dvd scratches (1 Viewer)

[Nick*H]

Hi All,

I am occasionally having trouble with my DVD player. It will start skipping, freezing and pixilating badly and I won't be able to finish watching a movie. It usually happens towards the end of a movie.

It mostly happens on scratched rental dvd's, so I figured that was the problem, right? Only thing is, I can go back to the same spot the next day and it will play without a problem. If it were the scratches, wouldn't it skip all the time?

A friend mentioned something about laser degredation (my player is a chipped sony, a few years old). Does anyone have any ideas/knowledge/experience on this? Any help would be appreciated.

Ciao,
Nick.

 

[Cagri]

I started a thread on the very same topic a few weeks ago. I have the same problem with my Pioneer DV-515. It is a 5 years old player, but actually has no more than 500 hours on it ( I moved abroad after I bought that and only came back last year)... But it does the same thing. It does it on some brand new discs too. For example, I bought Grease several weeks ago. There's one scene it won't play no matter how many times I tried. But my computer plays that scene just fine. I used to stack the player on top of another component and last week I rearranged my rack, now it has more breathing space and it seems to be improving, but I haven't verified this yet. It may just be my good will. I don't know if it's some technology these players are lacking or some other reason but I'm itching to replace the thing...

 

[Jack Briggs]

Scratches can confuse a DVD player, and the resulting anomolies won't always be repeatable. Try to feed your player clean, scratch-free discs. Also, some discs don't interact well with some players, even to this day (though the problem was more common in the early days of the format).

 

[Cees Alons]

DVDs have an excellent error-detection-and-correction scheme, so they are able to recover from some of the more severe errors. Scratches on DVD (especially new DVDs that were floating in their cases) often aren't scratches at all, but similar looking "smears". You can wipe them clean rather easily (use a soft tissue - cloth or paper - and breath on the disc to moisten it).
If you wipe a DVD clean, always make radial stokes (no circular), that will increase the chance of getting some errors recovered.
Old laser-heads may get weaker, displaced - but more often simply dirty. A DVD cleaner disc can work miracles in those cases.

Cees

 

[Ted Lee]

Also, some discs don't interact well with some players...

ditto that. i have a copy of "chasing amy" that has a particular scene that just won't play in my sony. it plays fine in my pc and in other friends dvd players. it's just one of those things...

 

[Gary Thomas]

I've often washed smudges, scratches on rental dvds with dishsoap and warm water. I dry them with a lint free cloth & pop them in the dvd player. It seems to fix the glitches 99% of the time.

Am I doing damage???

 

[Ted Lee]

Am I doing damage???

very doubtful. as long as it is a mild detergent, you're doing it exactly the way i would.

as stated, make sure you wipe from the middle straight to the edge. don't go around in circles.