Hey..

A friend has asked me for help retrieving footage he recorded on one of those mini disc - DVD camcorder. It's footage of a once in a life time holiday in California. He had his camera stolen but retained all the mini-dvd discs but they don't play or seem to have any files on them when I tried to view them on my PC. Is there any way of finding these lost files. I can see the disc have data on them with the naked eye but nothing is registering when I open it. Does it need formatting in some way?
thanx in advance guys.

They need to be finalized in the camera. You could try finding someone with a DVD camera of the same make and see if they play first before getting the camera to finalize the disc. IF they play I would copy out in analogue before doing anything!!!! I am not sure if they need to be finalized in the camera that made them? I know that before finalizing DVD+RW will play directly in a DVD player but will not show in a PC and DVD-RW is the exact opposite. DVD-R and DVD+R need to be finalized to play in anything other than the camera.
Ron Evans

thanks Roy. That was my first thought too. However, I found a way to retrieve the footage without a compatible camcorder. The piece of kit is called CDRoller...and it worked a treat. It even burns the files on to a disc for you to playback on your PC...simple as...I think my friend has a PC....?
thanks