SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP ME BEFORE I TEAR WHAT HAIR I HAVE LEFT OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!! After trying various burning software (Aurora, Nero, etc, etc) have come across DVD Santa which, in theory, looks pretty easy to use ..... even for a blonde female such as myself!! Have downloaded .avi movies for my son to watch on home DVD player but for some reason after converting them (via DVD Santa) into DVD format, which took about 14 hours (patience I told him, patience .....) and then burning them onto DVD, on putting them in DVD player just keeps saying "check disk" on the screen. Tried them in his X Box as well, thinking it might be the DVD player but keep getting the same message. I've got Datawire Classic 4.7GB General Purpose 8x DVD-R disks and can't work out where I'm going wrong. Being in the UK have changed the NTSC option to PAL and still nothing. Seeing as these disks aren't rewritable I've now wasted about 3 AND STILL NOTHING!!!!! Is there another program I need to download to get this to work to run alongside DVD Santa????

AM STARTING TO LOSE THE PLOT ALONG WITH THE WILL TO LIVE and am living in hope that someone clever will be a knight in shining armour and put me and my 11 year old out of our misery by telling me where I'm going wrong. If I'd known it was going to be this difficult I wouldn't have got the rewriter in the first place!!!!! Son now thinks his mother is a tad dense and mother is on the verge of either leaving home or a nervous breakdown if I don't suss this out VERY VERY SOON!!!

Thank you for any help you can give me.

Does your set-top dvd player have the ability to play dvd-/+ rw's? If yes then why not trial them out. I don't know about the uk, but here we can watch either pal/ntsc without issues. But in some countries it's not so easy! You may need to convert them to pal during the conversion process. ie: in your settings make sure you check pal.

Also keep in mind you can't have both ntsc & pal video files together. The settings must be one or the other. Complex is the other option (which would mean having one version in pal & the other in ntsc - not worth the waste of space of the disk! 2 of the same movie.)

Make sure you burn your disks at minimum speed! OK so it takes longer, but it will be more reliable.

To be honest, I've never heard of your brand of media. Why not try another brand. Verbatim is a reliable brand. There's others also but I can't think of their names off hand. It depends very much on what's available in your area.

If you're burning a DVD- disk make sure you finalise the disk! (comparison to dvd+ disks which don't need to be finalised.) Make sure your player can play that brand AND that type; ie: dvd- or dvd+

Thank you for your mighty quick response!!! Don't know about the set-top playing either +/- disks and don't know how to find out either!! Don't know much so it seems!! It just seems that the film has burnt onto the disk but I can't watch it ...... either when I burn it as NTSC or PAL in the settings. Have got a film here that someone gave me ages ago with a film on ..... same disk ..... works in both my set top player and son's x-box. Only problem is, not in contact with that person anymore to find out how they did it. Is there anyway I can find out from those disks any information that might help me with regards to set up, etc???? Looks like this is gonna take a while ........ sigh

Just as a thought are you using the right media for your burner. My DVD+RW DL will only burn correctly on +RW/R material, although it will play all other media types. I found this out by mistake when I inadvertnly got some -RW/R media.
It looked as though it burned okay, but had the same problem as you. I'm not sure if this will be much help

It should say somewhere in your dvd player manual what types of disks it can play. Can you tell use the brand & model number?

By finalise I meant, when you burn a disk you have the option of close it or leave it open to burn more sessions after it. Closing it is probably the safest option at present. Some dvd players don't recognise disks that haven't been closed. (But dvd+ is the only one with the option to burn sessions.)

If I were to have a look at a dvd movie disk that was suspect. I'd check the format it was burnt in. It should be UDF format. I know nothing about windows dvd apps unfortunately. But a recent thread suggested it's actuallly called udf /iso 9660 or something. (That probably sounds a bit complex to you.)

Hopefully somebody else on the forum knows more about windows dvd apps. fabion would probably know some decent dvd apps.

OK, getting somewhere now. DVD player does play the disks I've got to burn onto ..... just won't play the film I've burnt, which tells me something must be wrong with the format of the film. Have tried playing it on the PC and that works, just won't work on the home DVD player. Any more suggestions as to how I can change the format of the film so it will play??????

Still living in hope here!!

Just in case it is in the wrong format of ntsc or pal did you try switching your dvd player across to the other format. DVD players here have a button which allows you to switch between formats. Just a thought.

Oh if only it was that simple!! No button on these little efforts unfortunately. I burnt the film again in PAL format second time round, thinking that would solve the problem, but still no joy .... still keep getting the message "Check Disk" ..... this is starting to drive me round the bend now!!

Well you must have some way of changing the format on the dvd player. We also use pal here. If there's no button on the remote control then how about the menu onscreen. There should be a set-up menu for the dvd player in which you can change the view format.

This might not be the problem but it'd be wise to at least remove this from the possibilities.

Ooooo good thinking! Now why didn't I think of that? Probably because I haven't got a clue what I'm doing !!!!!

Right ... gonna go and give it a whirl now ..... thanks again for all your help but I feel I might be back ..... rather soon!