I have got a Panasonic HD/DVD recorder model DMREH50. I recently recorded a TV program onto the hard drive and copied it to DVD to allow my relatives to watch it on there dvd player. When it finished copying, I tried the disc in my other multiregion player and it did ot like the disk, also my computer will see the files but not play them. Is there a special format/coding or something to enable playback on a different dvd player? File size is around 3Gb - 1½ hours.

You have discovered the non-standard dvd format problem. Most of the DVR/DVD recorders that record broadcast content do so in non compatible formats. The don't work in standalone DVD players and in computers that have DVD players. The only way to record it for another player is to play it back with the original recorder and use the computer to rerecord the signal in a compatible format.

Thanks for your quick reply. Never easy is it? What would you recommended format wise to convert it too and what software? (I obviously have the standard windows media player, real player, quicktime, dv player as they are free) Always more questions than answers it seems!

At this point in time, about the only thing you can do is convert to standard mpeg2 (720x480) in order to put it on disk. They are still trying to figure out the best media type and such to use for HD. Standard dvd's are too slow and too small for the amount of info required in HD. Doing anything in HD at this point is kind of useless... They are so far ahead of the HD ballgame in one respect and so far behind in another.

I should also add that it's kind of funny that they "forget" to tell you any of this when you go buy an HD TV, or an HD camera...

That is ok... Blue Ray is on its way!! Up to 57 gigs on one disk.. that frickin' insane!!