What am I doing wrong??? PLEASE HELP!

what error message do you get?

 

Home burned DVDs eventually become coasters because they are bleached by exposure to light. How do you know that your non-functioning DVDs have not been bleached into coasters?

Try this test: Try to play the non-functioning DVDs in your Mac's DVD Player.

 

I would have to assume that new BD player is simply not capable of reading Toast disks.

Not all players support all formats. You may have to burn the DVDs again in one of the supported formats. Take a look at the user guide of the new player to see what disk formats it supports.

 

Before wasting any disks do like I said and check the owners manual or user guide of the player you have to determine what formats it can handle. Then you can search for the right software.

Personally I use Wondershare but I think Toast is capable of writing different formats too.

 

Which player is this? Give me the model number.

 

What are you talking about? The Sony website explicitly lists DVD-RW and DVD-R in both Video Mode and VR Mode as compatible with the BDP-S350. The manual is even clearer. Page 58 of the Operator Manual is a list of playable discs. DVD±R/RW discs are included in the list of playable discs.

Page 59 of the operators manual lists discs that cannot be played. DVD-RAM, HD DVD, and DVD Audio are the only DVD format discs on the lists of discs than your Blu-ray player cannot play. If you are not telling the truth about this, then what else are you not telling the truth about?

 

Any particular need to burn in VR mode as opposed to standard DVD Video mode? As I recall, the only appliance I had that created VR mode discs was my Sony camcorder, to permit on disc editing.

 

Wow. Accusing him of lying just because maybe, on the off chance, he misread something or found the wrong manual? Your charm knows no bounds...

jW

 

Well, if this is the player you have you should definitely be able to play the burned disks. So, did you buy it new? Can you bring it back and exchange it?

There's no special way that you need to burn the disks. As long as you create a DVD project Toast takes care of the rest.

There's really nothing more I can help you with. So either you made a mistake with what model you have or you're reading the wrong manual. If it is the right model then as I said before you should take it back to where you bought it.

I have a question: When you insert the DVDs that you've burned in the past are they showing up as DVD's in whatever device you insert them into? In other words if you put them in the Mac are you playing them with the DVD player app? Or are you opening the file on the DVD through finder? Hope that makes sense to you.

 

First of all don't worry about what the other guy said, screw him.

As for why this player isn't playing the DVDs I can't say for sure but it is possible there's something wrong with it.

You missed my earlier question too. When you use your Mac to play the burned DVDs do you use the DVD player app or do you use some other media player and open the file through finder?

When you burn the disks do you start by creating a DVD project in Toast? In other words are you sure your not just copying the file over to the disk? Toast has to create a DVD disk in order for it to play.

There are some players that can play avi or other types of files without the need for creating a DVD so thats why I ask. I'm not saying you ARE doing it wrong I just want to make sure you're doing it right

 

Well, I don't know if your DVD player is to blame, but I can tell you from experience in the earlier days of burning DVD's that it can be more art than science. Maybe it's better now, but I made many, many coasters trying to figure out how to burn compatible disks. Of course, this was late 90's / early 2000's, so I suppose much may have changed.

I would investigate alternative burning methods first. There may be some little tweak you need to your settings to make it compatible.

 

One possible option - do you have the latest firmware on the player? Sometimes that helps. I vaguely recall that updating the firmware on that model requires either a disc or usb drive with the files on it. The version your player has will be listed in one of the system menus, and the Sony website will have the current version. If yours is older it may be worth a shot.

 

Do you have iDVD, or is your system too new to still include it? If you do have it, I'd give a try burning a disk through there just to see how it responds. That should help eliminate problems with either Toast or the DVD disks themselves as the issue.

jW

 

Don't know how much difference this might make, but I always limit my DVD and CD burns to 4x speed. It takes longer, but it seems to really cut down on compatibility issues. Might be worth trying (I suspect most people burn at the fastest speed their drive is capable of).

I would also suggest trying iDVD in place of Toast to see if that helps.

I realize there may be reasons you don't want to go this way, but have you considered getting some kind of media server? I quit burning DVDs for home use years ago when I got my AppleTV. Many other devices (such as Playstation, WD-Live and even Blu-ray players and TVs) will give you similar capability. I find this to be a huge improvement over DVDs (and the video quality is better).

 

Burn at the slowest speed possible.

I used to have this problem. Turns out if you burn a disc at max speed, some (most?) standalone players out there won't be able to play it - software/firmware restrictions to limit pirating, or some such. I've learned to stick to a burning speed of 2.4X whenever possible. At 2.4X, the burning should take about 20-30 minutes, not 4 minutes.

 

Hello Harry,

Sometimes the brand and dye of the DVD surface may not be compatible with some players.
Have you tried just one brand or several brands?
Could you please list the brands you have used and whether each one is a DVD+R, DVD-R or DVD+RW?

I have just checked at Sony's website and it says the following about the BDP-S350:

BD-R/RE Read Compatibility : Yes (BDMV & BDAV format)
BD-ROM : Yes
CD (CD-DA) : Yes
DVD Playback : Yes
DVD+R Read Compatibility : Yes
DVD+RW Read Compatibility : Yes
DVD-R Read Compatibility : Yes (Video Mode and VR Mode)
DVD-RW Read Compatibility : Yes (Video Mode and VR Mode)
JPEG Playback : Yes
x.v.Color™ Technology : Yes

Hopefully good news:
There's a firmware update for this player.
It's version 024, dated 05/27/2011:
Link: http://esupport.sony.com/US/perl/model-home.pl?mdl=BDPS350

Well, that's all I have to say for now.

-John