Only PowerDVD 9 will acknowledge this DVD+R 4.7gb?

[littlebrother]

1. A guy made a DVD from a VHS and sent it to me.

2. It's made with a LG DVD/VHS combo.

3. The disc is a Verbatim DVD+R 4.7 MB.

4. He is not knowledgeable about the technical part of the process. Says he is happy he can turn the machine on with making it explode.

5. Said he formatted the disc before putting it in the combo player.

So what is my problem?

I have 3 DVD players, 3 computers and several applications that deal with DVD's and video files but only one application that has (so far) been able to read the disc, Power DVD 9.

With Power DVD 9 I can watch the DVD but all other applications will report that the DVD is empty or full or both, including Windows 7 explorer.

Below is a screen cap from the disc menu of the disc in DVD Power 9.

The movie itself is 112 minutes so the last 8-9 minutes are really not necessary.

I would of course like to be able to extract the video from the physical disc but don't know how at the moment.

What is the problem? Is the video too long? Has the DVD not been "closed" properly?

Can I fix this myself? He is willing to give it another go but since I don't know what the problem is I need to sort that out first.

[lordsmurf]

That doesn't make any sense to me.

Can you read the ISO with DVD Decrypter and/or ImgBurn?

There's two typical errors at play:
(1) Authoring errors,
(2) media errors -- and yes, Verbatim can be bad, no disc gets 100% perfect ratings

Most times, yes, this can be fixed easily.

[littlebrother]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

That doesn't make any sense to me.

Can you read the ISO with DVD Decrypter and/or ImgBurn?

Thank you for the very quick response.

There isn't really any ISO to read from, I only have the physical disc that I was sent.

Below I have attached screen caps from DVD Decrypter and ImgBurn.

He probably hasn't got any Verbatim DVD+R DL 8.5GB disc. Would it help if I send him one of those as the time of the VHS is is quite close to the capacity of a 4.7 GB?

He says that his machine is a LG DVD/VHS combo (I don't know what version). Is it likely being able to handle 8.5GB?

[lordsmurf]

Every disc can have an ISO created from it, assuming the media isn't corrupted, or the authoring isn't corrupted.

If the discs is "empty", but not really, you indeed have a bad disc. Those are rare, but happen. I saw two last month, for the first time in years (and many thousands of discs). If that disc is inserted into a better drive, it probably can be read. But the main issue is that the DVD ROMs and burners you have are just too weak.

DVD+R DL media rarely work in DVD recorders.

You're also confused about disc capacity. DVDs are based on bitrate, not time. A 2-hour video could take up less than 1gb, or 10gb. It depends entirely on bitrate. DVD recorders simply dumb down terms, or hide them from you, using "modes". But, even then, you could fit 6 hours (or HORRIBLE quality!) on a DVD, or just 1 hour (XP mode).

This is a disc issue.

If you want, do this:
(1) upgrade to Premium Member,
(2) send the bad disc here, and I'll rip the ISO, and upload to the FTP for you to download.

[littlebrother]

OK, I will forget about the capacity question.

Two of my three DVD burners are brand new and the third has managed to read and write without any hiccups for quite some time and number of DVD's so it doesn't feel like that would be the problem.

Still, I wonder why Power DVD 9 lets me watch it while all other applications doesn't let me go any further. And why would a DVD reader be strong enough for Power DVD 9 but too weak for other applications?

Is there any application that will let me burn an ISO even though it reports the disc as being empty or both empty and full at the same time?

The guy who did the transfer said he formatted the disc before the transfer which sounds a bit odd to me. I never format anything before I burn DVD's. Could that be the problem?

[lordsmurf]

In theory, formatting before using -- which I agree, it's odd -- could cause lead-in issues. The authoring may be fubar. But for a drive to detect an empty discs, when it's not, is most often a disc issue.

The age of the burner means nothing. Most burners are not strong readers.

The PowerDVD thing is a real monkey-wrench. If it can read, then anything should read (Imgburn, DVD Decrypter).

Does the OS see the disc contents?

[littlebrother]

The OS is Windows 7.

And yes, the OS has the same ambivalent attitude towards the disc as you can see with the attached image. It's both there and not.

[lordsmurf]

What does ISOBuster see?

[littlebrother]

ISOBuster is something I've never heard about before but it seems to have done the trick.

I now have an ISO file that looks OK. One question though: Why does two tracks with the same length show up in CloneDVD2? See attachment 1.

Secondly: I might buy ISOBuster as the paid version also can deal with HD's. I have a couple of those that needs examination. But before I do, I wanted to tell you that the affiliate link you gave me gives this error message in Firefox. It might work OK in other browsers but I guess it should be taken care of just the same. See attachment 2.

[lordsmurf]

Excellent.

The doubled VTS issue is common among DVD recorders.

About the link, I saw that as soon as I posted it, and started to look into it. We have to both fix the link and submit some paperwork to the network. Working on that now. It'll be a few days, if you would be kind enough to wait. It's not anything on your end, not a browser issue.

[littlebrother]

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

Excellent.
The doubled VTS issue is common among DVD recorders.
About the link, I saw that as soon as I posted it, and started to look into it. We have to both fix the link and submit some paperwork to the network. Working on that now. It'll be a few days, if you would be kind enough to wait. It's not anything on your end, not a browser issue.

No problem for me to wait. Will you let me know when it's fixed either with a message here or a PM?

-- merged --

Quote:

Originally Posted by lordsmurf

About the link, I saw that as soon as I posted it, and started to look into it. We have to both fix the link and submit some paperwork to the network. Working on that now. It'll be a few days, if you would be kind enough to wait. It's not anything on your end, not a browser issue.

Any progress on the link problem?

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by littlebrother

Any progress on the link problem?

Try this: http://www.digitalFAQ.com/go/isobuster.com
That should work.

The term IsoBuster should auto-link it again. < just tested, and it does!