Why does my DVD player hate THIS movie?

[Superdude]

So I bought High Fidelity on DVD last night. I get home, and pop it in so's I can watch it. All I get is a black screen, with a "whirring" type sound. I take the disc out, blow on it (old habits die hard), and put it back in. Nothing. And so I take it back to where I bought it, and exchanged it for another copy.

Same thing.

I know it's not the player itself, as I'm currently watching This Is Spinal Tap on it. So I'm forced to conclude that the player doesn't like THIS film. Much like my friend's DVD player won't play my copy of Lost In Translation.

I've tried the old tricks for CDs. Rotating the disc, in case of a dead spot.

But, surely, with two DVDs, and identical problems, it couldn't possibly be the DVD player.

Any ideas?

[Alien2022]

Try it on another DVD player. If it doesn't work there, then it is obviously the batch of DVD's that was burned. Sounds like someone didn't put a marker to indicate the menus to the Player. If so, all those DVDs will need to be recalled by the manufacturer.

If it works in the other player, it most definitely is your player. There could be some new sort of copy protection that is interfering, or a different area code. It is for NTSC right?

[sweepkick]

Many years ago I had a situation with an old Onkyo CD player that absolutely would *not* play my copy of NIN:Broken. The disc worked fine on every other player I tried, and I had not had an issue with any of the other 150+ discs in my collection. Since it was still under warranty I took it back to Best Buy, threw the CD in the box along with the player, and explained the situation. They sent it back to the factory and six weeks later I got the player and, suprisingly, the CD back and it worked perfectly. On the factory repair receipt it indicated that they had "replaced chip on logic board", or somesuch. Probably a firmware issue.

What brand/model dvd player do you have?

[Superdude]

Originally Posted by sweepkick

Many years ago I had a situation with an old Onkyo CD player that absolutely would *not* play my copy of NIN:Broken. The disc worked fine on every other player I tried, and I had not had an issue with any of the other 150+ discs in my collection. Since it was still under warranty I took it back to Best Buy, threw the CD in the box along with the player, and explained the situation. They sent it back to the factory and six weeks later I got the player and, suprisingly, the CD back and it worked perfectly. On the factory repair receipt it indicated that they had "replaced chip on logic board", or somesuch. Probably a firmware issue.

What brand/model dvd player do you have?

I have an Apex AD-1225. I purchased this in December of 2003.

Let's suppose, for the sake of argument (and Alien2022's info), that it's a problem with my player. In other words, it plays fine on a different CD player. What are my options?

[sweepkick]

http://www.apexdigitalinc.com/support.asp

Not sure how Apex support is, but it's a start. Good Luck.

-sweep

[ArtistCeleste]

It's probably the whole batch of DVD's. I used to work at Target, and sometimes we would just get people who kept returning the same DVD, because the whole batch was bad.
Try it on someone else's DVD and it probably won't work.
Although some insist that their specific player does not play that specific DVD. I didn't buy it, but maybe they were telling the truth.

[Superdude]

To sum up where we are now:

Following Alien2022's advice, I tried it in a different DVD player. It played with no problems whatsoever.

I just shot off a request for tech support to their website, but have yet to recieve a response.

The DVD and player are both configured for region 1, USA.

[Bimble]

I've had exactly the same problem with Terminator 3..

I've bought FOUR copies of it from different places and NONE of them will play properly.. All I get is glitching and stuttering...

I've cleaned the discs, cleaned the DVD player lens, you name it..

Does it work? Nope!

Does it work in other machines? Yup...


HUH??

[cmkeller]

Your player might need a software/firmware upgrade. Ask your player's manufacturer about that.

I recently had to get my DVD player repaired, and the repairman said that after he fixed it, he tried a few DVDs and one did not work. He got the upgrade from the manufacturer, and that solved the problem.

[askeptic]

I don't know if this is off topic or not, if it is I apologize. But I am almost to the point of tossing my DVD player and digging the VCR out of storage in the garage. It seems that about 50% of the DVD's I rent get hung up (ie the screen freezes) usually at a pivotal point. Nothing works. Not FF, not cleaning the disk, nothing. All I can do is RW (is going backwards on a DVD still called rewind?) then hit skip. Meaning I miss the entire track. At first I thought it was just my player, then I found out some friends have the same problem. Any suggestions? Again, if this is considered a Hijack I apologize, I just did not think it merited a new thread.

[JimMacMillan]

About a year ago a neighbor bought one of the Austin Powers movies, Goldmember I think. There was a scene where Austin was coming down in a parachute to land in his Jaguar. About the time he landed a bullet proof glass window popped up to protect him from an onslaught of bullets. Every time that scene started the movie would freeze. He took the movie back and got another one and it froze in the same spot. I had a copy of the movie and watched it without any problems. So I tried my copy out in his player. It locked up at the same scene. I brought it home and tried it out on two other DVD players and it played just fine. I did an internet search for "Austin Powers freezing in DVD player" and found several pages describing the problem. Apparently some DVD players have problems understanding some of the flags in the data stream. The causes them to freeze or do other strange things. There seems to be no pecuniary factor as my players are all sub $100.00 units and his was well over $500.00

Thats My Two Cents
Jim Mac Millan

[askeptic]

Thanks for the info Jim. Any suggestions as to a player that does not encounter such annoying problems?

[JimMacMillan]

The last DVD player I bought was a JVC model XVN55SL Progressive Scan DVD. I've got to tell you it looks great on my Plasma screen. It was one the models recommended in consumer reports. In fact my wife and I have noticed that in the 30 or so movies we have watched since owning it, it has not skipped once. Consumers Reports reviewed similar JVC units selling for less but this one had a few extra features so I spent a little more picked this one up at Buy.com. When be bought ours they were selling for $97.98. I just checked Buy.com and the new price is $109.99.

Jim Mac Millan