Unable to recover recorded DVD/Video data

I am desperate to solve a problem that occurred on my SONY DCR-DVD608E DVD Comcorder. Upon trying to eject the disc from the camera, the camera refused, but after a while did eject the disc. Trying to re-load a disc was then met with the message "choose/select(?) aspect ratio ..." (can unfortunately not remember the exact error message).
The camera was taken to the local SONY headquarters, who are of the opinion that the camera is OK; however, they could not recover the video data recorded on three dics, even though the used software originating from SONY Technical Headquarters.
I subsequently approached a number of companies that do data recovery, without success. The last company (the end of the line) said that they used DOS-based inhouse software, and were able to download files that do contain data, but they were unable to recover the video images from it.

I am desperate to recover the video recordings as they are of immense sentimetnal value.

E McCreath, Pretoria, South Africa. I am also unable to recover video files that were accidently deleted. We used different recovery software. The recovery software would come up with the files that were lost but we were never able to open the files. We tried using many different programs to open without success. This is a sad way to think of your vacation in video. The jpg. files were easy to recover but not the mp4 files