Last night I put Damages, season 5, disc 1 (from Netflix) into the dvd player and several minutes into the first episode (right after Ellen gets into the car after leaving the engagement party), the power (entire house) flickered off, then back on. We had some storms in the area so I initially thought there was probably a tree branch brushing a power line somewhere. I powered everything back up again and started watching the episode again. At the exact same place, the power flickered out again. After powering up again I was able to fast-forward past that spot without any trouble so I could watch the rest of the episode without incident. What could possibly cause this?
I would guess coincidence, combined with the extraordinary ability of the human brain to find patterns where none exist. Try watching the DVD again when there aren’t thunderstorms and frequent random power outages.
Dimensional Video Duplication. Very common problem. Put in a copy of Gigli, for example and play it, and you’ll find two hours missing from your life. Very eerie.
you blinked your eyes again at exactly the same point.
watch Blackout (2007) and see what happens.
The theory is that your neighbors were also watching the DVD in their houses?
Did you receive a phone call immediately afterwards where a voice told you that you have exactly one week to live? I would suggest burning a copy of that DVD pronto-like.
To answer your question, nothing. A dvd or blu-ray disc is nothing more than an arrangement of very tiny pits and islands. If you move a laser beam along the disc, it’ll reflect back from islands but not from the pits (or vice versa, I’m not sure which).
There’s no way to increase the amount of laser light being reflected back (or somehow suck more power from the laser) beyond what the player can handle.
While your tv could theoretically draw too much power if it’s very poorly designed, that behavior would most likely occur during bootup or when showing very bright images, not just at a particular scene in a movie.
The only thing I could think of would be a ridiculously high powered audio system. If you had one hooked up to a circuit that was filled to the breaking point with other loads and an extremely powerful bass note hit, that might cause the circuit to go out.
But whole house you say, and not just one particular circuit? That seems incredibly unlikely to be anything other than just coincidence.