DVD-R's not all the same...

[gcutler]

I learned what was causing my very old DVD player to play some DVD-Rs and not others.

My first batch of DVD-Rs were TDK (Version 1 or whatever you would call it). They either had a blue or a silver backing (don't remember). Well I bought my second pack (Maxell) and 3rd pack (Fuji) that were called DVD-R v2.0 on the box Their backing is kind of purpleish. The v1 DVD-Rs will play on my junky old RCA, but the DVD-R v2.0 will not (they will all play on the old sony) . I even burned two identical content DVD-Rs and the v2.0 would not play.

Anyone know what exactly is v2.0 vs 1.0 (I saw DVD-RW that said 1.1)

I guess it is time to buy a $90 DVD player and just junk that darn RCA (not worth the effort anymore). I guess I can use it as a doorstop. I was going to give the DVD player to a friend, but since it dosen't play alot of the DVDs out there, I figure that might be more cruel than kind.

[James_F]

Well try the "General" vs "Authoring" versions of DVD-Rs.

[Mike123abc]

DVDs for authoring are for a DVD for authoring drive. These DVDs allow writing to the area of the DVD that contains copy protection. These hold 3.9GB.

DVD for general (2.0 is the current version) have the copy protection section of the DVD prestamped to not allow copy protection. These disks hold 4.7 GB. The original 1.0 version of DVD for general had the copy protection area covered up with a sticker. This caused a lot of compatibilty problems and early disk failure.

I have found that different brands do make a difference with compatibility.

[James_F]

And DVD authoring cost more. I found out the hard way with those.... :(

[Ryan]

As for the old RCA, does it reliably play rental DVD movies?

If so, I'm sure you could find a worthy school or shelter that would appriciate a way to play DVD movie for their clients.

[gcutler]

That was the thing, it did play most rentals ok, but I stopped using it as a primary DVD player after a string of bad plays. It had reached the point where 1 in 5 would not play right, 1 in 10 would not even be recognized as a DVD when put in the machine. And it was consitantly the same DVDs, so a head cleaning wasn't the cure. It was then I read about how not all DVD players were created equal, realizing I had a prefect example :)

[Mike123abc]

A lot of the early DVD players had problems implementing the DVD virtual machine. The Matrix DVD was the famous DVD machine killer. It was the first DVD that used many of the features DVDs have that goes beyond simple playback. With fancy motion menus, complex navigation, etc. it showed how many early machines were not implemented correctly.

[Unthinkable]

I remember The Abyss was also problematic with its seamless branching pathways. It caused a great deal of alarm back on the dvd newsgroups with early adopter DVD buyers who bought the cheapest model player available at the time. On an unrelated note, Disney had a few bad pressings as well while some of their earlier releases had folks up in arms over why they couldn't fast forward through all the previews at the front end of the disks.