Crackling Sound and looking for help (1 Viewer)

[Dave McQueen]

I have an LG 4210 DVD Player.

Since yesterday i have noticed a background Crackle/Clicking sound.
It's like old vinyl records that play ok without jumping'but have crackling in the Background.
It's always in the same bits and tends to happen at noisy bits in the films and won't happen in silent parts.

I've been using Chapter 4 in Terminator 2 DVD as my Test Basis as th Cracles are really Noticable when Arnie First Appears and starts surveying his surrounding.

I have Tried the DVD player on 2 different TV's.
I have also tried 3 different Scart leads including a Brand New One bought Today and it's always the same.

So there is 2 possibilities.

Either it's the Player or the DVD's themselves?
Can DVD's Scratch?
They have been kept in excellent codition and have no surface scratches?

One thing i will mention.
I enabled a Hack yesterday that allowed my player to play a VCD Disc.
The crack worked fine'and maybe it's just a coincidence of the timing'but i thought i'd mention it.

As far as i'm aware this should'nt have affected it this way.
But the timing???

Also does anyone know how to reset the Player to Factory Settings?

Thanx for any advice.

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Dave,

I doubt it is the player hack you applied.

It probably is not a scratched disc, as this would result in audio or video dropouts, rather than audio artifacting like a scratched record.

If you're getting crackling only at loud parts in the movie, this is audio distortion from max level. This can be caused by a dozen different things.

I am actually experiencing a similar problem in my system currently (it developed when I bought a new pre amp). I'm hoping to find time in the next week or so to troubleshoot the problem and find what my particular crackle is caused by.

It could be the level from the DVD player is too hot for the TV input and the TV input is distorting. This is not likely, but possible.

It could be a converter headroom issue in the DVD player. Again, not likely, but possible.

What I've seen often is it is a result of downmixing. If you play a 6 channel soundtrack on the DVD player, and hook the player to your TV using a 2 channel analog connection- the player must downmix the 6 channel soundtrack internally to a 2 channel version for the analog output. In which case it sums the Center channel to the L/R signals- and I think in some cases this results in an overload in louder passages.

Also possible is that the problem is part of the soundtrack. Some soundtracks have small amounts of distortion in them (particularly during loud dialog passages).

So, it's a complicated question with several possible answer.

-Vince

 

[Dave McQueen]

Thanx Vince.
Posted in 3 different forums and this is the First Reply i get.
So Thanx again.
I'm not very technical on players'but i'll just have to live with it.
By the way .
Whats a Knobjockey?
Just that in the UK'it might mean something else.....

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

In the US it probably means the same thing it does in the UK
It's a long story- basically an insulting term for a sound engineer (with the obvious double meaning of being a guy who plays with mixing board knobs for a living vs being a wanker).
It was an inside joke between a few soundguy pals and myself- so I embraced the term lovingly.
-Vince

 

[Dave McQueen]

Over here the Jockey refers to someone who rides something and a Knob......
Oh well thanx again

 

[Dave McQueen]

Hi Vince

Is there any answers you can give me to try and test?
I'm not very technical'but willing to try anything.

It must be a DVD setting as i get the same effect on 2 different tv's.

Thanx

 

[Vince Maskeeper]

Well, my advice would be to first determine if the distortion is on the soundtrack on the disc. This would be achieved by trying an entirely different system (i.e. take the disc to a store with high end gear, or take it to a friend's house who has a dvd player).

If you try it elsewhere and the crackling you hear is gone, then you know it's not on the disc.

Then you test to see if it is the downmix process: are you using the 5.1 channel soundtrack on the disc in question? Does it offer a 2 channel version of the soundtrack as an option? If so, do both distort, or is it just one or the other?

Does the player have a headphone jack? Does the passage distort using the headphones? Does it distort on all soundtracks using headphones?

This probably isn't something you can fix with a "setting"- if it is in the player, it is a design flaw- not a feature that can be turned off. Just because you got the problem on two different TV sets, don't completely assume it is the player. The player might be producing levels higher than your TVs are designed to accept.

Do you have a stereo system you could wire the audio from the DVD player into? If so, does the same passage distort?

-Vince