Laser Realignment?
 

I've been a DVD owner for two and a half years now, but I've never heard that I should be taking my player in for "laser realignment." Could any of you enlighten me?

Tina

P.S. When I heard about this, I thought it was BS, but if you guys tell me it's essential, I'll believe you :-)

Unless the player was subjected to some sort of damage, ie., dropping, shaking etc., I am not sure this is even necessary.

My original CD player a Sony ES player is now 20 years old and has never needed to be realigned.

I would expect the same to hold true for DVD players.

Unless your player has problems I would not worry about it!

The reason I ask is my mom is getting a DVD player, and I went with her to Best Buy so that she wouldn't have someone misinforming her.

The salesperson told us that the laser should be realigned (at a cost of $80) at least once a year, every six months if you used it quite a bit. This sounds rediculous to me... but so did most of what he said....

It is ridiculous. So is buying a laser lens cleaner, which probably does more harm than good unless you live in an extremely dusty environment (anyone notice there really aren't any vent holes on most DVD players for dust to enter through?). The old saying, "If it aint's broke, don't fix it" comes to mind.

I also can't figure out why Best Buy would charge $80 for this. With my Sony player, you don't even have to open the player. The alignment procedure is done by accessing the player's secret service menu and following the on-screen prompts. I've never needed to do it, but the whole process takes maybe three minutes.

Well I'm pretty sure why he said it. After he told us about the laser realignment, he added that buying Best Buy's $50 protection plan would save tons of money because you could just bring it in and have it done under the plan for free.

Go back to that Best Buy and beat that sales person about the head. I liked Best Buy so much better when it was new and they didn't even try to seel you a service agreement.

The prevailing rule of thumb is if it's not acting up NEVER use a cleaning system or pay for a rediculous laser re-alingment! The ol' "if it ain't broke don't fix it" adage is appilicable here!

In fact, if I was you I would march down to the store and demand to see the manager and point out the salesman who told you this BS about Laser re-alignment and keep on him until they do something to make up for this unscrupulous practice! Be fairly loud so other shoppers hear whats going on and the manager SHOULD make it up to you to make them look good in front of the other shoppers!

Best Buy strikes again :(

A comment from the peanut gallery:

Laser realignment are NOT necessary in ALL cases.
I have 3 DVD players, one of which I have had for 3 years, and it has NEVER exhibited a problem. On the other hand, I have one which I have had much less time about 1.5 years which was having problems that a laser realignment/cleaning did fix.
The laser is susceptible to vibration, heat, and dust.
That being said, it doesn't mean you will have problems, especially if you're very careful, but you COULD have problems.
As far as I know, BB charges $40 for the cleaning/realignment, not $80, and the service plan does cost about $49. It seems like this salesperson's needs a little training.