I tried running a Google search at MFIF archives with no real results and decided that asking here would be faster.

I'm using Toast Titanium 8.0.5. My neighbor has a DVD-ROM (music tracks) of his 1959 high school class reunion and he wanted me to copy it. Toast reported read errors on the DVD-ROM and recommended using Toast's Disc Recovery option. I tried that and the blank DVD burned partially until I got an error message saying:

The drive reported an error:
Sense Key = MEDIUM ERROR
Sense Code = 0x0C
WRITE ERROR

The blank DVD was a Phillips DVD-R 1-8X that have had for some time and not necessarily stored under the best conditions. I had tried other blanks from the same spool previously and got write errors. In fact, the last attempt gave me problems in ejecting the blank and I had to restart with the mouse down in order to eject it.

I'm assuming that these error messages can be believed in that the DVD-ROM has issues and the blanks are bad. I'm willing to try this again with Disc Recovery and a different brand but I have forgotten which brand of DVD-R is generally recommended. I have never burned DVDs before, only CDs and never had a problem with CDs.

Any thoughts?

I have had good luck with Sony dvds.

have you tried burning it at the slowest speed?

I set it at 8X but have not tried 1X because it would be so slow. Considering the age of the Phillips DVDs, I think that I'll use a different brand first and will buy Sonys

I personally prefer verbatim, I've been using them for years and have always had good luck with macs. Verbatim are more expensive, but they are also available under the generic labels of "AT&T" and "Bonus". Their single layer disks have a thicker layer on them.

Also, I get the printable labels. They also add a bit to the cost, but those labels are not only extremely thick, but they're flat white (no logo or anything) and have a very matte finish that accepts marker REALLY well, unlike a lot of the shiny top labels on most blanks.

I use fine tip sharpies to write on my labels. Never use pencil.

Thanks, V1. I'll be heading over to Office Depot and see if they have Verbatim (and Sony, of course).

I second Virtual1 re Verbatim. As to marking disks, see Reading/burning with a label already on..

Thanks, alternaut. I have pre-printed labels (Avery) for the disks that I will (hopefully) burn successfully but perhaps I'll mark them in other ways and let my neighbor add a paper label if he likes.

I too prefer Verbatim brand media.

The suggestion of burning at 1X speed is a good one. Not only may it ensure a complete write, but also provide better reads on later equipment. I burn all my "critical" data at 1X.

When Al Bloom, in my opinion one of the foremost authorities on blank discs, wrote on the MFI Forums, he praised two brands:

1. "Improved Standard White-Top General DVDR 4.7 GB, spindles", Product no. 702866. This is the web site.
2. Taiyo Yuden Blank DVD-R, available from CyberGuys.

I have used the latter extensively and they burn flawlessly. I also get the printable surface and the results are excellent on an Epson disc-printable printer.

Thanks, Ira. When I Googled recommendations about DVD-R, the Taiyo Yuden name was mentioned. It's good to see an endorsement by an FTM poster.

Ira L,
I really miss his expertise. I wish I could ask him to help FineTunedMac create some FAQ topics on audio and video questions.

In case you have not seen or might be willing to participate as a topic suggester, writer, or reader:

The Mac FAQ Discussion forum Read Me

Mac FAQ Suggested Topics

You'll find some discussion of media here and on the next page of the same thread; I think tacit once touted both Taiyo Yuden and Verbatim media, mentioning, as does Charlessoft, that Fujis marked "Made In Japan" are TYs.

I've had success with HP CDs and DVDs, but I opted for Verbatim Dual Layer DVDs when I burned backups of my install discs. (Edit: 4 good burns out of 5; the 5th verified but returned an I/O error nonetheless.)

The Sony CDs my daughter gave me awhile back all failed with burn errors...never tried them again despite the good reviews they draw.

(I was unable to find Al's "Improved Standard White-Top General DVDR 4.7 GB, spindles", Product no. 702866 on your linked web site.)

I've always found it helpful when burning DVDs with Toast to save it to a disc image first, and then burn from the image. Toast can't always handle the conversion/authoring process at the same time as burning.

I also have been happy with Verbatim DVDs, both dual and single layer. Before switching to Verbatim, I was getting up to an 80% failure rate with other brands (Maxell, TDK, Sony, Fuji, Imation). I haven't had a singled failed burn with Verbatim discs.

