Are there any DVD players that can play data discs?

How to recover data from a DVD+R?

• I have a couple of old sporting events burned to a DVD+R. My DVD players and computers no longer recognize any data on them. Is there a way I can view what I recorded, or recover the data? Back in the late 80s and early 90s, I recorded a bunch of college sports events on VHS. Later, I copied those events to DVD+Rs using a Sony DVD/VHS converter. I don't know why I used DVD+Rs, but that's what I had at the time. Recently I tried to watch one of the discs again and my new Blu-Ray player indicated there was "no disc." My iMac reads it as empty. A physical look shows that there was something burned onto it (dark area, not as shiny as the rest of the disc), and I have watched the event at one point or another. Unfortunately, I can't recall if I used the same machine that recorded it or not. Half of the discs play as normal and I can watch them both in my Blu-Ray player and on my iMac. The other half of the collection apparently contain nothing. Is there any way to recover the data on those discs?

• Answer:

  You may have mastered some of the discs differently back when you originally burned them. And then there were subtle differences between DVR-R and DVD+R. What you might have to do is ask some friends to see if you can view the files on their computers and see if they work there. I suspect the data is there, but among finicky players, your set-top player and iMac are going to be on top of the list so if there was one bit off in the mastering process they'll give up. If your "old sporting events" are of a more private nature (I kid, but you might condsider this before you go bother all your friends finding 99% of them can't read the discs either), you may want to go out and buy an external USB DVD to be able to read these discs (hold on to the receipt so you can return it if it doesn't work...you could keep trying all the brands until you get to success or eventually give up). I'm not talking about a fancy thing, something in the $30-40 range that can read these discs allowing you to rip them to your Mac and then re-burn them to another DVD-R or whatever the kids are using these days. You should also keep the ripped and mpeg4 versions of the footage because you may have to do this again when new standards come up. You'll definitely want to even rip the discs that work well on your current setup. Your next disc player on your TV or computer may not be as willing.