DVD drive cleaner
 

I tried a search and couldnt find this.....

I have noticed that recently some of my dvds have been "skipping" or basically the picture loses its definition and their is a problem running the movie. Sometimes if I let it play, it can make it through this. When I take the DVDs out they have this "stuff" (for lack of a better word) that looks a bit stringy. The stuff fairly easily wipes off, and I have gone back to scenes that are choppy after I clean the disc and they seem to work ok. I am thinking that the DVD head cleaner (or whatever) is dirty, since Ive had this for 2 years and never cleaned it.

2 Questions: 1. Has anyone else had this problem? is it the player being dirty?
2. What do people recommend as a "dvd" player cleaner?

Thanks.

Under normal conditions dvd players should not need to be cleaned.

Where is your player? Is the room smoke filled or very dusty?

The player is in the living room, not a particularly smoky/dusty place. I have only noticed this stuff recently, as I was trying to play Monsters Inc over the weekend. It got choppy several times, so I took it out and saw the "stuff". I cleaned it all of the dvd, and tried it again, and it happened again. I cleaned this off again. First I thought maybe it was something with the disc cause this had never happened before. Then I tried with Spiderman... didnt get choppy and skip like Monsters Inc, but I did notice when I took the dvd out, it also had some of this stuff on it. Im not sure what it could be, and so my first thought was that it was from the machine.

The stuff always seems to wipe off rather easily however. Never noticed it before, or had this sort of problem until I put in the Monsters Inc dvd, which I had never watched on my player before.

I would appreciate any other advice! Thanks.

I had similar problems with an older DVD player. I went to Radio Shack and bought a CD cleaner kit which can also be used with DVD players (a CD with tiny brushes to clean the laser lens) - it eliminated many problems and helped me to get some DVDs to play which wouldn't play at all. I replaced that DVD player anyhoo and now I don't have any problems at all.

Thanks for the advice. My DVD player is a Toshiba 1600, I got it about 2 years ago. I think I will try and get a cleaner kit, and see if that makes a difference. Hopefully it will.