DVD copy of VHS tape won't play on iMac

I had several old VHS tapes (family movies and such) that I wanted copied to DVD to show at my daughters wedding, so I took them to a local camera shop that does this work and they did a fantastic job of extracting the data to DVD.

I get home an pop it into my iMac and it won't play. So ****** off I put it in my HT Blu-Ray Player and if plays back flawlessly.

Did they do something wrong when they made the copy for me? Should I go back and complain?

Did they use normal DVD's to make the copies? You say they play in the BL player, They are not BL disks are they? I have never had that issue with any readable DVD here on my iMac.

Do they have any info on the front of the DVD like what brand and type they are?

They probably made the copies on Blue Ray disks which will not play in your iMac. You might want to go back and ask them to master them again but this time on ordinary DVDs. Keep the Blue Rays disks, however.

No they look like plain old DVD, I just tried to play it in my HT which has a BR player. It also plays in a portable DVD player but not on the iMac.


Tom

Does the Mac recognize the disk? Also what programs have you tried? Have you tried VLC - that seems to play everything. Since it plays in a regular DVD player it shouldn't be a Blu-Ray disk.
VideoLAN - Official page for VLC media player, the Open Source video framework!

IvanLasston said:

Does the Mac recognize the disk? Also what programs have you tried? Have you tried VLC - that seems to play everything. Since it plays in a regular DVD player it shouldn't be a Blu-Ray disk.
VideoLAN - Official page for VLC media player, the Open Source video framework!

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My iMAC is factory stock, I thought I was done with needing third party apps to make things work. Guess I can get VLC from the App Store and will try that.

Thanks

Tom

TomServo said:

My iMAC is factory stock, I thought I was done with needing third party apps to make things work. Guess I can get VLC from the App Store and will try that.

Thanks

Tom

Click to expand...

What does OSX do when you insert that DVD?

If you were using a stock(store bought) DVD then my guess your Mac would work. VLC will pretty much play any format out there - and there are plenty of 3rd party video formats - so if you want to watch videos from any source - you will never be done with 3rd party software.

I don't believe VLC is available from the App Store. It is open source - which tends to not work with the App Store Licensing. (Someone tried to put it onto iOS and it got pulled by the VLC folks request)
VLC for iOS removed from the App Store (updated) | 9to5Mac
VLC is available at the link I provided.

dtravis7 said:

What does OSX do when you insert that DVD?

Click to expand...

I'm away on a family outing and when I return on Thurs I'll post up a screen shot of the error message.