A friend loaned me his Panasonic DVD Recorder (DMR-E20) to record some shows for my daughter. As a test the night before however, I recorded a three hour movie. I put the recorder into LP record mode to fit the entire movie on one disc.

I finalized the recording, and took the disk to my player (Sony DVP-NS500V) to test it. It started playing, and I stopped it.

However, now when I play the disc (on my player), it has done one of three things...
1) Give me a "dirty disk" error (despite cleaning the disk) 49.5% of the time.
2) Sit and spin (I can hear the disk spinning), but no video, audio, or counter shows up. 49.5% of the time
3) Start playing, then freeze. 1% of the time.

Is this because I recorded the movie in 'lp' format? One of my daughter's disks plays fine as do other store bought disks.

Any ideas?

Thanks
SamG

Between the various different recording formats, and the way that each manufacturer then implements them, the only guaranteed "perfect" replay is on the machine that actually made the copy.

That's what I was afraid of. I should have pointed out that the movie disk DOES play in the recorder.

SamG

OK, guys, call me whatever you want, but the disk works now. I post the solution for others who wouldn't think about it.

After I finalized the disk and tested it, I printed out a CD/DVD label and put it on the disk (yes, on the correct side). However, that label prevented the disk from being used in my player.

Just for giggles, I pulled the label off, and presto... the disk works in my player. My coworkers and I are theorizing that I didn't put the label on exactly square, and the weight of the label was throwing the balance of the disc off enough to prevent a correct read. Oh well.

Stick on labels on DVDs will definitely cause compatability problems.

The DVD disks spins faster and the data is packed closer together so even small imperfections in balance can cause problems.

The solution is to either write on the disk with a sharpy marker or, for fancier labels, get a printer which prints directly onto the disk.

I have the Epson Stylus Photo 900 printer which prints directly on special ink-jet printble DVDR and CDR blanks. There are also thermal CDR/DVDR printers but they are limited to a single color per pass and a smaller print area.