Thanks for the tip about saving to a disk image. I'm not sure if this applies in my situation because I will be copying a music DVD, not files that I already have. Still, I'll try it if burning with Toast (using a Verbatim disk) causes problems. I haven't had a chance to buy any DVD-Rs yet so I'll post back after I make the attempt.

I have had results similar to bob82xrp. Any time I have problems copying any disc I try copying to a .dmg first and from there to the target disc. It works 80% to 90% of the time. I have had good success using the same technique to burn usable discs from originals that were throwing read errors.

I tried everyone's suggestions. jmb's idea of copying the original to a .dmg didn't work because Disk Utility found too many errors. So, I used Toast Titanium 8's Disk Recovery feature and successfully burned a DVD with a Verbatim DVD-R.

One question: How do I play a music DVD with the Mac? I tried DVD Player 5.0.3 but got a message that it couldn't read the format. My neighbor has a Windows machine and was able to play it with that. Then, I tried playing it with iTunes 9.0 but that didn't work either. (BTW, iTunes can easily play music CDs.)

VLC will play DVD-A discs

Thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, it didn't work. VLC was unable to read the disk (and it didn't even appear on the desktop). I think that, despite the best efforts of Toast Titanium to recover data, it is so damaged that my system can't play it. I don't know why my neighbor can with his PC.

Actually, I tried VLC to play the DVD that I had burned. The original is now stuck in my JVC DVD player which, in turn, is stuck in an endless loop that says "Loading". I can't eject it, stop it, or turn it off. If I unplug the unit and plug it in again, it goes back to the endless loop without my having to turn it on. Naturally, there is no pinhole in which to insert a paper clip. I called tech support at Crutchfield (where I bought it) and, when they were unable to help, called JVC. JVC's only suggestion is to send it to them (it's out of warranty, of course) for repair.

I think that I'll take it to someplace local to have the original removed so that I can return it. If the unit doesn't work then, I'll replace it rather than throw money into a 5-year-old, obsolete machine.

It's difficult to figure out what is going on since you don't give much specific information. Nothing you have said would indicate that the disc you burned has corrupted data, only that your Mac does not have software that can play it.

What is the file and folder structure on the burned disc? What is the file and folder structure on the original disc? From your description it sounds like the original DVD was just a data disc with audio files of some type on it. It's also not clear whether you had Toast author a Music DVD disc or just had it copy the original disc. (As I understand it, Toast does not create a true DVD-A disc, it uses the video DVD specs and the resultant disc should play in any standard DVD player).

Regarding the original DVD that is stuck in your JVC player, have you tried holding down the eject button first, and then re-plugging the player, while continuing to hold the button? It worked for me once, though I can't recall what brand of player. Or, though it might not apply to your unit, googling brought up this VideoHelp thread from 2005 which talks about bad resistors in a run of 2004 JVC DVRs which caused the endless loading problem; it's probably too late to get the free repair, but you never know.

Edited to add: By the way, another couple of reasons to have Toast save to a disk image before burning is that you can preview the functionality of the disc before wasting any blanks, and, if something goes wrong with the burn you can burn from the image without having Toast go through the extraction/compression/authoring again (especially valuable if you want to make multiple copies of something that required lots of processing). A .dmg made in Disk Utility from the data on the original disc would not have any of this additional processing that Toast does.

Thanks, bob. Let me try to answer your questions. I have burned CDs but this is the first time that I tried burning DVDs so I'm not sure that I did it right.
The original disk had folders containing various songs. My neighbor, as a I said, successfully played it. I can't ask for more details because he's in Spain and won't be back until late Monday. VLC gives me the following error log:

