How safe are portable DVD players?

Re: How safe are portable DVD players?

In a word, "Yes" you are worrying way too much. If you want to eliminate everything in life that could present a remote risk of harm you will never be able to get out of bed again. No, scratch that, you can still be harmed in bed. You'll have to kill yourself immediately.

In all seriousness: You need to learn what the word "radiation" means. Because it covers the entire electro-mangnetic spectrum from radio waves at the low end up through alpha particles. It also helps to understand the difference between ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, and what dose of each would actually produce some measurable danger. (See below.)

I assume you're freaking out because you heard that your portable DVD player "has" "Class 1 M" radiation. (I saw a review for one that actually said that - "this player has radiation.")

Newsflash: All DVD players (and CD players and laserdisc player, for that matter), not just the portable ones, are listed as "Class 1M radiation" sources. This is because they contain lasers, which radiate light and can damage the eyes if you break open the case, defeat all the normal safety features and stare directly at them without eye protection. DVD, CD and laserdisc players do not contain plutonium, so you're pretty safe on that score.

Like ordinary sunlight (from which you are undoubtedly getting more "radiation" in an afternoon at the beach than from a year's exposure to every electronic device you interact with at home and at work) laser light is, well, light. Meaning it is non-ionizing and therefore only capable of exciting the water molecules in your body, not altering them by knocking off ions. Hence the laser (even should you manage to expose yourself to it) will not raise your cancer risk.


Regards,

Joe
Edited by Joseph DeMartino - 10/27/09 at 11:04am

Re: How safe are portable DVD players?

Anybody else read this in a Doctor Evil voice, with finger quotes around the word "lasers"?

Re: How safe are portable DVD players?

Now that's something dangerous. There are a lot of things you shouldn't try to balance on your stomach, but sharks with frickin' laser beams have to be very close to the top of the list.




Regards,

Joe

Re: How safe are portable DVD players?

No radiation is "emitted" from these devices. Light radiation is trapped inside them. Sorry if I misread your offer to throw your DVD player away if there was even a remote chance of harm as being an expression of something more than "minor concern".

Regards,

Joe

Re: How safe are portable DVD players?

I used one of these on my lap...can no longer have children.

Of course, I had a vasectomy before that.....

Re: How safe are portable DVD players?

I tried to use an explanation very similar to yours, Joseph, about 9 years ago at work with a piece of equipment which used a laser which emitted class 1 M radiation. To be brief, an employee worried she would get cancer from using the equipment in which the laser was contained (even though it would only come on when the key was inserted, safety covers were all closed and both start buttons depressed making it virtually impossible to expose yourself to the beam). I assured her it was the same kind of laser used in her cd player and there was no harmful radiation being emitted. But because the warning label on the equipment contained the word radiation, the issue was taken over my head to the HR manager who then wanted to know why I was forcing people to expose themselves to radiation.

Most of the time I'm glad I no longer work for that company.

Re: How safe are portable DVD players?

Luis:

I wasn't laughing your concern off, and I'm not a scientist either. I was poking a bit of fun at your statement about getting rid of the player if there was even "a remote chance" of its causing you harm because - if you stop and think about it - that is an impossible standard for safety. There is a remote chance that literally everything in the universe can cause you harm, from the air you breath, to your breakfast cereal to the bacteria living in your own digestive tract. Water can do you harm. So can too much oxygen. Anything can kill you in the right quantity, which is why the axiom in toxicology is "the dose makes the poison".

And yet the "avoid the remotest risk" attitude is is a fairly common mindset these days - as is the irrational fear of anything labeled "radiation". So I was hoping to kid you out of both with a mixture of light-hearted teasing and factual evidence. Evidently my approach failed.

Clinton:

I once worked with a woman who was absolutely convinced the the assorted forms of "radiation" from her CRT and PC were going to put her unborn child at risk, so she ordered a whole panoply of stuff from an office product catalog she found, including an anti-glare filter for her monitor that was also supposed to stop "radiation" to an anti-static wrist strap (the kind techs wear to prevent chips from being blown when they work inside the case) which she apparently thought would protect her from static electricity leaking out of her keyboard. (??) The IT department had to sign off on this stuff and we did, mostly because we didn't see the harm in it, it wasn't very expensive and none of us wanted to argue with the woman, who had a deeply unpleasant personality.

Anyway a few weeks after she got all her new gear, her department moved into a new addition that had been put onto our building. I got the job of breaking down her computer equipment, moving it and putting it back together in the new space. I discovered that at some point she had rearranged her stuff by herself, without involving IT. In doing so she had run all of her electrical and data cables under her plastic chari mat. You know, the big translucent things that sit on top of carpet and allow chairs with wheels or casters to roll freely? The ones with the big plastic spikes on the bottom to grip the carpet? Every data and power cable she had was punctured multiple times by these spikes, which she had apparently lined up on top of them to hold them in place. So while she had been worrying about the pretty much non-existent threat of CRT radiation, and the totally bogus risk of keyboard static, she had been sitting on top of a minefield of potential electrical shorts, overloads, static burst and the ever-present possibillty of a spark setting the carpeting on fire. All hazards she had created herself.

Regards,

Joe
Edited by Joseph DeMartino - 10/27/09 at 11:06am

Hey guys i have read somewhere Is this TRUE

"According to a Swedish study, because of intense usage of cell phones, the present generation of teenagers runs the risk of becoming senile by middle age. A study by Finnish scientists reported 40 percent increase in the risk of developing brain tumor for those using cell phones for over ten years. They are likely to be affected on that side of the head where they hold the phone to talk. Most scientists agree that children below the age of eight should not be allowed to use a cell phone.

Recent research has found a dangerous association between cell phone and a man’s sperm quality. It has been found that the more hours a man spends on his cell phone leads to lower sperm count and greater percentage of abnormal sperm. "

A cell phone is a fairly powerful transceiver and emits radio waves with enough power to contact cell towers that are miles away.  Even so, there are many questions about the Swedish survey, and certainly there are other studies which say the opposite about the hazards of cell phone usage.

But for this thread, it doesn't matter if the studies are true or not; a portable DVD player is nothing like a cell phone, starting with the fact it is not a transceiver and thus it does not emit radio waves like a cell phone.