Hi

I've got a Sony Vaio VGN-FE21B notebook and a Samsung DVD-VR320 combination DVD VHS player - which allows recording and playback of DVD -RAM / -RW / -R discs.

I've recently bought some Verbatim DVD-R discs and burned some Australian Rugby League onto 3 for a friend. DVD player records okay and i can leave the disc as DVD-V format, or finalise to DVD-Video. Either way, when i put them into my Sony Vaio they are not recognised.
I've checked and the DVD player still plays back everything recorded.

I was going to get an optical lens cleaner, or attempt to clean it myself, but took the discs into work and the same problem occurred on 2 colleagues laptops (our computers have not got DVD readers so i had to seek out laptop users.)

I've left 2 with a techie colleague to take home and check, and also check in a dvd player but wondered if there is a simple answer to this?

Less technical questions the better but i'll do my best to answer anything.

Cheers

Can you play any movies in your Vaio?

YES.

I've just put a DVD in the drive and Windows Media Player happily started playing it.

One tool i've found very handy that might help in this case is DVDInfoPro. The first 2weeks (i forget exactly how long) are free then there's a nominal fee. Use it (at least for the free time) to get some specific info both on your DVD drive and your DVD media formats.

It's solved some DVD mysteries for me in the past (i paid the one time fee, get free updates and find it worthwhile)

Question is: have you been able to read other burned DVDs? If your DVD player on the laptop doesnt burn DVDs there might be a chance it cant read them either. Also, if the DVD player on the laptop takes DVD+R and not DVD-R?

I'm not sure what this paragraph means. 1) are you in Australia? 2) you recorded Rugby directly from TV? 3) don't know what DVD-V is 4) do you know if Vaio's DVD drive will read DVD-V or DVD-Video?

Okay - lets begin again.
I Sky+ rugby for a friend who doesn't have Setanta and copy it to a DVD.

Previously i used DVD-RW discs. I found this expensive and awkward, as my DVD recorder formats DVD-RW discs in a particular way so you can only replay them on the same Recorder.
This means that you have to re-format the discs before recording onto them to allow external device use.

I've now got some DVD-R discs which do not require formatting.

I'm not in Australia, sorry for providing too much information. I record at actual speed from Sky +.
It worked fine for DVD-RW discs.

DVD Manual states
'DVD-RW: When an unused DVD-RW disc is first inserted, the message "Uninitialized Disc Do you want to initialize this disc?" will be displayed. If you select Yes, the disc will be formatted in VR mode. If you want to change the mode, refer to Formatting a DISC' (this relates to the comment above about a default format which you have to format again to V mode)

It then goes on to say:
DVD-R: Formatting DVD is unnecessary and only V mode Recording is supported.

'After you record titles onto a DVD-RW/-R disc with your DVD recorder, it needs to be finalised before it can be played back on external devices '
'After being finalised, the DVD-RW(V mode)/-R operates in the same manner as a DVD-Video'

I could be wrong but I think it's the general case that RW CDs or DVDs are meant to be reused e.g. for backups rather than made into media for reading by others on their computers or home entertainment equipment. Meanwhile R disks are the opposite - meant to make final copies for others.

Both RW and R disks can and should be Finalized to finish them which I believe in the case of RWs make them not able to be reused again. Finalized RWs may or may not be able to be read by others.

I can't speak for all disks but usually any R disks don't need formatting but RW disks may need formatting to wipe out their previous contents before being re-written over.

Bernie