well I brought a Zenith DVD Recorder/VCR XBR716 and it works great, BUT when I try to play DVD-R in my Hitachi Dv-P543U or my Magnavox MSD124. I get ERROR message and won't play. Is there away of changing these units Formats to play DVD-R's?
There are two meanings to "format": 1) the class of disc you are dealing with, in this case DVD-R; and 2) the sytem architecture recorded on the disc to enable recognition and playback in different type of machines. All DVD players and recorders that have a DVD logo on them MUST be able to play DVD-R discs according to the rules of the DVD Forum that licenses DVDs. If your other players do not play back the video on the discs recorded in the Zenith, there are three possibilities for the problem:
1) most likely, the disc is not finalized in the Zenith. Finalization is the process of writing the table of contents on the disc and closing it so that nothing more can be written to it. Only the original recording drive can finalize the disc. Check your manual to see how to finalize if you are not doing that last step.
2) less likely, the Zenith may not be fully compatible with the discs you are using, either because its 1X recording process is too slow for the discs or because it is not tuned for them. If there is a compatibility problem, the recordings may be good enough for the Zenith to play them back but not good enough for other drives to follow the tracking. (It's also possible that the Zenith is out of spec, but that would be unusual.)
3) You are recording in VR format (the format used by video recorders that allow TV recording without a set time period, unlike DVD drives that know exactly how long a video file is before they record it.) It is possible by least likely that the Hitachi and Magnavox do not recognize the VR format. (If they are recorders, too, that is not the problem. They would have to be older DVD players not to recognize the VR format.)
The best advice is to check your Zenith manual to see if you are truly finalizing your discs.
Originally posted by JoeRyan: There are two meanings to "format": 1) the class of disc you are dealing with, in this case DVD-R; and 2) the sytem architecture recorded on the disc to enable recognition and playback in different type of machines. All DVD players and recorders that have a DVD logo on them MUST be able to play DVD-R discs according to the rules of the DVD Forum that licenses DVDs. If your other players do not play back the video on the discs recorded in the Zenith, there are three possibilities for the problem:
1) most likely, the disc is not finalized in the Zenith. Finalization is the process of writing the table of contents on the disc and closing it so that nothing more can be written to it. Only the original recording drive can finalize the disc. Check your manual to see how to finalize if you are not doing that last step.
2) less likely, the Zenith may not be fully compatible with the discs you are using, either because its 1X recording process is too slow for the discs or because it is not tuned for them. If there is a compatibility problem, the recordings may be good enough for the Zenith to play them back but not good enough for other drives to follow the tracking. (It's also possible that the Zenith is out of spec, but that would be unusual.)
3) You are recording in VR format (the format used by video recorders that allow TV recording without a set time period, unlike DVD drives that know exactly how long a video file is before they record it.) It is possible by least likely that the Hitachi and Magnavox do not recognize the VR format. (If they are recorders, too, that is not the problem. They would have to be older DVD players not to recognize the VR format.)
The best advice is to check your Zenith manual to see if you are truly finalizing your discs.