macosx debug: notification received in VLC with name VLCOSXGUIInit and object VLCEyeTVSupport
main debug: adding item `dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4' ( [url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4][url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4][url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4]dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4[/url][/url][/url] )
main debug: rebuilding array of current - root Playlist
main debug: rebuild done - 1 items, index -1
main debug: processing request item [url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4][url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4][url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4]dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4[/url][/url][/url] node Playlist skip 0
main debug: resyncing on [url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4][url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4][url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4]dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4[/url][/url][/url]
main debug: [url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4][url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4][url=dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4]dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4[/url][/url][/url] is at 0
main debug: starting new item
main debug: creating new input thread
main debug: Creating an input for 'dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4'
main debug: thread (input) created at priority 22 (../../src/input/input.c:230)
main debug: thread started
main debug: using timeshift granularity of 50 MBytes
main debug: using timeshift path '/tmp'
main debug: `dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4' gives access `dvdnav' demux `' path `/dev/rdisk4'
main debug: creating demux: access='dvdnav' demux='' path='/dev/rdisk4'
main debug: looking for access_demux module: 1 candidate
macosx debug: input has changed, refreshing interface
main debug: no fetch required for (null) (art currently (null))
dvdnav warning: cannot open dvdnav
main warning: no access_demux module matching "dvdnav" could be loaded
main debug: TIMER module_need() : 3047.961 ms - Total 3047.961 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 3047.961 ms)
main debug: creating access 'dvdnav' path='/dev/rdisk4'
main debug: looking for access module: 0 candidates
main error: no access module matched "dvdnav"
main debug: TIMER module_need() : 0.270 ms - Total 0.270 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 0.270 ms)
main error: open of `dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4' failed: no access module matched "dvdnav"
main debug: thread ended
main debug: dead input
main debug: changing item without a request (current 0/1)
main debug: nothing to play
macosx debug: input has stopped, refreshing interface
main debug: TIMER input launching for 'dvdnav:///dev/rdisk4' : 3112.217 ms - Total 3112.217 ms / 1 intvls (Avg 3112.217 ms)

Toast copied the original disk. Yes, I tried that trick with the eject button and re-plugging the player but it was no go. JVC told me that my unit might qualify for the free repair but I would have to send it to them in order for this to be determined. They might charge a fee if it didn't qualify (around $55). Since I don't really like this unit, I'm not sure that I want to invest money to ship it and then possibly have to pay a fee. I'm thinking that I might prefer to have a tech retrieve the DVD (JVC told me that I would not be able to do this myself) and get a new DVD player. Besides, a new one would have HD capability and I could also opt for Blu-Ray.I'll remember that in the future. Actually, I had tried to get Toast to save to a disk image when I had tried this DVD a few weeks ago and it was unable to do it. Disk Utility couldn't do it either.

EDIT: ONE MORE THING

As I had said, the burned DVD did not appear on the desktop. Yet, Toast opened automatically. I had it set to do just that when a blank DVD was inserted. I turned off that option so that I could try VLC (Toast just kept relaunching whenever I quit it).

Just for kicks (a few minutes ago), I plugged in the unit, held the Eject key, and the problem DVD ejected within a few seconds. Within another minute, the unit exited the "loading" loop and reverted to normal. I was able to shut it off normally as well.

For kicks, I took the original DVD, tried playing it with VCL and got the same error message that I got with the copies that I burned (although the disk did appear on the desktop). When my neighbor returns from Spain, I'll ask him to try the copies and see if they work.

Hopefully, this is the end of the problem for me but time will tell.

Glad you got the original disc back. With no special technical skills or knowledge, I have taken apart numerous DVD players to retrieve discs, replace broken drive belts, etc, and JVC telling you you couldn't do it yourself doesn't have the ring of truth to me. Usually you can just take the cover off and push the drive tray out.

>>dvdnav warning: cannot open dvdnav<<
I'm no expert at reading error logs, but what you posted looks to me as if VLC can't access the library for calling up DVD navigation functions.

My guess is there's some problem with VLC (I had tried it a long time ago and found it to be very buggy and unreliable), you could try reinstalling it, but first let's try to find out what kind of disc/data you're dealing with (if you're still interested):

Since you say you can now see the disc on the desktop, can you look at it in the Finder and tell us what folders and files you see so we can try and determine the nature of the data on the disc?

There are 42 folders with various names such as: "16 Original Doo-Wop Classics", "1954-1955", "1956", "1956 - Still Rockin", and similar. Each folder has several files that appear to be songs from those eras. For example, "16 Original Doo-Wop Classics" contains Story Untold.wma, In the Still of the Night.wma, etc. It looks like all the files are .wma.

The disk was distributed to people at my neighbor's 50th high school reunion and was created August 12, 2009. My impression is that the creator made a collection of this music and wanted to give it to all the alumni as a nostalgic reminder of their high school days.

WMA files -- that explains it. This isn't a DVD-Audio disc, it's a data DVD containing Microsoft audio files. These should play in Quicktime if you install the free Flip4Mac player.

That's it! I never thought of using Quicktime and I already had Flip4Mac installed.

Thanks again!