Midnight Oil

[Powderworks] BURNT DVD's

Maurice R. Kelly mkelly@deadheart.org.uk
Mon, 14 Jan 2002 10:15:28 +0000 (GMT)


On Jan 14, LLOYD_Ian@canon.com.au wrote:

> Can anyone tell me, I have a DVD player that will not play burnt CD's, does this mean it would not
> play burnt DVD's either and if not is there anyway to correct this?

THere's two things this could be - 1) copy-"protection" system of the DVD
player where it detects, burnt CDs and rejects them, 2) a physical
limitation of the hardware in the DVD player, and the media burnt onto.

The laser used to read the data from a DVD is different from that needed
to read CDs. In general you get the right amount of reflectivity from a
standard CD, but CD-Rs tend to be slightly different, and therefore don't
reflect the light enough to be properly detected.

I had a Sony player for a year, which did this - however, it did manage to
play CD-RW discs (unfortunately more expensive.) CD-RW discs have again
got a different reflectivity, which happens to be readable by many DVD
players.

I don't know about burnt DVDs. If it's a copy-"protection" system, then
chances are they won't work. However, if the problem with playing CD-Rs is
that which I have described above, then I imagine that recorded DVDs
should work (why make a player incapable of reading the very media it was
intended to play[1].) However, as was mentioned in another email, the
record formats for DVD is still a bit hazy - some players may not
recognise all the formats.

[1] Considering that there are companies making both DVD-writers and
DVD-readers, it makes no commercial sense to limit the playing of
self-made DVDs.

Cheers,

-- 
Maurice R. Kelly
mkelly@deadheart.org.uk