gcbma

I have an Onkyo DVD player that is only a year and one month old (i.e., one month outside of warranty). Lately it seems that about 20% of the new DVDs that I buy show occasional pixelation and/or picture freezes or skips. None of the 150 or so disks I got in 2003 showed any problem.

I know that some disks have inherent defects from the manufacturing stage, but is there any way to determine really what the cause is: hardware problem? bad disk? dirty laser lens? insufficient specs on the hardware?

I have exchanged "Postman Always Rings Twice" four times already (a total of five different disks) and none of them seem to play, yet no one else at the DVD Talk forum seemed to have any problems. On the other hand the DVDs from the new Alien series, for example, all played beautifully.

Any ideas or suggestions? Is it time to buy a new DVD player? Does the player need cleaning or adjustment? Are studios just producing poorer quality disks in 2004?

Brian Shannon

Based on the number of discs you describe I would think that the player is having a problem.

Try some of your "problem" discs on another player to be sure.

Good luck.

gcbma

I've noticed from reading the DVD Talk forum over the past few months that some people claim that some DVDs play fine on some brands/models of DVD players and not others. I find that difficult to understand, since DVDs and DVD players are supposedly manufactured according to a common standard--or at least I thought.

A salesman at a high-end audio/video store told me yesterday the DVD standards are constantly being revised and that the DVD disk manufacturers adopt the new standards which may not be compatible with the older hardware. He said that Marantz, for example, makes its DVD players so that you can upload new code into the machine as the DVD standards change, so its always up-to-date.

That's one thing that would be good to know: is that true? Are these one-year-old players not capable of playing newer DVDs because of revised DVD standards, or do they not have good enough specs (e.g., DAC rate, error-detection, ...) for the newer disks, or do the newer $100-$200 machines just break down faster than VCRs and CD players used to, or are more susceptible to dust and need cleaning?

Brian Shannon

Well this is just my opinion,

You get what you pay for. While your player sounds like a decent player (Onkyo is a good brand) is also sounds like there is a problem with the laser pickup. You can test this by trying your problem discs on another player.

As for the rest of your post, cheap players are made with cheap parts and cheap firmware, buyer beware. As for your "salesman" I have no idea what he is talking about. The standard is just that, the standard. What is changing is the content and the quality of the content. Some discs require a DVD drive in a pc to access certain features. Other content is tough to handle for some players (do a search). Although I am aware of players that can accept uploaded firmware I have rarely seen this used.