I have a Panny eh75 and a Panny EH55. I recorded a couple of episodes of House on a DVD-RW, intending to watch them later (the HDD was full at the time). I did not finalize. I went back to them and neither Panny would read them, saying the disc was unformatted. :confused: I had checked the disc between recordings and had appropriate thumbnails but not now. I'd like to see the shows, but they are essentially unimportant. Now I just want to know why the machines are reading the disc as unformatted. Thanks!

PatH

A disc write error can happen any time you are updating your DVD-RW. If it corrupts the index, the recorder will no longer read it. You may still be able to see the disc contents on your PC using a program like ISOBuster.

PatH,
In the future, if you want to do this sort of recording, use a RAM disk. Very robust recording media with built-in error correction. You won't lose your recordings and there is no finalizing. The Panasonic units work best with RAM -- it seems they were designed for them.

The standard caveat applies that you can only play the RAM disk on the Panasonic recorder or a RAM compatible player (usually only Panasonic players). But since you have HDD units, a RAM disk's content can always be high-speed dubbed back to the HDD without loss and then burned on more standard DVD-R/W media for distribution to standard players.

Ditto here. Although I haven't had the formatting trouble that you've had with DVD-RW, I find that DVD-RAM discs work much better for timeshifting, especially if you plan to watch them later on one of your Pannys. They are more expensive (I recommend ordering them directly from Panasonic), but they are durable for multiple use. Think of them as extending your hard drive.

Its probably just a bad disc. What is the brand/media ID on the disc?
See www.nomorecoasters.com for information on good/bad discs.

A disc write error can happen any time you are updating your DVD-RW. If it corrupts the index, the recorder will no longer read it. You may still be able to see the disc contents on your PC using a program like ISOBuster.

Looking at their page -- I can't tell. Do they actually support UN-finalize media?

Also, do they even search for MPEG-2 files? If they can do a "surface scan" (i.e. unknown filesystem), then maybe this would help with my hosed XS32 image?