Problem with Onkyo DR-C500 DVD Receiver (1 Viewer)

[David C Lin]

Hi,

I'm pretty new to this forum, so I hope I didn't break any rules by posting this message here. I'm encountering a problem with my Onkyo DR-C500 DVD Receiver. And since this unit fit into both Receiver and Audio/Video Sources categories, I wasn't sure where is the proper location to post this problem. So I posted on both.

Recently I purchased a refurbished Onkyo DR-C500 DVD Receiver from the online store JandR.com. When I received the unit and hook it up to my home theater system to play my favorite DVD movies, I noticed yellow colored pixelations scattered across the screen. The yellow 'dots' always locate at the same location on screen. But those dots flickers on and off seemingly in a random pattern. Those dots stays on ranging from a few seconds to several minutes throughout the whole movie. I've tested this on several DVDs and it looks like the Onkyo DVD Receiver have this problem with all my DVDs I tested. I have two other DVD players (Apex and Toshiba) and none of my DVDs ever exhibit this yellow pixelation problem, so I think the problem is the Onkyo DVD Receiver. I'm writing to this forum to ask if any other members have encountered this problem. If so, how did you go about fixing it?

Below are a couple of shots I took of two different DVD movies with my digital camera. The two movies are Minority Report and Star Wars II. Notice the same yellowish colored pixelation pattern in those two screen shots.

Minority Report at 1 minute 57 second:


Star Wars II at 2 minute 38 second:

 

[Chu Gai]

this looks like a problem with the circuitry and if you can return it for your money back or an exchange, i'd consider it.

 

[David C Lin]

this looks like a problem with the circuitry and if you can return it for your money back or an exchange, i'd consider it.

I already called the store where I bought this unit from and told them about the defect. They said I need to talk to my Onkyo service people first. So I called Onkyo and was told to take the Receiver to a local Onkyo service center to get it checked out and repaired. So this unit was freshly opened from the box only about a week and already it has to be taken to a repair shop. Is this type of procedure common with Onkyo receivers?

 

[Frank La Rocca]

Hi David, welcome to the forum. I also bought this unit refurbished not to long ago, but I bought it from Onecall.com and paid about $225 w/shipping. I bought it for my future kitchen system. I originally wanted something that didn't need alot of space and that I could listen to some music with either CD's or the radio. So for me it's icing on the cake that it can also play MP3's and DVD's so now I plan on hooking it up to my kitchen TV. Once I set it up I'll let you know if I experience a similar problem. Out of curiosity how much did you pay for it at JandR?

 

[David C Lin]

Thanks, Frank. I just found out about this forum. It looks very cool and a good place to hang out for someone like me who enjoys watching movies at home.

To answer some of your questions...

I bought it for about $200 plus approximately $30 shipping charge from JandR.com on 9/10. I got it for only about a week and I already have to get it repaired at the local Onkyo service center. :frowning:

What's interesting is that if I hook up my Apex or Toshiba DVD player to this receiver and play the DVD from the external DVD Player, it seems to display the movie without this pixelation problem. Only when DVD is played from the internal DVD Player does the problem manifest itself.

Mp3 cds plays great. It took me a bit of trial-and-error to determine what parameters to use when burning a mp3 cd that will play on that receiver. But once it works, I have no problem playing mp3 cd at all. It's so nice not to have to swap cd after every hour or so like I use to do with regular audio cd.

 

[David C Lin]

Just to update the status of my receiver problem in case some people are interested. I took my Onkyo DVD Receiver to the Onkyo local repair shop. The guy said the problem was due to mpeg chip. He got a replacement from Onkyo and swap in the good chip. Now everything works fine. No more yellowish pixelation problem anymore.

 

[David C Lin]

I just noticed another problem with this Onkyo unit. When playing mp3 CD's, the player would end playing the last mp3 song on the CD about 5 seconds too early. A bit annoying, but considering that a mp3 CD can contain hours of songs, it's not a big problem to loose 5 seconds at the end.

Anyone know if this is a problem in all the mp3 players or just the Onkyo mp3 players have this problem?