Problems with Sony DVD Recorders and SONATA_VOLUME Discs

December 14, 2006 - 12:00am

maven asks:

Question

I recorded a tv show on a DVD recorder at my hi-fi system. It is beautiful there. It plays well there.

I took the CD to my Mac. It shows up as a read only folder called Sonata_volume, and there is nothing in the folder. Getting info on it shows that it is formatted UDF, with 4.3 GB used.

sony rdr-vx500 is the recorder. I finalized the disc. It plays just fine in my sony recorders and players. But not on the Mac.

I tried to see it with toast, but that did not work either. It just shows up as a locked folder named Sonata_volume

VLC sees the same SONATA_VOLUME, but again there is nothing in it, and it does not play.

I tried handbrake. One time it was able to see the video, and I tried to downlaod a small part it of it just to see if it worked. It did, but when I tried it the next time, it did not see the video.

How can I get this to play on my computer?

Answer

Well, when I just fucking Googled it I came across this post that explains the issue in good detail.

It would appear that the disc that Sony makes only sets the execute bit on the root of the filesystem, thus preventing Unixes that properly access the disc from … properly accessing the disc.

Go Sony.

The solution is to run the following command to open up the VIDEO_TS folder and muck around from there:

open /Volumes/SONATA_VOLUME/VIDEO_TS

The folder should open in the Finder. For any program that wants a VIDEO_TS folder, just drag the proxy icon at the top of the window over to the program’s open dialog box and it should find it now.

Imagine the hell you’d go through if the execute bit wasn’t even set. Boy, howdy.

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December 14, 2006 - 11:02am

grovberg said

We have those recorders in some of our classrooms and went through the same problem. If you tell the recorder not to record in VRO mode (it’s an option buried in the setup menus), you’ll create standardized discs that play fine in a Mac. The only disadvantage (I think) is that you can’t time shift while you record when you use this method, but otherwise it works just fine both Macs and regular set top DVD players.

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