Written Data

I was over at a friend's house, and he wanted to show me a DVD that someone had made for him. Unfortunately, he couldn't find the copy that he wanted, so he pulled out another DVD with the same label and stuck it in his player.

Nothing happened.

He then put it in two of his computers and it didn't work on either of them. Frustrated, he looked up at me and asked, "So, what's the issue, Techie?"

Mustering all my technical knowledge, I applied myself to the issue. I flipped the DVD over, looking for the tell-tale marks of a burned disk.


A CD with Data

I didn't see the line where the data had been burned.

I told him I was pretty sure that the technical reason why the DVD wasn't playing was because it was blank. After a few moments he agreed with my assessment.

Keep in mind that you can't really see the data lines on a replicated disk, so this trick doesn't always work. But for home-burned disks, it can be a helpful little trick.

~Luke Holzmann
Your Media Production Mentor