SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME BEFORE I TEAR WHAT HAIR I HAVE LEFT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!! After trying various burning software (Aurora, Nero, etc, etc) have come across DVD Santa which, in theory, looks pretty easy to use ..... even for a blonde female such as myself!! Have downloaded .avi movies for my son to watch on home DVD player but for some reason after converting them (via DVD Santa) into DVD format, which took about 14 hours (patience I told him, patience .....) and then burning them onto DVD, on putting them in DVD player just keeps saying "check disk" on the screen. Tried them in his X Box as well, thinking it might be the DVD player but keep getting the same message. I've got Datawire Classic 4.7GB General Purpose 8x DVD-R disks and can't work out where I'm going wrong. Being in the UK have changed the NTSC option to PAL and still nothing. Seeing as these disks aren't rewritable I've now wasted about 3 AND STILL NOTHING!!!!! Is there another program I need to download to get this to work to run alongside DVD Santa????

AM STARTING TO LOSE THE PLOT ALONG WITH THE WILL TO LIVE and am living in hope that someone clever will be a knight in shining armour and put me and my 11 year old out of our misery by telling me where I'm going wrong. If I'd known it was going to be this difficult I wouldn't have got the rewriter in the first place!!!!! Son now thinks his mother is a tad dense and mother is on the verge of either leaving home or a nervous breakdown if I don't suss this out VERY VERY SOON!!!

Thank you for any help you can give me.

Does your set-top dvd player have the ability to play dvd-/+ rw's? If yes then why not trial them out. I don't know about the uk, but here we can watch either pal/ntsc without issues. But in some countries it's not so easy! You may need to convert them to pal during the conversion process. ie: in your settings make sure you check pal.

Also keep in mind you can't have both ntsc & pal video files together. The settings must be one or the other. Complex is the other option (which would mean having one version in pal & the other in ntsc - not worth the waste of space of the disk! 2 of the same movie.)

Make sure you burn your disks at minimum speed! OK so it takes longer, but it will be more reliable.

To be honest, I've never heard of your brand of media. Why not try another brand. Verbatim is a reliable brand. There's others also but I can't think of their names off hand. It depends very much on what's available in your area.

If you're burning a DVD- disk make sure you finalise the disk! (comparison to dvd+ disks which don't need to be finalised.) Make sure your player can play that brand AND that type; ie: dvd- or dvd+

Thank you for your mighty quick response!!! Don't know about the set-top playing either +/- disks and don't know how to find out either!! Don't know much so it seems!! It just seems that the film has burnt onto the disk but I can't watch it ...... either when I burn it as NTSC or PAL in the settings. Have got a film here that someone gave me ages ago with a film on ..... same disk ..... works in both my set top player and son's x-box. Only problem is, not in contact with that person anymore to find out how they did it. Is there anyway I can find out from those disks any information that might help me with regards to set up, etc???? Looks like this is gonna take a while ........ sigh

Just as a thought are you using the right media for your burner. My DVD+RW DL will only burn correctly on +RW/R material, although it will play all other media types. I found this out by mistake when I inadvertnly got some -RW/R media.
It looked as though it burned okay, but had the same problem as you. I'm not sure if this will be much help

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It should say somewhere in your dvd player manual what types of disks it can play. Can you tell use the brand & model number?

By finalise I meant, when you burn a disk you have the option of close it or leave it open to burn more sessions after it. Closing it is probably the safest option at present. Some dvd players don't recognise disks that haven't been closed. (But dvd+ is the only one with the option to burn sessions.)

If I were to have a look at a dvd movie disk that was suspect. I'd check the format it was burnt in. It should be UDF format. I know nothing about windows dvd apps unfortunately. But a recent thread suggested it's actuallly called udf /iso 9660 or something. (That probably sounds a bit complex to you.)

Hopefully somebody else on the forum knows more about windows dvd apps. fabion would probably know some decent dvd apps.

OK, getting somewhere now. DVD player does play the disks I've got to burn onto ..... just won't play the film I've burnt, which tells me something must be wrong with the format of the film. Have tried playing it on the PC and that works, just won't work on the home DVD player. Any more suggestions as to how I can change the format of the film so it will play??????

Still living in hope here!!

Just in case it is in the wrong format of ntsc or pal did you try switching your dvd player across to the other format. DVD players here have a button which allows you to switch between formats. Just a thought.

Oh if only it was that simple!! No button on these little efforts unfortunately. I burnt the film again in PAL format second time round, thinking that would solve the problem, but still no joy .... still keep getting the message "Check Disk" ..... this is starting to drive me round the bend now!!

Well you must have some way of changing the format on the dvd player. We also use pal here. If there's no button on the remote control then how about the menu onscreen. There should be a set-up menu for the dvd player in which you can change the view format.

This might not be the problem but it'd be wise to at least remove this from the possibilities.

Ooooo good thinking! Now why didn't I think of that? Probably because I haven't got a clue what I'm doing !!!!!

Right ... gonna go and give it a whirl now ..... thanks again for all your help but I feel I might be back ..... rather soon!

well I'm back to this site now commenting....

I took my burned dvd+rw's that were suppose to work on on my brand new dvd player and switched them to dvd+r ....my new player is supposed to play that also ...well

lo and behold....................the friggen thing WON'T play!!!

LOTR we've been working on this from my other thread....

Seems like a lot of us are getting nowhere here...

All the proper questions were answered....and still we can't get these things to play on tv

I have been seriously thinking of buying a 42"-50" monitor.....run a line from my pc out to where the tv is and the monitor and just play it off of the pc....

it would solve all of these problems...

response to koufax07 post.

Hmmmm might get my head chopped off here
MY OS is WindowsXP MCE and this machine is hooked to my TV plays and sounds great. I do have set top DVD player and have similar problems usually crappy media or when at a friends house the player didn't support the media type.

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I was serious about doing that ....but I haven't given up hope yet...
but if you read other threads here people are having the same problems...
there has to be a common link why these wont play...

I borrowed my buddys new dvd and it played immediately on the new dvd for the tv...go figure...

the converted dvd+r didnt play on the tv but now I have a permanent copy for the pc or somewhere else...

I was converting all the dvd+rw's to permanent discs anyway....

btw at staples right now has the 25 pack of dvd+r and dvd-r's for $7.94 instead of $24....so I'm stocking up...

so after I practice on the dvd+rw's and everything is cool...I'm switching them to the dvd+r's for now...

I was reading your responses LOTR...from above and was trying to get this problem solved like Fabion here also...

I read the manuals for each of the 2 dvd player recorders and the pc and made notes of which one will play what and accept each....


each I beleive stated it will only burn the nstc? format and not pal....
but I will double check for the switch on the back....

As far as the formatting...

I will reburn my discs w/the format closed....I left it open because of the dvd+rw's....but also left it open when i reburned the dvd+r's....

anything is possible to solve this problem not only for me ...but for alot of other people....

TY LOTR...

OK LOTR I'm back after working on this for the weekend...

Step 1...I checked both brand new DVDplayer recorders and there is no switch to convert....never heard of pal here...but I will check the remote menu...good idea...

Step 2... I reburned AND closed the dvd's ....onto dvd+r as per the dvd/player (can play these)...instructions...

All movies played very well on the pc as usual....
got the DISC ERROR on the tv again!!!!!

Sooooooooooo...back to square 1.....
I'm hoping between ALL these people having the same problem that if someone finds an answer to KINDLY let eveyone else know....