What's wrong with this DVD player? (1 Viewer)

[Jesse Skeen]

Long shot posting this here, but thought I'd ask- I know the short answer would be to just throw it out, but I don't believe in doing that. Anyways, I have a cheap DVD player under the brand "Portland", a name which I've never seen on any other products, and the model number is PVD-1000. It's made in China and I've found online that its chip set is Mediatek. I bought it because it does PAL to NTSC properly and is region-free, but it also has some other neat features like pitch control and audio 'echo' effects and it shows the disc 'jacket picture' file. Another neat thing is it ignores the "Audio" button lockouts, so it can always change audio tracks on any disc. I've already got another player that I can play my PAL discs on if this one is done for, but again I'd like to try to save it. I know taking it into a shop would be overkill, but I want to see if there's anything I can do myself.

The problem this machine is having is loading and playing discs after it is powered on. The screen shows "LOAD" with an animated spinning disc next to it, and normally it will start playing the disc after a few seconds, but now it seems to lock up at this point. Either the animated disc graphic will freeze, or sometimes vertical lines will appear on the screen and sometimes almost the entire screen fills with green blocks. The player keeps spinning the disc until it's turned off. (This happens with all types of discs, including audio CDs.) After it's turned off it goes back to normal, and after a few tries it will usually play the disc normally and not have any more problems for the rest of the time it's turned on. The player automatically powers off if left unused for 30 minutes, so I can't just leave it on all the time, when powered back on the problem starts again.

I can't tell if the problem is in the DVD drive, the electronics or possibly the power supply. Inside there's basically one board that handles most of the player's operations, one board for the power supply and one for the front display, buttons and remote sensor. I've checked all the connections between them and they seem OK. I have a spare DVD-ROM drive that I was thinking of transplanting into this player to see if that changes anything. Any electronics-minded people here have any other ideas?

 

[ChristopherDAC]

Sounds as though the optics are having trouble locking up on the disc. Could be a tracking/alignment error, could be an electronic (servo) problem. Clean the lens.

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Thanks- I'll try that, and if it doesn't work I'll try transplanting a new disc-drive mechanism. I've got it playing right now but not sure if I'll be watching it all day today. Never say die!

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Well, I attempted to clean the lens with a dry cotton swab, but that seems to have made it worse. I have tried several times to load a disc on it again but every time the system just goes nuts- the screen will either go black while the disc keeps spinning, or odd lines and such will appear on the player's background screen. I can't tell if the problem is just with the mechanism, or if the "brains" of the machine have a problem too. I was hoping I could replace it with an unused DVD-ROM drive, but it appears the insides of that are a lot more different than I thought and doesn't look like it will easily connect to the player.

There is a sticker on the player's mechanism that says "WWW.ASATECH.CC", which brought me to a foreign site with poor English that shows a number of DVD player mechanisms their company manufactures. I sent an email in English decribing the problem and asked if they can sell me the right replacement parts, but I'm not expecting an answer. I'm wondering now if I should try buying another cheap DVD player (I can't find any more like this one) and seeing if the DVD drive parts inside of that one are similar enough to take out and replace. Again, I know this is probably more trouble than it's worth, but I like the way this machine operates and I'm just plain stubborn when it comes to declaring electronic devices dead.