Hi
just had a phone call from a man who has 4 dvd's that have not been finalised and wont work in a pc or dvd player.....let me explain the situation
he did vhs to dvd transfer himself on a sony machine at home, thought he had finalised the disks. this machine then broke, so was binned...he has since tried to view to disks with no luck.
is it as simple as finalising the dvds on another dvd writer? he says he has had the disks to a few places who couldn't (or wouldn't) do anything.
I have just read this aswell, has anyone used these methods? - http://www.dvdrepairtips.com/unfinalized-dvds.html
any suggestions welcome!
The link says unfinalised video dvd's can't be played elsewhere.
I assume my Philips DVD recorder is definable as video DVD and have found unfinalised dvd's to be playable on other equipment, so don't think that's categorically true.
I think best chance is to determine what make/model of dvd recorder was used and to locate same machine - which will use same internal codec and same format of processing temporary files.
From your explanation it is possible:
i) Content has never been playable
ii) Break down during finalisation has left data in a state of limbo, so DVD recorder won't be able to recognise what's what.
In the latter case, it may be possible to salvage by the usual vob copying on pc via NLE and recompress to new DVD (with implied loss in quality).
BUT probably he won't want you to pay to do that and won't be able to do it himself - or it's TV content available on DVD so can be bought from likes of amazon!
the content is of his daughter, who unfortunately died suddenly, hence to need for the data to be recovered, and which is why he has been to so many places to try and get it sorted.
i will await the disks, and see what i have to play with.
i didnt think of the vob route, if the disk has been burnt as a video dvd, then the structure should be there, its the just the finalise stage that hasnt been completed.
anyway if anyone has had a similar case, any suggestion would be great.
We have 2 different Sony DVD recorders and can find the model numbers - we may be able to finalise the discs - or at least play them out to another unit.
ISOBusterPro can recover data from unfinalised discs - you need a fair bit of skill and judgement to work out what's what. i.e. the files it recovers may not make sense to normal software. The free version of ISOBuster isn't as good - the Pro versions finds more and does a better job.
Be very careful trying the discs in random machines. DVD recorders have a habit of "formatting" everything the see as a blank - even if it's not really blank. Once this has happened ISOBusterPro (or similar) is the only hope.
Our old Philips machine plays unplayable discs (bad English) - strange but useful. It's done the job more than once.
Call me for more info during office hours tomorrow.
Gavin Gration
I've used ISOBuster on a clients un-finalised DVD when a record to DVD disk camera was dropped and damaged, and got the data back - data then re-written to a new DVD. THIS also gets a good write up but I've never used it.
...
he did vhs to dvd transfer himself
..
any suggestions welcome!
Worst case, you can always recapture the VHS (innocently assuming these haven't been binned).
something to maybe try is to copy the masters on a duplicator (assuming that the duplicator can recognise the master)
then if you get a copy (which I assume being a clone of the original will be unformatted)
it might be a safer bet to try to close/finalise the copy.
Of course, this depends on you being able to copy the original but might add a layer of safety.
I've found that Panni discs need a panni machine to finalize but they don't seem to care which one.
The newer panni's insiist that you ignore an on-screen warning if you wish to remove a non finalised disc
Worst case, you can always recapture the VHS (innocently assuming these haven't been binned).
Actually isn't this the best case scenario as you have the possiblity of introducing better VHS playback and DVD record options than your client had?
John D johnross93.freeserve.co.uk
I'd guess that you'd suffer less stress than getting hold of the tapes and starting from scratch. That way you know it's all right.
Actually isn't this the best case scenario as you have the possiblity of introducing better VHS playback and DVD record options than your client had?
Yes, that crossed my mind when I posted (may even have been S-VHS source or used RF rather than composite), but in context of time input, much time may have been spent in editing/compiling the extracts on the DVD.
hi, very good point on just doing it again from vhs...so i rang him to ask for the originals.
the answer wasn't good, he has binned the vhs thinking the dvds were fine and the best way to keep the footage.
Oh well, will see what the disks are like when i get them.
cheers
Is there any technical reason why someone couldn't create a computer program that could identify a disc recorded on a set-top DVD recorder and then be able to finalise the DVD?
It's just this seems like an application that will become more necessary as time goes on as people start replacing their first DVD recorders.
John D johnross93.freeserve.co.uk
The problem is that the finalisation process involves knowing where all the tracks start and stop and where all the index marks are and so on. When you make the DVD, the software simply keeps track of what it's been doing, and then dumps the data into a 'root' section. If that data's been lost because the disk was taken out, any other software would have to extensively trawl around the disk, working out all of what's where. Not trivial.