The thread on skipping CDs got me thinking about DVDs. I bought the Fellowship of the Ring Extended Edition DVD and was greatly peeved to discover that Disc Two freezes up at the same spot every time on my DVD player. The fact that it works perfectly on a friend’s player is scant comfort. Ironically, the situation is reversed with my Two Towers DVDs. Disc One freezes up on my friends’ player, but works fine on mine. I have handled all of these discs with kid gloves since I bought them.
On the other hand, I have audio CDs that look as if they’ve been used as air hockey pucks, and still play flawlessly in most any CD player.
So are DVDs just that much more fragile? Or are the somewhat older players my friend and I have at fault? Does the Skip Doctor tool work well with DVDs? Or do I just need to buy a newer player?
Hrrmph… well I doubt its the physical composition of the DVD thats keeping you from playing it flawlessly.
But this thread reminds me to echo a sentiment I’ve long held. DVDS SUCK ! Dont get me wrong I love the capacity and ease of use (no rewinding, yay) but they seriously need to come out with a media format thats not so fragile. If we can get 60 gb of storage on something that resembles a 3.5" hard-floppy disk, that will end up being the perfect solution methinks.
As of now, the trend is going to HD-DVD for the next-generation, I won’t be purchasing the needed player and discs until something more durable comes out.
The greater density of DVD’s means that they are more susceptible to scratches, since a scratch will obliterate more data. I’m guessing some players are better at coping with this than others.
Also, not all DVD’s can play on all DVD players due to either the player or the DVD manufacturer deviating from specs. This probably isn’t what you are experiencing though.
It is possible that they are dual (or double) layer discs. Double layered DVDs allow the DVD to hold twice as much info (and video) as single layered DVDs. The DVD player reads the top layer first and then switches to the second layer (which is generally slightly underneath the first layer) and this switching can cause a slight blip in the video. Some DVDs actually mention this skip on the case in fine print somewhere. If you look at your DVD and it doesn’t looked notably scratched in any area then this is probably the reason for the problem.
NOTE: I am now transitioning to an area that is just a guess! Different DVD players probably handle the buffering of the information differently so some might show the skip while others might not.
The upcoming Blu-Ray technology uses disks that are encased. Though they are not as small as diskettes, they’ll protect the DVD nicely. Think of a full CD-sized mini-disc case. Also, single layered will hold 25GB and double will do 50.