Anyone still use a Pio LD/DVD player? Help! It ate a disc! (1 Viewer)

[Nelson Au]

I have one of the first LD/DVD players, the Pioneer DVL-700. It still works and I use it in the home office.

However, it did eat two DVD's. The first time it was trapped along the edge of the disc between the spindle clamp and the tray. I had to take the cover off and force it out. (It did damage the DVD a bit and causes pixellation at the scratched area, damn!) It played discs fine after that for a few more years. Then last night, it did it again, though luckiy, when I took the cover off, I found it sitting on the tray askew. One very slight scuff.

I suspect the disc is not releasing from the spindle, but can't be sure. I also wonder if the player mechanisms are getting dry with age.

Anyone have this experience? Or know of a fix or tune-up procedure? I know that the complexity of the mechanism that has to deal with an LD and a DVD creates the problem and the best solution would be to get a cheap SD upconvert DVD only player and use the Pio for LD's only.

Thanks for any insights! Nelson

 

[Nic_II]

Does it just freeze randomly while playing the disc or does the disc play fine until you try to eject it and it refuses to come out then?

Don't know if this is of any help, but I do still use a Pioneer LD/DVD player and have a somewhat similar problem. The thing with my player is that, when playing a DVD, if I just press eject while playing the disc, the disc gets caught in the mechanism about 50% of the time and has to be forced out by opening the cover - like you did (and yes, unfortunately I have also scratched some DVDs this way - although the only one of them that was scratched badly enough to seriously damage the playback was "Species 2", so it's not all bad...). However, if I always press stop before eject, the device still works like a charm.

The first two times it did this, I took it to the shop. The first time they checked it, found nothing wrong with it and just "unlocked" the spindle and the tray. The second time was pretty much the same, but I was informed then that it's a fairly common problem with these players.

Anyway, you live and learn and I've now been occasionally using it for almost 15 years and, as long as I always press "stop" before "eject", there have been no problems.

 

[Nelson Au]

Thanks for the response Nic.

There was no freeze, this occurs as you described, when ejecting a disc, though not with any regularity or frequency. This was the second time.

I do recall after it happened the first time that I may have hit the eject button, instead of stop first. So I do usually hit the stop button first. This last occasion, I may have forgotten and used the eject button while the disc was still in there and playing or in menu mode.

The only other circumstance is that the disc was in there a longer then normal time and could have caused the clamp to get "sticky" with the disc. I have tempted fate and played one disc since the last problem and no problems.

Thanks for the info that you found from the tech guys that this is a common problem. Thats good info.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Gee, and I thought I was using MINE for a long time, but it'll only be 10 years old this year! How'd you even know the DVD part worked 15 years ago when there weren't any discs out til it was 4 years old?

I kid, I kid- My DVL-909's had relatively few problems, I've never had a disc stick like that and I always hit the Eject button without hitting Stop first. It went a little nuts once after playing a laserdisc, I hit Eject when the laser was still making its way back to the bottom of the machine and it refused to eject til it settled down.

 

[Nic_II]

This goes somewhat off-topic, but....

Actually, I have a DVL-909 as well and there are always some differences between European and US models (connectors, for example - I only recently found out that you guys don't use Scart-connectors), but the disc mechanism is apparently the same, so I thought I'd share my experiences.

As for the age of the machine - a trip down memory lane... I used to have one of the older Laserdisc-players. You remember the ones without digital output for Dolby Digital-sound and which couldn't freeze-frame or fast-forward with picture, unless it was a CAV-disc/side? Once Dolby Digital had become commonplace and DVD was taking it's first steps, I made the upgrade - mainly to get the 5.1-sound and NOT the DVD-support (that shows how smart I was...).

I remember that there was a long time I wasn't sure whether DVD would "catch on" and I thought about every release, whether I should get it on DVD or Laserdisc. As you recall, many original DVDs were letterboxed or in full screen and in Dolby Surround, so there was very little quality difference between the two. In fact, if I remember correctly, Laserdisc even had an edge over DVD when it came to Dolby Surround-sound quality?

Back then they hadn't even decided what the standard case for the DVDs would be. You probably remember that, in addition to the now-familiar keep case and Warner's snapper cases, there were both full-size and CD-size jewel cases (the full-size ones are actually still used in Russia, for example). One of my distinct memories was that I wanted to get G.I. Jane (now, don't judge me - I was/am a Ridley Scott-collector and liked Trevor Jones's score...) and had several choices. There was the DVD in a CD-size jewel case, the DVD in a keep case and the Laserdisc. The LD almost won out because it had a commentary and an alternate opening. Eventually I did buy the DVD with the keep case (and I'm glad I did - it's still in my collection and that HUGE and tremendously ugly "wide screen"-banner on the front cover that Buena Vista used at the time has a certain fun nostalgia factor to it).

