DVD hiccups

[Taffycat]

Is there any difinitive way of establishing whether a DVD player, or disk is faulty? I'm tempted to think it's the former, but would be grateful for your views please.

We purchased this cheapie from Asda (to replace an identical model, which was used daily for a couple of years.) It's very compact, multi-region and ideal for the kitchen. (It is well away from heat sources, etc.)

Anyway these little players are surprisingly good, (going on previous experience and also some very favourable feedback from other customers,) but, about six months down the line, disks began to intermittently freeze, about 3/4 of the way through a programme episode, sometimes pixilating the picture on screen as it "hiccupped" along.

There are no obvious marks on the disk; I never touch the playing surface, so not even a fingerprint! Checked for dust inside the lid (which raises clam-fashion - just the centre part.) All seemed well, but I used a lens cleaning disk just to be certain. But this made no difference. At roughly the same point, the stop/starting would begin again.

When the disk was tried in a different player, it proved to be fine, so we returned the DVD player to Asda and they very kindly replaced it with a new one.

The second day into using the new player, and it's showing the same symptoms!

What do you think guys? Is there anything else we could try? Bit reluctant to return the player yet again, if there's likely to be something about the disk that is "upsetting" it. Is it possible for a disk to play happily in one device, but cause problems in another, do you think...?

Thanks very much for looking.

 

[Anon_F]

Is it a dual-layer DVD as sometimes this has happened on my DVD player.
It skips for a moment before returning to normal play.

Not sure if this helps you TC?

 

[floppybootstomp]

Try playing several other DVD's in the player. If they play fine, suspect the one disk.

That one disk may play well on another player, different players have better or worse playback capabilities.

If, however, every disk you play jumps or stutters then get a refund on the Asdas player.

But the fact that the stop/start occurs at the same place would make me put my money on the disk. Feckit may be right, it could be the player struggling to change layers if it's a dual layer disk, try another dual layer disk and see if it happens again.

Rule of thumb: process of elimination.

 

[Silverhazesurfer]

I would try a variety of DVDs and log their performance. Then look for the difference between the disc types (region. If anything stands out, such as the dual layer as feckit pointed, explore that as the option. Perhaps the player has issue with certain types of discs.

Remember, you get what you pay for with electronics...

http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/hardware_software/2007/dvdformatsexplained.asp

 

[Taffycat]

Thank you for all the replies guys. Much appreciated.

The DVDs are not dual-layer, just the ordinary kind.

They are part of a boxed set, and the problem has happened with several different disks, from the set. But it would still be worth trying other disks from an unrelated set, wouldn't it, (just in case it has something to do with the manufacture.)

Will do that and report back in a day or two.

Thanks again.

 

[bootneck02]

I have had the same problem with a CD drive on the PC when ripping CD's, It ripped most CD's OK but some there was terrible background noise and unlistenable, put the CD into different drive and riped the CD was Cristal clear recording. I decided to purchase a replacement drive and haven't had the problem again. The drive was a couple of years old though.

 

[Taffycat]

Oh yes Bootneck, I remember seeing your posts about that. I'm glad to hear your replacement drive has solved the problem for you. We really thought that might do the trick here too.... but seemingly, not so.

We will be trying out a different set of DVDs later on, to see how the player will perform. Usually, we only spend an hour or so viewing, so it will probably take a day or two to assess whether there is any difference. (The problem doesn't usually show-up until we reach the 3rd or 4th episode on the disk, so we don't want to jump ahead and ruin the story-line, if you see what I mean?)

 

[crazylegs]

Hi TC

My bet would probably be that you have a faulty disc but the cheaper CD/DVD players use less powerful lasers to read the discs and this problem you have certainly sounds like it could be in this instance..

The well known brands out there have better quality lasers and read almost anything you throw at them including burnt DVD's, the cheaper models and own brand players tend to struggle to read burnt DVD's and sometimes proper CD's and DVD's too!

 

[Taffycat]

Hi CL, thank you too for the input. I think it is a disk problem after all... as I will explain in just a sec.

First though, apologies Feckit and Silverhazesurfer - I accidentally gave misinformation. The disks ARE dual-layer single-sided (my bad - I got mixed-up about dual-layer and double-sided, duh! sorry about that. )

The current situation is that after switching to watch some different DVDs, (also dual-layer,) the "problem" has indeed disappeared, they are playing just fine. So it's looking like the real culprits are the boxed-set I mentioned. (Just in case anyone is wondering, they are a brand new purchase, from a reputable retailer, so not in any way dodgy.)

Interestingly, I chanced to find that someone else has experienced a similar thing with the same series... (namely, "Angel" the original and arguably the most entertaining bloodsucker of them all!! Lol Okay, just my opinion.) I also read that some DVDs contain errors which happen during manufacture and which don't "show" on the disk just by looking.

So guessing that some players can cope, whilst others just get huccups....

Thank you muchly for all your replies.

 

[CHANBE]

Unfortunately, the manufacturing process of pressing the discs is not fool proof and the problems are not always caught by quality control. It only take a small defect to distort the disc playback surface and you will have problems. As many others said, all players are a little different. Strangely enough it is the more expensive players I have had problems with because their lasers are more powerful and precise.

 

[Taffycat]

Hi Chanbe, welcome to the Forum and thank you for your input.

Since I first posted about this, the problem has quite literally disappeared. We were able to play the remainder of the (troublesome) boxed-set without incident. Also various other DVD titles/series

The little DVD player was, I now feel certain "innocent" (it's in daily use) and it looks as if a couple of the boxed-set discs were a bit faulty in some way.