A few months ago friends from here dug into their wallets and bought me a combination DVD Player/VCR made by Sony. I had mentioned in chat that my old VCR had died and friends came to rescue. I love it.

A few weeks ago, a close friend sent me a care package containing over 100 DVD's he recorded for me. Most were episodes of a Science Fiction series we both enjoy watching, Babylon Five.

I've looked at the first 22 episodes and have found a problem. Almost every other DVD disc is defective, oh so it seems.

When I put in a DVD to watch, I can tell right off if its good or bad. Both good and bad ones start off with with sound and picture but the bad ones end after a minute of play and the screen goes blank.

I've noticed when a good DVD is entered, the counter begins 1, 2, 3, 4 etc until the show ends. For bad ones the counter doesn't count but instead displays a symbol looking like "T I ".

Anyone have any idea what "T I" indicates or why?

I'd appreciate anybody with technical knowledge.

Mac

Does "resetting" the computer - by turning off - disconnecting the player from the AC power source for a minute - help ?? I figure the "computer" inside isn't very smart and could get "CONFUSED".

The other thing I like to know also is if some "copy-right" stuff is inserted to make the machine do that. But I am not at all suggesting or know that this is the case. If that was the case, the DVD I think would not PLAY at all.

Yes I got one recently also and really really nice to have that combo. Have You tried to COPY a DVD to VHS TAPE as Yet ?? That is a nice feature to know and to have.

Having a machine that will also record the DVD would be the next thing ..Hi

Byt wait, the new CD/DVD with Ultra Blue or something Lasers are coming out soon if not already and then there will be more "versions" to play and store and look at etc etc N3RF

I need a bit more info from you, before I even start to guess.

Do these DVD's that you got say something like "DVD-R", "DVR+R", "DVD-RW", "DVD+RW", or "DVD-RAM" on them anywhere? Do they all say the same thing?

Also, recorded DVD's need to be "finalized" before a plain ol' DVD player can play them. Without this step, a DVD player will get confused (though a DVD drive on a PC will not).

n3rf (imported) wrote: Sat Aug 19, 2006 10:14 am Byt wait, the new CD/DVD with Ultra Blue or something Lasers are coming out soon if not already and then there will be more "versions" to play and store and look at etc etc N3RF

Yea, for those wanting/needing HDTV, the new DVD's for those will be either "Blue Ray" or "HD-DVD". It will be like the "BetaMax" vs. "VHS" tape wars years ago. The losing DVD type will be a $1,000 paperweight.

They all say on them CD-R if that helps.

MacTheWolf (imported) wrote: Sat Aug 19, 2006 9:31 am A few months ago friends from here dug into their wallets and bought me a combination DVD Player/VCR made by Sony. I had mentioned in chat that my old VCR had died and friends came to rescue. I love it.

A few weeks ago, a close friend sent me a care package containing over 100 DVD's he recorded for me. Most were episodes of a Science Fiction series we both enjoy watching, Babylon Five.

I've looked at the first 22 episodes and have found a problem. Almost every other DVD disc is defective, oh so it seems.

When I put in a DVD to watch, I can tell right off if its good or bad. Both good and bad ones start off with with sound and picture but the bad ones end after a minute of play and the screen goes blank.

I've noticed when a good DVD is entered, the counter begins 1, 2, 3, 4 etc until the show ends. For bad ones the counter doesn't count but instead displays a symbol looking like "T I ".

Anyone have any idea what "T I" indicates or why?

I'd appreciate anybody with technical knowledge.

MacYour problem may be "regional encoding" if the DVDs come from a non-US source. When DVD was introduced, Hollywood, obsessed with fear of piracy and eager to maintain its own schedule of theater release world wide, bullied the DVD industry (both producers of disks and producers of players) to introduce "region coding". This is NOT the same thing as the difference between, say, U.S. NTSC TV standard and PAL TV standard, which reflect the introduction at different times in different countries of technically different approaches to color TV. Instead it is a completely artificial code that is input on DVD discs so that, for instance a British (Region 2) DVD will not play on a US (Region 1) DVD player; not because it couldn't otherwise, but because it has been programmed not to be able to.

This is of course a total ripoff of the customer by big business. Fortunately, there is a way around it for people willing to buy a new DVD player (which "only" costs about two hundred bucks). Don't go to a bricks and mortar electronic store -- they are all under Hollywood thrall -- but simply type in "multi-region DVD player" into Google. You will get many, many hits.

I did this, and got a player that had the standard user info in the box, including an explanation of "region coding" (not apologizing, simply saying that if you put in a non region 1 disk it wouldn't play). But there was also a cheat sheet that gave me about six non-intuitive steps using the remote to re-program my DVD player to "all regions". I followed this, and now watch non region 1 disks without difficulty. So, if you have this large library that was given to you, you may want to go this route. These "grey market" re-jiggered players sold over the internet are mainstream brands (mine is a DAEWOO).

So what brand is Yours Mac and Model Number. Strass got the info OK. I wonder if You can use Your remote to reprogram Yours Mac.??? N3RF

This advice refers to using a stand-alone (non PC) DVD player. I know nothing about this subject when it is a question of using a PC as player

My experience was with a DVD player that was specifically advertised on the Internet as "Multi-Region". I don't know whether the player itself was physically rejiggered for the exprected re-programming, or whether the steps described on the cheat sheet would work otherwise. But the steps are non-intuitive -- don't think that by clicking around you will stumble on to them -- so I am doubtful if you can reprogram your existing DVD player. Bear in mind also that for non NTSC standard DVD's you will need a multi-system DVD player (referring not to the artificial "region coding" but to the genuinely technically different TV formats existing in the world) that senses the format of your TV (in your case, NTSC) and converts the signal. Naturally all "multi-region" grey market DVD player's are also "multi-system" (since all non "Region 1" DVD's are made for a non NTSC standard, as NTSC is only used in the Western Hemisphere, which happens to correspond to the artificial "Region 1"); but the bottom line is that if you want to watch those unwatchable DVDs you acquired, you'll need a new player.

The CD-R 's were recorded for me by my friend in Canada.

If it's a regional thing, why would some work and some not work? As it is, half work and half don't. Weird.

It should be noted that the discs in question are physically CD-R, with the information on them being in VCD/SVCD (NTSC) format. There is no regional coding involved, as there is none on the disc.

All the discs played fine on my dvd player (standalone I mean), and were checked before they were sent down.

About all I can think of is that the CD burner was slightly out of sync, and perhaps the player I used to play them was more forgiving in that respect. Either that, or the box was incorrect in mentioning SVCD support.

Actually, one other potential culprit is that perhaps when they were encoded, the bitrate was set too high.