I purchased a Sony RDR-GX315 a few months ago and have been having some disk compatibility problems. Here are some highlights:
-Most of the TDK DVD+RW disks I have will not work at all. The unit gives an error message like: "This disk can neither be read or written to."
-I've had uneven results with a spindle of 100 Memorex 16X DVD-R I bought. I always check them after finalizing in my old, old Toshiba DVD player to see if they'll play in other decks. I loan these to friends who say that sometimes they play and sometimes not. These always play in the Sony RDR-GX315, but sometimes I can't even read the created disk in my brand new Pioneer DVD burner, which is supposed to read all types of DVD formats. So the disks or the player seem to be 'flaky.'
-I've tried some DL disks -- whatever Sony says will work. I think they are DVD+R DL One time it worked fine, another time I ended up with a coaster. I think the unit display read "Disk Error" when I tried to finalize it. A large investment in recording time and disk expense.
-I record mainly from a cable box -- a Scientific Atlanta DVR. The quality appears to be good coming in, but the DVD recordings themselves seem to 'pulsate' between clear and blurry. I know this isn't a disk compatibility issue, but I thought I'd mention it anyway.
-Sometimes, I record two titles on one disk -- one is okay and the other is unreadable.
-I notice when I use DVD+R disks, the finalizing takes forever, like 10 minutes or so! Is this normal? My DVD-R disks take less than a minute to finalize.
What I would really like to know if anyone else has similar problems and if so, if they have found a brand of disks that give a reliable result every time? I've heard Verbatim are good, but haven't tried them. Any others?
Thanks in advance for any help this forum can provide.
16x discs are unreliable in standalones. Use 4x or 8x. 4x are pretty hard to find these days, but last I knew Supermediastore, Shop4Tech and Meritline had Taiyo Yuden DVD-R, the best discs made, in 4x. They don't come on spindles though. Prodisc makes good discs, the DVD-Rs anyway. I don't do + discs, never have. With RW, they may need to be version 1 2x and not version 2 4x.
BURNED
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THE MAIN ISSUE IS YOU CANNOT COPY ANY HBO ETC. BECAUSE MACROVISION BLOCKS VIDEO TRANSMISSION.THIS MAKES IT USELESS AS A RECORDER.I BOUGHT ONE AND USE RITECK DVD'S NO PROBLEM..IF YOU WANT TO COPY THE NEWS NETWORKS..
I have a RDR-GX300 also, and I face similar problems playing DVDs burned with my PC DVD burner. DVDs -R burned in my PC doesn't play in RDR-GX300. It gives a message "READ DISC ERROR". If I burn DVD+R 4X (Philips use to have preatty good ones) with my PC, then it works just fine. As for burning DVDs straight from RDR-GX300, the DVD -R doesn't work at all!! It works only with DVD +R. DVD -RW doesn't works also, only DVD +RW 4X. I have a set of DVD+RW 8X that doesn't work also.
I'm very disappointed with Sony, because they claim to have a "Play/Record everything".
Also, I have another huge problem. I bought it in EUA (areacode 1), and brought it to Brazil (areacode 4). But I can't unlock it to play all areacodes (or at least arecode 4). Can anybody help me? Thanks!
Use better quality discs. I've used a variety of recorders and haven't found one yet that won't work with Taiyo Yuden or Prodisc 8x discs. I stay away from anything that says Sony on it though, overpriced and unreliable.