DVDs Will Not Play - Sometimes1

[Utchat]

I have been buying the newly released volumes of Dark Shadows. (No comments here I love'em!) They come 4 dvds to a set. I  now have 4 sets. There is always one in each box that will not play. It is stated that the dvd is unreadable and wants to initialize it. The others are fine and play well. These non playing dvds will play in my standard Sony DVD player.

I am playing these on a G3 powerbook with an it's original player. OS9. Other dvds play A-OK. I don't think there is anything I can do to make them play, I am just courious.
'Thanks

[kelly]

LLH. Hello. Welcome to the Forum.  

Yeah. I've heard that that happens. Don't play any myself.

Maybe.

"Many features of the DVD-Video disc, including the ability to play the movie, are available when using the Apple DVD Player application. Only features that require additional software to be installed are not available. For the most part, those features are likely to have software written for a Windows environment. It is possible the movie was not mastered in the standard format for DVD-Video (UDF). You may have to access the disc as an ISO 9660 disc. If you insert the DVD-Video disc and it doesn't contain any files, then it was not mastered in the standard format for DVD-Video discs.

1. Eject the DVD-Video disc.
2. Access the disc as an ISO 9660 disc by pressing the Command-Option-i keys simultaneously while inserting the disc. It may take a few minutes for the disc to be available on the desktop."

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=58383

[Utchat]

Thanks for the feedback Kelly. This is really a wonderful site. I tried the command option i with these troublesome dvds and it did not work, same message. So odd that 3 out of 4 dvds in the pack play and one doesn't . If anyone else care to chime in please feel free.
Thanks again.
LLH