The answer to your question is potentially really complex. But the
first question I'd ask you is, if you take a commercial DVD (a movie DVD
that you bought in a store), does it play ok in the A105? If so, then
the A105 is probably working ok.
As to why what you are doing doesn't work, again, the answer is
surprisingly complex. But when you make a DVD from analog video, you
are pretty much putting the content into a format that isn't intended
for further editing, and that will have to be "extracted" if you want to
work with it. A further complication is that the format created on many
DVD burners (by which I mean set-top DVD burners) is VERY different from
a video DVD of the type that you buy. Some DVD burners offer you a
choice of formats, some don't, and some make the choice automatically
depending on what type of media you use (and typically the format is
totally different for DVDs burned on "+" media vs. those burned on "-"
media). In fact, you might find that changing from + to - media when
creating the DVD in the set-top DVD burner might resolve your issue.
MAYBE, but NOT because the A105 can only read + or - media, but rather
because the set-top burner is creating two completely different disc
formats depending on the media type (again, MAYBE .... and, again, this
subject, dealt with in depth, is staggeringly complex).
The best way to create DVDs from video tapes is to capture the tapes as
uncompressed AVI files on a PC (not a laptop, for a number of reasons),
edit them with one of the major video editing programs (such as Pinnacle
Studio), and then burn a DVD on the desktop. However, this requires
time, expertise and a lot of processor performance and, especially, disk
space (uncompressed AVI is more than 10GB per hour). Set-top DVD
burners are a compromise that works for some people in some situations
with some other components. But not for everyone in all cases. And if
you want to do any subsequent editing, you are probably better off
keeping everything in an uncompressed AVI format rather than as
compressed MPEG2 files (as they would be on any form of video DVD). But
a laptop usually doesn't have the disk space or processor performance to
deal with this type of video editing.
wrote:
> Last week I just bought a Toshiba A105-S4284 with xp media center 2002
> pre-installed and what I am trying to do is watch/edit/make dvd's of
> the home movies I dubbed on my Magnavox dvd recorder/vcr mwr 20v6 (from
> vcr to dvd-r) on this laptop, but media center says it cannot detect a
> video dvd in the dvd rom drive when the dvd is in the drive properly?
> The dvd works fine when I play it on my tv.The movies were originally
> recorded on an RCA CC6364 400X Digital Zoom AutoShot Camcorder and i
> put the little square video tape into a vcr converter and dubbed them
> onto dvd-r blank disc. Am I using the wrong media to try to do this?
> What kind of blank dvd's do I need to dub my movies onto to be able to
> use xp media center 2002 to make these cool? I have about 20 of the
> little tapes to dub to try to edit in to a few dvd's. thanks
> Bill
>