Samsung DVD Camcorder problem - please help!

[Rach2008]

I have a VP-DC161 camcorder and have recorded 30 mins of footage on to a DVD-R. When I try to finalise it, it just says 'disc error' - as it's not finalised, the DVD-R won't play on anything but the camcorder.

I have asked Samsung, who just suggest charging the camcorder for 4 hours then trying again! This didn't work.

Is there any way I can retrieve the footage? When I tried connecting it to my laptop, the footage did not play on the laptop screen. Any advice would be great!

[romko]

Dvd-r is the most unreliable format in the history or media. the machines are extrely fussy about which blank media they work reliably with, and even which make. They suffer from all kinds of upgrade and firmware problems. the optical blocks die frequently and can be hard to source. for most techs, they are the bane our lives.

with optical media usually you lose the whole lot if something goes wrong. if you can't use the disc in a dvd pc drive and copy the contents that way, there's probbly not much you could do. Maybe find someone else with a dvd camcorder and see if it will finalise.... then invest in a good mini-dv unit!

[Rach2008]

Thanks for that information, at least now I know!