Cannot play old DVDs

adropofred

Hope that some kind folks might be able to help.

Years ago I copied my old VHS tapes to DVDs using a VHS tape recorder and a DVD recorder. The DVDs are marked DVD+RW. Now I try to play these DVDs on my laptop and nothing happens . I downloaded VLC media player but getting the following error when I tried to play -

Your input can't be opened:

VLC is unable to open the MRL 'dvd:///D:/Drivers'. Check the log for details.

How can I get these DVDs to play on my laptop?

What is the best format to update these DVDs to and future proof them?

Many thanks,

Atlantic Dawn

Were they just the individual video files (.mp4, .mkv, .avi, .ts etc?) you copied to the DVD or did you use DVD creation software to create a proper DVD with menus etc based on each video file?

Deagol

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058217047/cannot-play-old-dvds

Can you play any DVD's in the same drive? Possible the drive is faulty not the discs?

adropofred

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118138140#Comment_118138140

I didn't use any DVD software. It was probably 12-15 years ago but I think I played the VHS video and pressed record on a DVD recorder. I know I played them back on the recorder and all looked fine. They've been gathering dust since then

Atlantic Dawn

Do you know if the DVD drive on the laptop is just a reader or does it support writing to DVD too? There should be lettering on the face of the DVD tray to say DVDRW DVD/RW or similar. Some basic drives may only read original or finalised DVD's, the RW may be a problem.

Try right click on the drive and select "Open In New Window" and see what gets displayed, if it can read the disc I'd expect to see the files listed.

Hotblack Desiato

Recordable CDs and DVDs are nothing like as durable as pressed (commercially produced, shiny metal) CDs or DVDs, they often become unreadable after a few years. That said, I recently discovered one of my film DVDs (a commercial, pressed DVD about 16 or 18 years old) was totally unplayable due to disc rot and it had been carefully stored all of that time, so that happens too.

For long term storage you really need to copy the files onto a hard disk (the spinning, magnetic kind) not a memory card or SSD - as the tiny electrical charges on these can leak away after a number of years.

All may not be lost OP and there is a lot of variation between DVD players in how well they cope with recorded DVDs, try a few if you can including computer DVD drives.

L1011

A "Drivers" folder on a disk doesn't suggest that it is a DVD format disc; but that could be a red herring. I would not expect a burnt DVD that old to work at all.

What do you see on the disc if you navigate to it in Explorer?

adropofred

I think I got to the bottom of this.

Looking at the disk from File explorer I see a Drivers folder with a number of folders underneath. I ran a Setup.exe Drivers/AVDVGA folder and this updated some drivers. This took about 15 minutes but then Power DVD started up after I re-inserted the DVD and I could see the old videos.

Now the challenge is to transfer the home videos to a more versalite format and future proof them. If anyone has any pointers to go about this I would appreciate it.?

Deagol

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118139016#Comment_118139016

I'd go with converting them to mp4 files that should be viewable by most machines. And a USB stick would be my choice. So cheap now for large sizes, buy several so you have copies.

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118139016#Comment_118139016

VLC Media Player can also be used to convert video files from one format to another. MP4 as mentioned is probably the most universal to go with. A lot of files are also now converted to MKV but this is not as universally playable on devices.

adropofred

Thanks for all the help everyone , it's been very useful. They are playing in VLC so now I'll try to convert these dvds to MP4.

riclad

You can copy them to USB drives and maybe upload the files to a free mega folder online storage , Mp4 is the best format to use as it can be played on almost any pc or tablet in vlc player. Dvd discs will at some point stop working as the top layer wears away even if stored in a dry place. 

zg3409

I would also stick them in some free online cloud websites like Dropbox so you don't lose them. If you stick with one of the big cloud providers like Google etc then it's unlikely they will go bust. You could even upload to YouTube for free and mark them as unlisted and share them with friends. Having a mix of online and real world is handy. I have a big box of video tapes and a vcr, assuming it still works.