Do long pauses do any harm to the disc? (1 Viewer)

[NeilO]

For some gut reason, it disturbs me when my children leave a DVD paused in the player for a long time. For some reason I'd rather it be on the menu or just stopped entirely. Am I worrying over nothing or have there been cases when discs have been harmed? I guess it might just be leftover VHS anxiety where leaving a tape paused for long definitely does harm.

Thanks,

Neil

 

[dan-0]

About ten years ago I left an eagles cd on pause for a few days and the techniques cd player burnt a laser sized hole through the cd. It was actually pretty cool, but I wouldn't recommend it.

On a side note. That 'ol techniques player finally bit the dust last month after over 10 years of faithfull service. Rest easy in the landfill, you gentle giant of yester-year.

 

[Dave Poehlman]

About ten years ago I left an eagles cd on pause for a few days and the techniques cd player burnt a laser sized hole through the cd.

Really!?!? There must have been something wrong with your player. I've left CD's paused with no problem.

The DVD is still spinning when on pause (or it should be) so, there shouldn't be any danger in damaging the disk.

It is not, however, recommended to leave a static image on your TV.. particularily if you have a RPTV.

 

[Jack Briggs]

What Dave said. The disc will be unaffected, but your monitor won't. And I don't really like leaving the player itself in pause mode for more than a few minutes.

 

[NeilO]

I guess I'll have to lighten up about this issue, then.
It's easy enough to turn the TV off. I think our DVD player actually dims the image after some time.

And I don't really like leaving the player itself in pause mode for more than a few minutes.

Is there any possible damage to the player?

Thanks,

Neil

 

[Kenneth Harden]

No, the player will be fine. Again, the TV is what will suffer.

IIRC, my friends Sony DVD player will take you to the Sony screen saver after 5, 10 minuites of the disc being paused.

 

[BrentPollard]

If you can train the kids to hit the stop button once, instead of the pause, when they hit play it should start up just as if it were paused.

 

[David Preston]

Neil don't feel alone I hate long pausing to. I just hit stop. I think my present DVD player goes into a screen saver mode(at least thats what I call it) where the word DVD bounces all around the screen instead of a still picture.

 

[NicholasL]

Yes, but I've heard of some DVD players that don't have the memory recall feature where after you press stop it returns to where you last left off when you press play. Some DVD players (if I remember correctly, I read the 2900 had this issue? Or maybe the 1600) go right back to the beginning after you press stop.

 

[AllanN]

Is there any possible damage to the player?

For me it’s just the idea of the disk sitting there spinning and they player not really doing anything. It creates more unnecessary wear on the players moving parts. Also most DVD players if you stop the disk and then play it again without powering off or changing disks will start up at the location you stopped at. Like other people have said static images will damage displays especially rear projection and plasma.

 

[George Phillips]

I only have a cheap $50 Apex DVD player, but it will stop spinning the disc if you leave it paused for more than a few minutes. So at that point it should be the same as it you had stopped it.

There's a part of me that doesn't like leaving discs paused for a long time, and I think it's just a remnant of VHS days, where that was really bad for the tape.

 

[Drew_W]

Most DVD players have a Resume function anyways which is a fair alternative to the pause button.

 

[Cagri]

I don't like to pause for more than few minutes either, but when I stop the disc the player displays a blue or a purplish pink screen which makes me more worried than a still picture. I have to turn the player off to get rid of that. I have a feeling those blue/pink screens may be as harmful as a static image.

 

[BrentPollard]

My player (an old Sony DVP-360) allows you to set the screen to black. you may want to check your options.

 

[Cees Alons]

I even wonder if the player is really reading anything in pause mode. I think the image comes out of an image cache.

Cees

 

[Cagri]

My player (an old Sony DVP-360) allows you to set the screen to black. you may want to check your options.

There is a black screen option which for some reason doesn't work. OTOH, even if it worked I wouldn't be comfortable still, because I have a feeling that the TV is still spending its resources (black this time) for nothing. This thought may totally be wrong though, maybe I am being unnecessarily cautious...

 

[hitendra]

Never had a problem on the player but as said earlier, not a good thing for your TV

Just on a side note, my DVD player automatically switches off if it is in Pause mode for more than 30 min.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

It seems like the newer players will stop spinning the disc if left unattended for 5-10 minutes or so. My Pioneer DVL-909 (combo laserdisc/DVD player) looks like it would keep spinning for years if left on pause though, so I always put that on stop when not in use. My new Philips DVD recorder stops spinning the disc and dims the picture after a few minutes (at least on recorded discs; I use that more for recording stuff than playing.)
The newer players also DON'T stop the motor if you hit the Stop button right away- this is good because if you are doing it to get around the damn forced trailers that are showing up on a few discs, you won't put as much wear on the motor by stopping and starting up again. My Pioneer made sounds of protest once when I did this so I don't do it on that anymore- it's already had the motor replaced too.