Looked all through my camcorder manual... I cant find anything explaining the difference between VR/VF mode?

Question

It states unable to view without formatting although I thought that term meant it would delete all.

Answer 1

You're not deleting anything at this stage - you're preparing a  DVD, ready to be written to.  VF mode means you'll produce a conventional DVD that'll play in DVD players and PCs once it's been finalised.  VR mode means you can make more efficient use of the space, but there's not much that can play it.