Blu-ray disc read knocked out by playing SD disc? (1 Viewer)

[Hollywoodaholic]

Ever heard this one? After playing an SD disc (Route 66 Complete Season 3) that whirred and churned and made a bunch of noise before it was read properly, it played okay ... but now my three-year old Panasonic DMP-BD30 player NO LONGER PLAYS BLU-RAYS. It can't read them.

Is this possible? That an SD disc could disrupt this capability? I tried re-booting the player. I'm going to try a firmware update. But if anyone else has ideas how this could have happened, if it's happened before, and what can be done about it, let me know.

It's probably more expensive to repair (original cost $499) than it is to just get a new player in our disposable technological culture, but that's still a last resort at this point.

Thanks for any insights to this non-techie.

 

[David Willow]

It was not the disc that you played necessarily. The older BD30's have an issue with the drive that caused some to fail. They still read DVD's but not BD's. Panasonic was fixing them quickly while under warranty and some even after the warranty expired. The latest I heard is they no longer will fix it for free. It doesn't hurt to ask, though. Maybe let them know you are aware of the many failures with the early units...

 

[Hollywoodaholic]

Thanks. After a little bit of research, I now see you are probably on the mark with this. After a call to Panasonic, I have to ship it in, and then deal with them by phone or email after they see the unit. I'm not optimistic they'll do it for reasonable costs.

Can you recommend a reliable BD player out there that's reasonably priced that I can replace this unit with? Thanks again.

Originally Posted by David Willow

It was not the disc that you played necessarily. The older BD30's have an issue with the drive that caused some to fail. They still read DVD's but not BD's. Panasonic was fixing them quickly while under warranty and some even after the warranty expired. The latest I heard is they no longer will fix it for free. It doesn't hurt to ask, though. Maybe let them know you are aware of the many failures with the early units...

 

[David Willow]

That's a tough one since BD is so new. I still have my BD30 and, since it was purchased after the first batch, I hope I won't have the drive issue. I still like the Panasonic. They are still supporting the original BD10 with firmware upgrades. The new LGs look pretty nice with streaming Netflix support. We just purchased a PS3 Slim as well (for my son). I tried watching a movie and it seemed decent.