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If the tray has the DVD symbol on it then at lest you know you have a DVD player already 

Home recorded DVD's can sometimes have problems if you try playing them back on a different machine, but the copyright message on the commercial disc might indicate a different problem.

DVD's can be made with different 'region' settings to prevent people buying cheap discs from a different country - the message you are getting might be because your PC DVD player is set to a different region.  If it is, then it is possible the same thing is preventing you from viewing the cine film discs.

If you go to Device Manager and click on the '+' next to DVD/CD-Rom drives the name of your DVD player should appear in the list.  If you then double click on that it will bring up the 'Properties' window and one of the tabs along the top should be called 'DVD Region'.  Click on that tab and you will see text explaining region settings as well as a box near the bottom telling you what region is currently selected.  If that setting doesn't match the one on the commercial disc then that might be the problem, although multi-region settings are possible with some equipment and discs.

Before changing the region setting it is important to note the 'Caution' - the number of times you can change the setting is limited (to stop people bypassing the system) and once the limit has been reached it is no longer possible to make any changes - which could mean you get stuck with a setting that doesn't work.

You didn't mention what equipment your son originally used to convert the VHS to DVD - was it on the same Samsung player/recorder you are currently able to view the discs on? Or was it on a PC or different machine?

Hi Spring,

First of all, don't be put off but the technical details, playing around and editing video can be great fun and is well worth the effort to set things up to do it.

However, before deciding what type of DVD player to get, the first thing to think about is whether your PC is powerful enough to be able to handle video files - if it came with a CD drive rather than DVD there is a possibility not.  Even just viewing a video off DVD involves the computer handling a very large amount of data, and if it is not powerful enough all you see is a very slow series of still pictures and occasional bursts of sound... which is very frustrating.

That said, I have edited video on a very old computer so it isn't necessarily impossible 

It would probably help people to advise you if you could give us some more information about your PC, if you don't know what processor and memory it has, the make and model might be enough.

Good luck,

Nick

Many thanks Genealiza.  I'm fairly sure A******y didn't have the Series and Roll numbers, but will check again tomorrow, I might have been looking in the wrong place - I was looking on the transcription page where the PRO reference would be for the UK census.

The main reason I was asking is that I use the PRO reference as the file name when I download and save an image - as you say, finding things again is the important bit, especially when it comes to wading through loads of computer files   

If I've understood correctly, a page could be uniquely identified by just the Series Number + Roll Number + Page with the Roll Number being roughly equivalent to the Piece Number used by the PRO?

Is there a list anywhere giving each year's Series Number?

I'm not sure if there is a more local paper to Lowestoft, but the East Anglian Daily Times covers most of Suffolk.  I think the Suffolk Record Office have microfilm copies, but I can't remember what time periods they cover.

Have you contacted the Lowestoft branch of the record office?  They'd be able to give you an idea of what to look for, and where it might be held.

Nick

btw... you'll probably get more responses if this thread was on the 'Requests' board rather than 'Offers' 

Hello Stormybay,

It might be worth contacting David Kindred - www.kindred-spirit.co.uk - who has an interest in old photographs and photographers in the Ipswich area.  If anyone can point you in the right direction I'd guess it would be him.

It would also be worth contacting the Ipswich museum service to see what records they might hold - if the CADE's were portrait photographers then there's a chance they took photographs of important people or events in the town which may have survived in the archives.

Hope you enjoy your visit!

Nick