DVD picture freezes and breaks up... Help!

Factual Questions
1

I’m in a real quandry. I recently purchased the entire sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Imagine my frustration when the picture started to freeze, sputter in starts and stops, before finally returning me to the main menu. And I only had two minutes left of the first episode!

I then noticed that the second episode wouldn’t play at all. Couldn’t even get to the menu page to play it.

The third episode seemed to be fine, so I chalked it up to a bad DVD disc. I have in the past occasionally come across some DVDs that would have bad spots on them.

So, I went through the hassle of trading in my DVD set for an identical one at the store I originally bought it from. Well, guess what? The picture froze at the same point, and I couldn’t access the second episode on this disc either.

Now I’m wondering if there is some sort of authoring problem with the first disc of Buffy Season Six (at least with the shipment sent to my local Borders Store), but have been unable to find any one else with the same complaint.

Every search I have done on the web seems to claim this is a DVD player fault, but these message boards were mainly focusing on problems people were having with recordable DVDs. This is a store-bought, straight from the factory DVD, from a reputable company. Could that really be it? I have a Magnavox Philips MDV455-17.

Is it possibly the DVD player? I’m really hesitant to invest in a brand-new player, because while this problem occasionally shows up, I also assumed it was something to do with the fragility of DVDs. I’ve always been able to replace the DVDs in the past, and not seen the same problem, so i really think it is a disc problem.

But to have the exact same fault show up at the exact same place on two identical DVDs? That’s weird…

So basically, I’m begging for any sort of guidance before I shell out big money for a new player. I’m going to be really ill if a new player still has the same problem trying to play this DVD. It’s almost enough to make me long for the days of videotape…

Help, please!

2

This probably isn’t the case with your situation, but I occasionally run into similar things because the DVD is dirty. I usually hold the DVD under running water and then wipe it dry with a paper towel, wiping radially from the center out.

3

Could you try it on a friend’s player before buying a new one? That way you’d find out whether it’s likely the disc (if it won’t play on theirs) or your player (if it plays fine).
That said, I have a similar issue with some of the discs in my BtVS Season 3 DVDs - one episode in particular will break and then freeze until I have to skip to the next scene to get it working again.

4

I’m glad to hear I’m not the only one who encounters this problem periodically. I’m sorta half convinced its a combination of poor DVD encoding and a substandard player. I have countless DVDs that will play fine time and again on my player, but for some reason, I do come across discs that my player is finicky about playing. I’m going to double-check on another machine tomorrow, but the fact that the same identical area of the disc is a problem area, leads me to think that it might be bad workmanship with whomever pressed that particular disc, which might very well work fine with other players, but mine has a conniption.

Still, I’ll report back tomorrow. I really hope it can be solved by exchanging the discs again, (though I may have to go to a different Borders this time in hopes that the stock might be of better quality). I’m really rather reluctant to invest in a new player, since the old one works just fine 99% of the time…

5

Since I’m sure everyone here is just dying to know the verdict!

I took the faulty DVD to my friend’s house, and it played just fine on his DVD! Hmmm.

Anyway, I still don’t feel like shelling out the dough on a new DVD player just yet, this one is only a little over a year old anyway, and it plays virtually every other DVD fine.

All I can guess is that for whatever reason, my player can’t read this particular disc, and since it happened on two identical DVDs, (Buffy season 6, disc 1), I’m guessing it must be a fault programmed onto the disc that keeps it from playing on my player. Something about the disc is giving my player problems, but as there are players out there that play it just fine, I guess I’ll just hope that the next player I eventually get will work better than this one.

Incidentally, I went ahead and watched the “trouble spots” at my friend’s house, so I can go on to the other episodes at my own house…

Thanks to everyone here.