text: does anyone know how to finalise copies of a home-recorded, so it will play on other people's dvd players? a friend used her camcorder to film some sports training sessions. we transferred the camcorder footage on to a dvd-r blank disc, by using my panasonic dvd recorder. the resulting dvd plays back fine in that recorder. then i used my computer to make copies of this dvd, but they won't work on other people's dvd players. the reason for this is that when i created the original dvd on the recorder, i forgot to finalise it - and unfinalised dvd discs will only play on the machine on which they were recorded. and the copies made on my computer will not finalise in my dvd recorder. the worse news is that i have lost the original, first-generation recording i did on the standalone recorder - otherwise i could just finalise it and then make computerised copies that other people could play in their machines. i realise this is an awful mess to get myself into, but i would be overjoyed if anyone could suggest possible ways of overcoming this problem. i think you will find the problem could potentially be the type of disc that you used.  there are two camps of manufacturer in the dvd world - the +version and the -version (such as panasonic) which means a dvd-r will not play back in a +manufacturer's machine as they are incompatible.  although this is being improved it is something that a lot of people are unaware of.  i am sure you can play your dvd-r recording in another -r machine but obviously this doesn't really help. i would suggest you upload the footage to your computer and then save that file on a usb stick.  then take that file to a +recordable computer and re-burn the disc.  this should then work...hopefully.