dvd plays on some, not others

[stef24]

a friend made me a DVD from material recorded with a handycam. disc was created in final cut pro on a macintosh

now, the dvd plays on some standalone's and not others. it plays on some computer dvd players and not others.

my current laptop in unable to access the disk via windows explorer, dvd decrypter and nero with its many info tools. they all come up with a blank screen at best, no (formatted) disc in the drive etc.

just because i want to understand, id like to ask what can cause this?

my friend has a business selling people such dvd's recorded during the scuba dives at his shop. they should work, but they dont. we are both puzzled.

thanks for any advise ...

(im very familiar with backing up dvd's, creating vcd, so feel free to get technical)

[jggimi]

Aside from a simple hysical limitation -- such as attempting to read a DVD+R in a drive that only supports DVD-R, or vice versa -- there may be media manufacture incompatibilities as well.

www.videohelp.com has three databases that may be helpful. You can look up the capabilities of the physical media, the device that burned it, and your various players:

http://www.videohelp.com/dvdmedia
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdwriters
http://www.videohelp.com/dvdplayers