[dba-Tech] The ruggedness of DVD players

Gary,

I guess this is just one of those areas where it pays to do some
consumer research before buying...though in getting a Christmas
present from a friend one has to take what one gets.

My PC's internal CD Rewritable/DVD-ROM has been a brick.  Lets see,
it's a Toshiba DVD-ROM SD-R1202.  It hasn't failed to play anything
I've put in there, including a funky DVD burned by a friend that would
NOT play in my son's XBox, normally the brickiest DVD player in the
house.

Thanks, Gary.

Steve Erbach
http://TheTownCrank.blogspot.com


On 3/23/06, Gary Kjos <garykjos at gmail.com> wrote:
> We have two 5 disk DVD changers at our house. The older is a Sony. It
> was bought a few years back, probably 5 to 8 when we first wanted DVD
> capability in our livingroom. It replaced a 5 disk Sony CD changer
> that got relegated to duty on a different system. The Sony DVD has had
> the same freeze up issue you describe. We don't watch that many DVD's
> with it though, so I don't have a good feel for the frequency. On the
> ones it had problems with there were fingerprints and/or scratches as
> they were borrowed disks that had not been handled very carefully.
> Generally cleaning the disks helped, but I don't think it completely
> eliminated the issue either.
>
> The newer 5 disk DVD changer is a Yamaha and while it has never
> skipped or frozen or had any issues, it has lead a sheltered life so
> to speak as it has mostly only played disks in pretty pristene
> condition.   And I don't have any burned disks only store bought ones.
>
> I do have another 5 disk CD Changer that is causing me problems
> though. It is a Technics one that came with a rack mounted stereo
> system. I guess it's about 15 years old or so, circa 1990. It was my
> main system for years until I got an entire new system in 2004 and it
> got moved to another room under my wife's control. (Funny I get her
> old FURNITURE in MY room and she gets MY old electronics in HER room)
> When I had it I had noticed that it was skipping on CD's that I had
> burned on certain tracks, but it worked fine on all store bought CD's.
> Now it seems to be skipping on EVERYTHING. I'm guessing that it will
> cost more to repair it that it will to replace it, so I am thinking
> it's days are numbered. I think I will rotate in the aformentioned
> Sony 5 disk CD changer.
>
> I know when I first started burning CD's that many older CD players
> would not play my burned CD's while the newer CD players had no
> problem with them. Was particularly a problem in vehicles it seemed.
> Perhaps something similar is going on with the DVD's relating to the
> burned DVDs. Over the years as we got newer vehicles with newer CD
> players the problem essentally went away. Although I have noticed that
> the CD walkman I use at work is now skipping on some of my homebrewed
> CD's of late. It never used to do that and it made me wonder if the
> CD's themselves are beginning to "go bad".
>
> Good luck with it!  Hope you get it all fixed up and playing smoothly
> again soon.
>
> GK