I burnt a Windows Media Audio/Video file onto a DVD-RW disc but when I tried playing it on our Sony NS-305 DVD player it doesn't work. The message that comes up on the player is 'Cannot Play Disc'.

Why is this happening? Is the file type wrong? These are the formats our player is meant to be able to play: MP3 CD-R/RW DVD-R/RW VCD. Yet this DVD-RW doesn't work.

Just see if it works on another player before looking further, a fairly recent model preferably.

The problem is probably with the type of video you are trying to play rather than the media that it is stored on.

DVD Players are usually very limited on the types of movie formats that they can play.

Cheers

Craig

Three things I wondered if it might be to do with:

1. The Sony player doesn't cater for the format of the recorded disk. There are two formats. +r and -r. Some older players aren't compatible with both media. Trying he disk on another player would put that to the test.

2. We copy our camcorder videos to DVD using a standalone DVD recorder (under the TV). These won't play on our portable DVD player unless the DVD has been 'finalized' by the recorder. Perhaps it's something to do with that.

3. Maybe the Sony won't play copies of anything (copyright protection).

I'm not very well up on recording to DVDs using the computer, other than just backing up computer data.

I'll see if I can find a different player to test the DVD. In the meanwhile, if the file format is wrong, is it possible to convert the Windows Media Audio/Video file to a suitable format the DVD player can play? What file format would be the best and how would I go about converting it?

This site has a lot of information about conversions of various multimedia formats. It may not be suitable for the novice unless a fair bit of reading is done first

http://www.doom9.org/

I did a search and found this site that has a media file conversion tool

http://www.cdhnow.com/index.html

It is not free but you can download a demo to see if it works

Cheers

Craig