I have some TV recordings on DVD+RW made on my Bush DVD recorder. I was hoping to transfer them to my PC and extract the sound to convert into MP3's. However my PC DVD-rom drive doesn't like them.

The DVD-rom drive is a Samsung SD-616T. I have installed the latest update from Samsung but I still find that when I load in one of my DVD's it just ignores it completely. It plays pre-recorded DVD movies no bother.

Do I need some other new software, different DVD media or a new DVD-rom drive?

the prob. is probably the fact that CDR and CDRW uses different technology to write the disc. (yes, I know that I noted CD but the same general rule applies to DVD.)
put the movies back in the DVD+RW drive, copy to HD, then to a DVDR.
finally, check your write settings @ every write.

Some drives and players are confused by DVD-RW media's lower reflectivity into thinking it's a dual-layer disc. In other cases the drive or player doesn't recognize the disc format code and doesn't even try to read the disc.

mechbas...what is the difference in technology used to burn DVDR and DVDRW?

Did you check the +/- ?

dcc, U answered your own query "the disc format code and doesn't even try to read the disc." the older CD RW drives were the only drives that could read the RW disc that was written in it(or possibly another RW capable drive), this was sometimes so bad that it was OEM specific. don't think that they ever worked the bug out, not a very critical issue, apparently they didn't.
jbennet, I've used both DVD +/- and can descern very little difference between the two. opinions vary.

Oh ok, when i said +/- i wasnt talking about quality. Its just certain drives sometimes only like reading one or the other

What I was talking about is in the lead in, this has nothing to do with the burning.

dcc: if I follow correctly the lead in is only written to the disc AFTER the drive has determined that the disc is compatable. the only thing that the drive has to go by is the descriptor byte, which, if mem. serves is the the first byte on the FAT TABLE. if not compat., at the dos level the error returned is something like "no disc in drive", etc., quite confusing to most EUs that know darn well that there IS a disc in the drive.
thinking it's a dual-layer disc: well maybe I've a better understanding of your query but I see no reason to change the response at this time. thinking a dl disc: I've 3 of the dvd writers and have never come across that error. have only run into a few bad CDRs.
jbennet: I wasn't referring to the quality either but as to your point I full well understand that some do and some don't, further, some don't like some makes of discs either even tho they are suppose to be fully "compatable".