Hobgoblin

I bought this unit just about 13 months ago. It was working fine all along until the last few days. It started freezing up randomly first. Now every time I pop in discs, it just spins and says "No Disc". I entered the service menu but I did not see any options that might help with this kind of problem. I also used a lens cleaning disc. Nothing works.

I keep all my DVD's clean without a scratch. So the discs are not faulty. I do not rent. i buy all my movies. Right out of the box the new DVDs do not play.

Can anyone help? Thanks in advance.

PS: If nothing works I might buy a new player. Please suggest any good 5 disc changers that I can buy to replace this P.O.S from Sony. I will never again buy a Sony product. My previous 2 DVD players were also Sony and they both went belly up after 3 to 4 years of usage.

Spiky

Well, 3-4 years sounds fine for a low-end player. And changers are more susceptible to early deaths than single disc units. But you should expect more than one year.

You could open it up and see if the laser lens is dirty. And if so, carefully clean it off. Probably alcohol on a Qtip. I wouldn't trust those cleaning discs, they are just as likely to knock something out of whack as to fix it.

If the laser is just dead, Panny might be an upgrade for reliability. But like I said, changers are not known for good reliability. Too many motors and moving parts.

DVD Polizei

Actually, I do have a suggestion. Panasonic DVD-F87K. One of the best changers I've ever used. Quality is superb.

Sony is infamous for just stopping to work. I should know, I purchased a $1200 DVD player back in the day.

rw2516

I have 4 Sony player, 3 are five disc changers and all work fine. The oldest changer is 5 years. I also have a DVP-NC85H that I picked up six months ago for the upconverting and HDMI connection. My gripe with it is that it's real slow at reading/loading discs. I wouldn't be suprised if this has something to do with your problem of it no longer reading discs. It shouldn't take that long and may be a design flaw or something.

Michael T Hudson

I still have an Elite 300 disc changer from 2000 it is still working fine.

Brian Shannon

I have two Sony players both work fine even after 5 years.

I too recommend against changers, get a single disc player

DVD Polizei

Well, I have to admit, I like the convenience of putting 5 DVDs in the changer and just letting it go for the entire day. Like Harry Potter or LOTR for example. They may not be built as good as a similarly-priced single DVD player, but the convenience might be worth the short life.

Hobgoblin

I noticed the slowness of this model too and it was very annoying. But the picture quality was nice and I have been generally happy with it.

When this problem started ten days ago, initially the player got very sluggish. When I turn off the power, it would take forever to turn off. When I press eject, it waits forever (sometimes for a couple of minutes) and eject. Ditto for selecting items from the menu. Then a few days later the picture freezes started happening. I used to pull the plug and let the unit stay off the power for 3 minutes and plug in again and the unit would work again. Now it has stopped working almost completely. Sometimes unplugging and plugging repeatedly makes the unit to work but it is almost like torture to watch a movie like this. Every ten minutes or so the picture freezes, and I unplug and replug and continue watching the movie until it freezes again.

The Panasonic model that has been suggested here also seems to have problems according to the reviews at Amazon. Poeple complain about some H07 problem among other things..

Maybe I should stick to single disc players from now on...?

Sdallnct

Sony and POS. Sort of redundant isn't it?

But I would tend to agree with Spiky. Getting 3-4 years out of a low end player is actually pretty good.

Hobgoblin

Ditto for me. When I rewatch movies, I like to watch sections of one movie and skip to some other section of another movie. For example I would load a Bond movie, a LOTR movie a Batman movie etc. and just watch my fave scenes from the movies.

Hobgoblin

My first two players lasted 3 to 4 years. But the one I have a problem with currently is only one year and one month old....

rw2516

Right out of the box I noticed a lag in turning on the power. Haven't noticed any of the others you mention. I think this is the first upconverting Sony changer and maybe the next one will fix this. Wonder if the single disc model has the same lags. Another thing I like about this player is setting the 4x3 default in the menu. You can leave the tv on full and the player generates the side bars for 4x3 programs/movies/titles.

Spiky

Changers wouldn't be quite so bad if ANY mfgr would bother to put good electronics inside them. Even Denon won't do this. It's really bizarre since some of these companies (Sony, Panny, Denon) have made some of the best players ever, yet their changers are still at the bottom of the barrel.