Formatting DVD's

meg00

I have 2 Panasonic DVD players. I record TV programmes onto +RW discs, (either Phillips or Maxell re-recordable discs) to watch at a later date.

I am now getting messages from both machines saying the discs are incompatible, and both machines will re-format them, but they still won't record.

4 of the discs are brand new, so it can't be an overuse issue.

Any suggestions?

Meg.

cx6

golly - your post brings back memories - i remember recording tv to dvds back in the day

only thing that i can suggest is to ask yourself what, if anything, has changed?

forgotmyname

The discs don't last forever.  Some were labelled as lasting 20 years but after 5 they could have degraded
enough for some machines to struggle with them.

When you say brand new, were they recently produced or purchased sometime back but not used?

[Deleted User]

What is the model / age of DVD players?

Have you done a power cycle and/or factory reset yet as part of the troubleshooting?

Do non-RW DVD's work - ie ones that are write once or read only?

meg00

Thanks all.

Nothing I have done has changed.

Use upstairs machine to record on DVD, usually Escape to the country and Place in the sun, watch on fast forward so I can whiz through the pointless blether, delete, and then re-use the disc to record early evening stuff like Endeavor, Brokenwood etc.

Downstairs machine is more modern so I can download stuff, but I do like to be able to watch stuff upstairs on disc.

The discs are all probably over 5 years old, but before last week if there was a problem copying I would get a message saying disc was scratched so I would bin it and use a new one.

About last Thursday, all the discs I was using (about 5 in rotation) became unplayable, so I reformatted them all using both recorders, and also tried to use 5 new discs, all with the same result.

I have not used non RW discs, as it is not really viable for what I watch - I would go through 2/3 discs every day.

I have not done any cycle tests or resets as my first thought was if this is affecting both machines maybe it is because the technology no longer supports this type of recording?

Meg.

[Deleted User]

I only suggested R or RW just for testing purposes. Have you got any normal out of the shop pre-recorded DVD's just to test with? Trying to eliminate whether the DVD readers are still operable for other disk types?

If you are going through 2/3 discs a day that is a really heavy workload for what I guess are pretty old machines - 10 years old?  Most recorders had hard disks over 10 years ago so thinking these a pretty old if they are DVD only? Age / model as per earlier question is really useful.

The laser diodes really aren't that durable and 5+ years daily use is pushing it beyond average life expectancy.

Just starting to think the laser has gone weak / dirty in at least one of them which had caused it to trash the new discs when formatting. Disks themselves only have about 1,000 R/W cycles so the 5 year old ones will be getting near end of life.

Power cycle is the 1st go-to fix for technology - always try turning it off/on before anything else - so give that a go anyway. And a factory reset is also a good option.

Not suggesting you spend money before attempting all the above things but DVD recording at a workload of 2/3 discs per day should really be upgraded to something more modern such as a HDD recorder.

debitcardmayhem

Deleted_User said:

snipped.....
Not suggesting you spend money before attempting all the above things but DVD recording at a workload of 2/3 discs per day should really be upgraded to something more modern such as a HDD recorder.

or even on demand ? although not all HDD recorders allow multi room/usb transfers etc

googler

I would suggest getting a couple of Panasonic or other brand DVD-RAM discs, and trying those. If the recorders have DVD-RAM compatibility, of course. 

I have a pile of them that I used extensively back in the day, and they still work fine

[Deleted User]

All of them to fail at the same time sounds iffy. Is it network connected in that it has had a software update?