DVDs for use on TV

I wanted to create 2 DVDs with JPG photos to send to a pal of advanced years, who does not have access to his own computer.
He can access a DVD player and TV.

I burnt the 2 DVDs using mid 2012 MacBookPro on Finder.
Checked they both worked OK on a G4 iBook.

I then tried to check them on a Panasonic DVD Recorder DMR-EX78EB but it rejected both disks as"'cannot be used on this item" type of error message.

Looking at internet there are entries which claim format of DVDs for TV and for Data are different.

Have I been attempting the impossible?

In reply to a post by DIOGENES:

Looking at internet there are entries which claim format of DVDs for TV and for Data are different.

They are different. You need to check what format your DVD player supports. On-line manual here. You should try creating the disk in DVD-RAM format. Always record the disks at low speed. It's no good recording at 16x normal speed if the player only supports 4x reading. If recording for playback on an unknown device, record at 1x normal speed. Always select maximum-compatibility mode if available. CDBurnerXP is an excellent bit of software and it is free. I always use it to record CDs and DVDs.

Edit: Oops! CDBurnerXP is Windows only. Sorry.

Edited by micksharpe (Mon 22-Jun-15 18:04:24)

Ideally you need Apple's ancient iDVD programme, it is on the iLife 09 install disc, custom install, alternatively it is also on the discs that used to come with iMacs, again use custom install to find it. Updates can then be obtained from Apple which work on Yosemite.

If you can't get hold of iDVD Toast will do it, but obviously that costs.

This? http://apple-idvd.en.softonic.com/mac

I did look at that but it appears to be only the 7.1.2 update. That's if you can get rid of the advert!

Think you could use iMovie to create a jpeg slideshow and burn the resulting DVD movie to disc. Because it is a DVD player you need a movie disc rather than a data disc.

Burn speed should make no difference. The data on the disc is the same no matter what speed the recorder burns it at. Slowing the burn speed can reduce errors but makes no difference to the playback on other devices.

In reply to a post by ian72:

Burn speed should make no difference.

It shouldn't, but in my experience it can and sometimes does, especially if the playback is on old devices. I have burned hundreds of audio CDs for distribution and for those returned as unreadable, burning another at a lower speed has always resolved the issue. I have experienced the same problem when transferring data between my own machines.

In reply to a post by micksharpe:

in my experience it can and sometimes does

Absolutely agree. Before I retired, one of my jobs was CD&DVD authoring and duplication and most months I got through 1000-1500 discs. Coaster creation can be minimized by burning at half the speed that the device is capable of or less and secondly by using good quality media (although even with the best you can get a spate of bad ones).

It is the quality of the burn that changes with the speed. Drives running at the edge don't burn as deeply and so may not work in drives that are more sensitive than that.

Slowing down the burn speed can often improve this and is essentially reducing the scope for errors as I said in my response. But it isn't directly related to the speed of the device reading it just on how tolerant the device is to less deep burns.