts them into the DVD Recorder and tries to record onto them the DVD player, it fails at the end of the preparing stage.

She has tried 3 differnt discs from the same packet, all failed on the same thing, and she has also managed to record one of the tapes onto a DVD RW- as a test and that worked fine.

So yer if any ones got any idea of why this is happening, i dont know much about DVD recorders so it might be something really basic that me and my non-tech savvy mum are missing. Ill see if i can find out the exact error message my mums getting.

Thanks
Matt

osiris · Feb 20, 2009, 03:29 PM

Check the recorder's specs to see if DVD-R/+R disks are supported.

Other than that, maybe you have a bad batch of disks. I've had high failure rates on a particular spindle of disks, when another spindle of the same type/brand work perfectly.

Doofy · Feb 20, 2009, 03:36 PM

Originally Posted by crazyreaper

my mums backing up old videos of me as a kid

Doof is not so sure that DVDs are a good place to archive such material to. Pretty sure I've heard that regular recordable DVDs have a life span of only about five years before the surface starts breaking down and lose data (someone will correct me on that if I'm way out).

osiris · Feb 20, 2009, 03:47 PM

The Doof is right. 2-5 years is the life span. Pressed disks from manufacturers last for decades, but not consumer homemade disks.

NobleMatt · Feb 20, 2009, 04:48 PM

"Disc invalid" is the message my mums getting from the DVD Recorder and she has checked that the DVD Recorder takes DVD-R's and it states that as a accepted media.

i made the point to her about the life spans of homemade disc which she see' as a big problem and thanks you for pointing out, we wondered if the breakdown of the discs/data is caused by UV/Sunlight, and if we were to keep them in a full DVD case in the shade would this stop them from breaking down? and if there was any discs that we could buy that would last better than others? like the gold composite ones?

thanks for the help guys, mums gonna take them back to the shop and see if they are willing to offer a refund/exchange on the discs

Matt

Cold Warrior · Feb 20, 2009, 05:00 PM

Wrong forum. Moved.

Doofy · Feb 20, 2009, 05:30 PM

Originally Posted by crazyreaper

i made the point to her about the life spans of homemade disc which she see' as a big problem and thanks you for pointing out, we wondered if the breakdown of the discs/data is caused by UV/Sunlight, and if we were to keep them in a full DVD case in the shade would this stop them from breaking down? and if there was any discs that we could buy that would last better than others? like the gold composite ones?

Off the top of my head, I seem to remember something like this:

UV will break it down faster, but total darkness won't prevent the breakdown.
Some types of disc (the gold, as you mention) will last longer, but they still decay far too quickly for this kind of archiving.

I had a discussion about this very thing not so long back with guitarist #1. Came to the conclusion that if you're not putting the stuff on a RAID array, pop a copy on a DVD and a copy on a USB stick. We weren't sure of the lifespan of the USB sticks but as long as it's only "write once" use then it should be quite robust (since it's the erase/write cycles which hammer said sticks, I think). Again, someone will correct me if I'm wrong here.

CharlesS · Feb 20, 2009, 05:45 PM

Originally Posted by crazyreaper

and if there was any discs that we could buy that would last better than others? like the gold composite ones?

Generally, the consensus on the Internet seems to be that discs manufactured by Taiyo Yuden, the company that invented the CD-R, are the highest quality available. Unfortunately, TY doesn't sell the discs themselves, they only manufacture them, and they're usually sold by some other label. To make things worse, there are some no-name outfits on the Internet that sell discs that are advertised to be TY, but are actually fake.

Usually the easiest way to detect a TY disc is to see where it's made. If the label says Made in Japan, it's almost certainly Taiyo Yuden, because they are the major manufacturer there. I have a bunch of spindles of Fujifilm-branded discs labeled "Made in Japan" which are made by TY. I've occasionally seen spindles of Sony-branded discs that were MIJ also. A quick Google search turns up some discs that are supposed to be made by TY being sold at Guitar Center of all places: link

Doofy · Feb 20, 2009, 06:37 PM

Originally Posted by CharlesS

Generally, the consensus on the Internet seems to be that discs manufactured by Taiyo Yuden, the company that invented the CD-R, are the highest quality available. Unfortunately, TY doesn't sell the discs themselves, they only manufacture them, and they're usually sold by some other label. To make things worse, there are some no-name outfits on the Internet that sell discs that are advertised to be TY, but are actually fake.

There ya go:
http://www.rivierapublishing.co.uk/a..._Standard.html