[DarknessUK]

OK, I went to visit a friend with the Panasonic E30 DVD-R / -RW recorder today for some testing on playback

I took with me my cheapo Wharfdale DVD player, to see if we could get different makes of disc (with different dyes) to play.

Earlier this week he sent me a test recording on some cheapo make (cost 40 pence!) that my Wharfdale refused to play, it would just spin and spin.

He bought various makes of blanks, from more cheapo ones (Princo, Datasafe) to more expensive ones by Traxdata, Pioneer.

None would play in my Wharfdale player

The test recordings he made we of the following:

1) Several TV shows recorded in SP and LP on a DATASAFE disc
2) Copy of Panic Room DVD – done through composite video in SP mode – DATASAFE media.
3) Copy from PAL LD of Kate Bush “Cloudbursting” music video in XP mode on a brand of disc I cannot identify. Just has the letters “FWS” and a circuit logo on the cover.
4) Copy of PAL Star Wars – Special Edition LD – SP mode on PRINCO media.
5) Copy of a PAL music video laser disc – XP mode – E-PROFORMANCE media.

My friend has 3 DVD players in the house, a cheapo Dansai from Tesco, a more expensive, but by their standards, cheaper Pioneer player and a Panasonic A100.

All players played all the discs fine and dandy (just my pigging Wharfdale!!) but both the Panny and the Dansai showed the same problem on the film recordings.

After about 85 mins, the picture would freeze up and the player would lock on the Star Wars and Panic Room recordings. It appears that single recordings of about that length cause a problem on some players, anyone know why???

On the way home I called at at friends house, he has the ultra cheap Naiko player and that played them all without a problem, his PS2 would play them all but at the same place on the 2 films, would say it could not read the disc.

Your thoughts people?