Convert DVD+R to -R ?

[JohnG]

A mate has recorded some stuff over Christmas on his Philips recorder and they won't play on either of my DVD players (LG & Pioneer). So I thought it would be as easy as copying it onto a DVD-R disc on my PC I should be so lucky !
Does anyone know it it's possible to create a -R disc that is playable on my DVD players using the burner on my PC ?

[DJW]

Have you checked both your Players, can actually play DVD-/+R's ?

If they can, then it might just be a media problem. Some players are very fussy about the media they can read.

If your Players only accept DVD -R, as long as your PC burner can read the disk & still write DVD-Rs, it should just be a simple case of reading image to Hard disk, insert blank DVD-R & burn away.

Checkout some of the DVD forums:- http://www.dvdrbase.com/archive/index.php/f-134

[JohnG]

Both my DVD players will play -R discs. To copy the disc on my PC I stuck the +R original in the ROM drive and a blank -R disc in the burner (Sony DRU-510A) and just did an "exact copy" using RecordNow Max.

[DJW]

OK

Have you ever burnt anything to DVD-R & played it OK on players. If yes then it proves the copy process is at fault.

Sometimes on the fly copying does not work that well, so for the cpost of a blank DVD-R its worth copying DVD+ to hard disk of PC & then write out to DVD- seperately.

[JohnG]

OK mate I'll give that a go.
I have burned several discs of the same brand and they play back fine on both standalone players. BUT I was using DVDShrink to make backup copies - so therefore not copying on the fly.

[ammar]

Hello,

I have a Philips 890 +RW recorder which I never use with +R disks, always +RW disks. Once the disk is full and ready, I take it to my PC, which has a Panasonic -R/RAM burner as well as a panasonic DVDROM drive which can read +RW +R -R and RAM disks.

Then I use NERO to do DVDCOPY from the DVDROM to the panasonic which records an exact backup of the +RW disk onto a -R disk, then I take the +RW disk back to the Philips 890, erase it and use it again that way I can record stuff, delete it if I dont wish to keep it and backit up when I do wish to keep it.

If you finalise the +R disks on the philips recorder then they should be readable by almost anything out there, I recently bought a Prism DVD player for peanuts and was pleasantly surprised to see that it does play my +RW disks.

Try doing that with a RAM disk from Panasonic! I have a Panasonc E20 which gathers dust, good for -R recording but RAM is useless for me.

Ammar

[ammar]

Hello,

I have a Philips 890 +RW recorder which I never use with +R disks, always +RW disks. Once the disk is full and ready, I take it to my PC, which has a Panasonic -R/RAM burner as well as a panasonic DVDROM drive which can read +RW +R -R and RAM disks.

Then I use NERO to do DVDCOPY from the DVDROM to the panasonic which records an exact backup of the +RW disk onto a -R disk, then I take the +RW disk back to the Philips 890, erase it and use it again that way I can record stuff, delete it if I dont wish to keep it and backit up when I do wish to keep it.

If you finalise the +R disks on the philips recorder then they should be readable by almost anything out there, I recently bought a Prism DVD player for peanuts and was pleasantly surprised to see that it does play my +RW disks.

Try doing that with a RAM disk from Panasonic! I have a Panasonc E20 which gathers dust, good for -R recording but RAM is useless for me.

Ammar

[JohnG]

I can only assume that my mate has not finalised the disk as it won't read in either my Pioneer 565 or my LG player. It will work in my PC DVD drive though

[PhilipL]

Hi

A word of advice! Copying a +R or +RW recorded in a set-top recorder to a DVD-R or +R is not the same thing as having a correctly authored DVD-R or +R disc!

Why? Set-top recorders that use +RW or +R do not record completely compliant DVD Video. The navigational stream of the video is out of spec, but works generally in most DVD players but is often the reason for problems with navigating chapters and/or skipping forward and backwards. In future equipment this may cause more problems then they do now and is best corrected if you have the chance. If you find +R doesn’t play very well in your player, but you have been given DVD-Rs that work, so decide to copy to DVD-R and find that resulting DVD-R gives the same problems as the +R disc did, this is because the DVD Player doesn’t like the non-standard navigational data, which was copied like for like to the DVD-R disc.

The worst thing wrong with +RW/+R discs from set-tops is the IFO backup file is often corrupt. On a DVD Video you have the normal file system, then sitting on top of that are instructions to the DVD player on what is on the disc and how to load and play it. This information is held in files ending .IFO. If these files are corrupt or unreadable the whole disc is trash, so a back up of this is also recorded as part of the DVD Video specs and this ends in .BUP. These .BUP files should be identical to the IFO file they are backing up, but often are corrupt or not matching on +RW/+R discs made in set-top recorders. If the original IFO file becomes unreadable, then the .BUP is used so it should be correct; but as these files are often bad on +RW/+R , these discs and the resulting copies are more vulnerable to damage or wear and tear.

Your best bet is to re-author the disc completely for anything important. Simply extract the video using something like DVD Decryptor, set it to give you one VOB file of the title you want, and then import that into your DVD Authoring package. Set up some new menus or chapter points and let the authoring package recreate the Video_TS folder. This will be multiplexed with correct navigational streams and will get new and correct .IFO and .BUP files.

This may be long winded for some, so at the very least, copy the Video_TS folder to your hard-drive (it isn’t encrypted on your own recorded discs), and then delete the .BUP files, make new .BUP files by copying the .IFO files and renaming to .BUP. Then use this Video_TS folder in your burning program to burn the DVD.

This only applys to +RW/+R discs recorded in set-top recorders. DVD-Rs (or DVD-RW in Video mode) from Panasonic or Pioneer set-top recorders are always fully to the DVD spec and copies are fine.

Regards

Philip

[JohnG]

I think this might be what is happening here. The strange thing is that another mate can read the +R disks on his Sony DVD player.