Hi All, I have recently purchased a jvc dvd recorder/vcr which is dvd spec'd as being dvd-ram, dvd-r and dvd-rw. I have recorded stuff onto a dvd-rw disc, then when i try to play them in my "bush" dvd/lcd tv combination in the bedroom all i get is a strange screen that make no sense to me, being a technology rookie. can someone please enlighten me and maybe suggest a make of disc that i can purchase as i would like to record and watch things over and over again? many thanks in advance. Keats
The first thing you need to find out is whether or not your bedroom TV combo can play -RW format disks. Some sets play all forms of media, some might only play -R but not +R and so on through all possible combinations of alphabet soup. Make sure your -RW disk is good. Play it in a machine that you know handles all formats. Did you "finalize" the disk to play on other machines? If you did not, this will be a problem. Check your Owners Manual. Once you finalize the disk, use it on others machines, and want to reuse it on your recorder combo - you will need to "unfinalize" and start over again. If you use +/- R disks, you will need to finalize them to use on another machine. One time disks can not be unfinalized. Use good quality disks. Burn at half the rated speed of the disk.
Thanks for the info. i have been messing around with settings and have found that i had been recording in "vr" mode as apposed to "video" mode (not sure of the difference but hey). The unit upstairs does say dvd+r on it, so after your comments and suggestions i have "finalised" the disc and it will play fine upstairs thanks, although it took 13 minutes to "finalise" the disc with just a few minutes of recording on it, is this correct, should it have taken this long? is there anything i can do to speed this up? I realize you only get what you pay for with discs, what is the best type/make as i want to be able to use them over and over again? Thanks for your help so far.. How do i adjust the "burn speed" to half the rated speed of thr disc? Keats.
Yes, the VR mode can be a problem. Actually, I have never used it on my machine. Stick with the video mode. Can't really tell you the difference though. Recommend Verbatim or Taiyo Yuden disks. They are well received in the forums. Also check your Owners Manual. Mine states Sony, TDK, Verbatim, and Panasonic. Don't know exactly how long the finalize should take. Probably varies by machine and not the size of the recording. I normally just reuse the disk in my machine to time shift TV shows on at 'bad' times. And only used the finalize one time on a tape to disk of daughter's HS graduation. Don't recall how long it took. Guess I might have spoke a little fast on the burn speed issue. Probably can't adjust that on a tape/disk combo unit. That concept would more rightly apply to PC disk burners. Often mentioned in these forums. But along that thought, my machine says it can record disks at 1/2/4/6 hour lengths. I found that quality really suffers if I try to make a 4 or 6 hour recording. The 1 or 2 hour recordings look just Great. So, I stick to those. You could experiment with yours using an RW disk.
Thankyou for your assistance. I hope now i can record the programmes that my wife wants me to record while she does her evening shift, then she'll be able to watch them in bed while i watch what i want to watch downstairs, thanks again and i think i will purchase some verbatim disks as you recommended! Cheers Keats