Anyway, G.I. Jane was released 1998 and, as mentioned, at that time there were already R1 DVDs being imported and sold in Europe and some even at discount prices (which was surprising, given that I believe the first DVDs came just a year or two prior to that), so I must have had the combo-player for over 10 years - and "almost 15 years" sounded more impressive than "about 10 years"

It's rather interesting how well those early Pioneer combo-players still hold their own. I'm sure on bigger screens there would be differences, but I use mine with a 32" screen and I'm actually still very pleased with the picture and audio quality, even though I have a much better system in my actual home theater. The Laserdiscs themselves are another story. I had/have around 400 of those and at least 10% suffer from laser rot so bad that they're virtually unplayable. On the other hand, the G.I. Jane DVD still plays like new

Back in the day, I used to show Laserdiscs to fellow film collectors and, while impressed, they were happy with their VCRs. I wonder what'll happen now with BluRay. On the other hand, the players are compatible with existing collections and the "format war" is over. But on the other hand, there's a big price difference between the discs and, in my personal opinion, the difference between DVD and BluRay is much smaller than that between VHS and Laserdisc or even between Laserdisc and DVD. I'm guessing it'll be a long time before the independents have the resources to release BluRay-discs.

I believe it took less than ten years for first major releases to be released only on DVD and not on VHS. I wonder what will be the first major release to only get a BluRay-release? Or if that will ever even happen - perhaps by that time another format has already come along?

 

[Nelson Au]

Cool story Nic. I still have an older LD only player and a 10 year old DVL 91 Elite. The older one is one side only play , where I have to manually flip the disc, how crude! No AC-3 output either. Still works great, but I use it on occassion. Nice to see the feature start without going through menus!

I had the DVL-91 output LD video to my 50" Pio Plasma and it looked okay. What surprised me was that I captured some video from an LD and ripped it to DVD and played it on an upconvert DVD player and it looked better then the LD, but not by a lot, but noticable.

I agree that Pio LD players are like Hummers, the only reson I replaced the DVL-91 was so I could get into upconvert and HDM. It will be used in my home office.

Interesting question as to what will be the first Blu-Ray only disc to be released.

 

[RickER]

Fun stories. I got into LD in '83 belive it or not. I was only a year out of HS at that! The old LD player was a top loader, and it had an analog "peg" that tracked the disc as it played so you knew how far along you were into the disc. Yea, you had to get up and flip it over half way through the movie. The first LD i bought was 2 episodes of Star Trek. So i have to laugh sometimes at the folks who get miffed that a show only gets a one and done DVD release. Hell, i was excited to have 2 episodes of Star Trek, uncut and commercial free! Anyway, my next machine crashed after about 5 years. I forgot the model, but i guess it had problems anyway. It was cool, had a mechanical panel that would rotate open, showing all the cool dials and buttons. And that was before the tray slid open. My current player is a Pioneer 704, and it great. It did eat a CD once about 10 years ago. the tray opened...but no CD. I saw it still on the spindle, inside the machine. I closed the player, and reopened it, this time with a disc on the tray. Never did it again. * knocks on wood*

 

[Nic_II]

Given the number of SD DVD-players sold (and being sold every day), I actually think that we'll see another age resembling that of VHS and LD. I think DVD and Blu-Ray will co-exist for a long time with every major film being released on both formats and smaller films being released only on DVD. I don't even see Blu-Ray as something that will replace DVDs. I see it as a format that will offer a better experience to fans and collectors, while "casual users" will continue to buy DVDs.

I think people don't pay enough attention to the fact that many families have a DVD-player in the living room, in the bedroom, in their car, just about everywhere. They'll probably buy a Blu-Ray player to their home theater and buy their favorite films on Blu-Ray (if they are available), but I think they're more interested in compatibility with existing players rather than a better picture and sound. Most people I know - even people quite passionate about movies - still watch films on relatively small TVs, often even using the TVs own speakers.

Anyway, these are all things that only time will tell. And, just like there are still hundreds and hundreds of films (not only small films but also classics and even major theatrical releases) that are available only on VHS/LD, there are thousands of films on DVD which will never get a HD-release and the DVD is as good as it gets. It's, in fact, these smaller films that interest me as a collector. I have no interest to buy huge blockbusters unless I REALLY liked them, since I know that if the urge to watch them suddenly strikes, they're the ones that will ALWAYS be available on whatever format is used at that time. But enjoyable direct-to-DVD films, for example... If you don't get them on DVD now, you won't get them. Eventually they'll go OOP, there'll never be a HD-release and you won't find them in rental stores or anywhere.

For me, this is the primary reason that I haven't given up on my Laserdisc-collection. I still have a lot of films that I enjoy on LD that aren't available on DVD and will never be. LD is the best release there will ever be of them.

But, again, even in the case I'm totally wrong and Blu-Ray sales take off so well that, say, Bond 23 or 24 will be released only on Blu-Ray, it's nice to know that the old DVD-collection can still be played with the new players. Backwards-compatibility is rare these days, so, having a rather large collection of DVDs, I think this is a huge luxury compared with LD/VHS times.