DVD recorder formats

toasterman

I wonder if anyone can help me,
A relative of mine has a dvd recorder (Alba RDVD1001, out of warranty), and when she recorded tv programmes, all was fine.
HOWEVER, it records in some odd format, and so she can't play the discs back on anything else, until she finalizes the dvd disc.

So first question - is there any kind of agreed standard for this other...standard? If it's seemingly not recording in something normal that all other players can read.
Will Sony players read Alba discs, or maybe the cheap brands.. Proline, Alba, Goodmans, etc...all use the same pre-finalized format?
Is there any way to tell?

My relative was fine with that system, but it then developed a fault where you go to finalize a disc and it actually just erased it.
Because of this, she's been putting off finalizing anything until she's watched it (I'm sure you can see where this is going).

Fast forward to this morning, it was flashing "loading" at her on the display. As it had completely frozen up, she unplugged it and plugged it in again. Now the standby light is just flashing red/green at her, and it's completely unusable.

So second question - is there any way to read the discs on anything else?
And if not -
3 - can anyone suggest a suitable replacement system for recording which isn't so completely stupid?

A Topfield/Humax won't be suitable, as she's recording from Virgin Media, and V+ isn't suitable as she wants to be able to watch the shows elsewhere.

Any help much appreciated.