Shoutbox

I very recently bought a Samsung DVD Writer from dabs, more specifically this drive. It came today and I installed it fine and dandy only for me to find one problem with it. It shows itself as a DVD RAM drive. Undeterred (as the dabs page says it can write in multiple formats) I try to burn a DVD-R, only for it to read as a CD with 0 bytes of total space. Anyone got any ideas?

Got the right driver?

Email / Call Dabs?

DVD-RAM drives are very common now, they usually support the whole range of compact disks available, I wouldn't worry .

The disk may of not burned for a vast amount of reasons. How did you burn it? Windows is not great as it often fails to tell you the disk may need formatting before use. Sometimes the disks themselves may not work with that driver. If you have cheap disks, they have a better chance of not working. Just the other day I use some cheap DVD-RW disks, and after research I discovered my disk drive firmware did not support them. Then I tried it again with a more expensive Sony DVD-RW which worked .

Thanks, i just ended up burning it with nero (a new application to me) and for one thing it worked with a DVD-R () however, my inexperience with nero (other than a mucho old version of nero express) left me with a data disk with trainspotting in DVD format on it, but not being able to be played in DVD-players. I think I'll just go back to the old, simple version of nero I had. Thanks for all the help!

1: Windows XP doesn't support burning to DVD-R discs via Windows Explorer as far as I'm aware.
2: You need to use Nero Vision to convert the avi to MPEG-2 (or is it MPEG-4?) video used by DVD video discs. However, most modern DVD Drives can also read Divx encoded avi files - either in the root of the DVD, or organised into folders - I used to (naughtily) download episodes of CSI [LV/NY/Miami] (the UK is about a whole series behind usually) for my mum, put em straight onto a DVD-RW in XVid (it's like Divx, but better ) and she could watch them on the TV.

Anway, I'm digressing. Bold parts are important.

quote:

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Originally posted by andrewdodd13
: Windows XP doesn't support burning to DVD-R discs via Windows Explorer as far as I'm aware.

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IIRC there was a powertoy that enabled that.... I remember burning vista using it.

quote:

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Originally posted by andrewdodd13
2: You need to use Nero Vision to convert the avi to MPEG-2 (or is it MPEG-4?) video used by DVD video discs. However, most modern DVD Drives can also read Divx encoded avi files - either in the root of the DVD, or organised into folders - I used to (naughtily) download episodes of CSI [LV/NY/Miami] (the UK is about a whole series behind usually) for my mum, put em straight onto a DVD-RW in XVid (it's like Divx, but better (Smilie)) and she could watch them on the TV.

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Well tbh, what I used to be able to do was convert any video format file using VSO ConvertXtoDVD which would give me two folders, AUDIO_TS and VIDEO_TS and then I could just burn these straight onto a disk with no hassle. Using ConvertXtoDVD I could also add titles VERY easily, so if I wanted to burn multiple video filesto access seperately it could be done. However, now I can only use a program called DVD flick to convert the file and then burn it right away, because it seems to be the only program thats resulting in an actual playable DVD. This previous process worked on my other computer, it's just nero now doesn't recognise that it's a DVD-R in the tray not a CD so won't give me the option to burn the files to it =/

I used to use the VSO program as well, now you mention it.

Nero... when you're at the "New Project" screen it has a tiny combo box in the top left corner which is either CD or DVD. It took me a while to notice this.

If that's not your problem... I feel for ya.

quote:

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Originally posted by andrewdodd13
Nero... when you're at the "New Project" screen it has a tiny combo box in the top left corner which is either CD or DVD. It took me a while to notice this.

If that's not your problem... I feel for ya.

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Bah, I'm using the two extremes of Nero to be frank! I used to use Nero 5 (awesome and simple) but now it wont let me select DVD when starting a new project... must be reading the drive wrong I guess. And as for the other extreme, I have nero 7 "essentials"... I just haven't a clue what program does what and how I can just burn files to a DVD

Anyway, yeah, thanks for the help (and the sympathy ) I'm sure I'll figure it out... Somehow, haha.