DVD's Stuttering (1 Viewer)

[Gau]

Hi everyone.
I just bought my first DVD player (JVC XP-NP10S i believe)
Its hooked up to a Yamaha HTR-5740 a/v receiver with component cables and a toslink optical audio.
I'm watching /listening on a Sony Wega 20" TV and a pair of Paradigm bookshelves.
I've noticed in a couple of DVD's that i've watched (LOTR-fellowship extended edition and the new Spiderman Animated special edition) that sometimes the picture will pause for a couple of seconds, maybe like a cd that skips. This mostly happens in a change of scene and the receiver acts like its not receiving any sound input for that brief period and changes the dsp mode back to what it was before and then as soon as the video starts, it switches it back.

This skipping never occurs in the same part of the movie, i've rewound it and checked, and it happens maybe once in every 30-45 mins.
anyone have any explanantions/suggestions for me?

 

[Jeff Gatie]

This is the layer change. Some (most) DVD's have two layers of information. When the player reaches the end of the first layer, it has to refocus the laser to read the second layer. Although some players are better than others in this transition, there are very few that do it seemlessly. It usually lasts less than 1/2 second and the best DVD's position it at a change of scene (which you noticed). Just one of the things we have to live with, but much better than the 30 second side changes that happened with laserdisks.

Edit - I noticed now that you said it never happens at the same time in the film. Are you sure? If it does not happen at the same time, it is not a layer change. But what you describe is spot on for the layer change, so I would double check the scenes again. If it is random, I would check the DVD for smudges or dirt. If you are renting your DVD's, this is probable. Does the picture pixellate at the time of the dropout?

 

[Gau]

yes, the picture does very brielfy pixellate to a minor degree when it drops out. these are both friends dvd's (I dont own any yet
so they could be dirty

 

[Mort Corey]

OK Gau, that's your problem...you rewound them too tight (Sorry, couldn't resist) Does sound like a dirty disk though. If it does it on a new one, out of the package, I'd exchange the player.

Mort (who's still looking for a good DVD rewinder for his first player too)

 

[Gau]

Mort, I have the holy-grail! And I can attest to the fact that it does indeed rewind my DVD's! hehe

http://www.dvdrewinder.com/

So you guys think its the dvd player that may be causing the skipping rather than my receiver?

 

[Mort Corey]

(gotta get one) Try inputting the DVD player directly to the TV and that would eliminate the receiver as a problem. Also, since it seems you must have two sets of component cables, trying each set would likely eliminate a bad cable problem.

Since you borrowed the DVD's, ask you friend if they ever skipped......of course if it's not a very good friend he's likely to tell you no, and that you ruined them and you'll have to buy him a replacement

Mort

 

[Colin.S]

Hi Gau,

That sounds exactly like a problem I had with our new DVD player a couple of years ago, which was (is) a Yamaha DV-S5450. A pause in both picture and sound for a second or two, sometimes with a slightly pixellated screen, occurring 2-3 times per movie on average, never in the same place (definitely not the layer change), and even with brand new DVD's, so not caused by dirt or scratches.

This stuttering nearly sent us crazy. After a week, I took the player back and they exchanged it for another - which suffered exactly the same problem!! The shop insisted that they knew nothing of such a problem, and had us believing it was certain DVD's, bad connections, vibration, heat...you name it. For about 8 months, I tried everything to resolve the problem, and pretty much eliminated every cause that we could think of.

Eventually, I took the unit back and asked them to find the fault and fix it. Two weeks later, I called and asked what was happening, and got a non-answer. A day later (huge coincidence) I get a call to say that it was "ready". When I picked it up, the paperwork had only two words written on it: "upgraded firmware". The guy at the shop looked at it, and said, "I don't think you'll have that problem anymore". And the player has never stuttered since.

This shook up my confidence in Yammy gear, let me tell you. I have no doubt that a truckload of players are still out there with bad firmware, and people are just living with it...the problem didn't seem too widespread, as I couldn't find any mention of it on my favourite forums. Maybe this firmware doesn't cope with PAL signal processing or something. I am in Australia, where PAL is standard. Just out of interest, are you using PAL or NTSC?

Anyway, even though your player is JVC, I would take it back, describe the problem, and ask them about a firmware upgrade. You can try changing the player for another unit too, but it may not help.

Good luck with it! I can tell you that, after the fix, our DVD player has never set a foot wrong again - its great.

Regards,
Colin.

 

[Gau]

hi Colin
thanks for the info! I will try it out. I'm on a NTSC system but I dont know if that matters.

 

[Colin.S]

It probably doesn't matter; the PAL/NTSC thing was a wild guess anyway. All I know for certain is, the firmware upgrade fixed the stuttering problem completely for me. I hope it turns out an easy fix for you too!

Colin.