What can I do to my DVD to make my DVD player play it?

Factual Questions
1

It appears that certain DVDs won’t play in my DVD player. I should probably just replace it, but FYI, it’s a Sanyo that I purchased around Jan. 2001. I’ve noticed that MGM Classics (Youngblood, Eddie and the Cruisers) don’t play. The DVD player brings them in… tries to read them, then just kicks them back out. Wondering if there are any tricks that might convince my DVD player to otherwise read them…? Anyone?

2

Are they DVDs that previously would play in your player? If not, they may be regionally coded DVDs, coded for a different region than your DVD player?

3

That’s probably not the case. Every DVD player that I’ve ever seen would give you an error message like this if you try to play a DVD from the wrong region (I know the pic is a Mac screencap and not a stand-alone player, but I believe the text is quite similar)

4

You could try a DVD lens cleaner, but at $20 do you want to? Target and WalyWorld sell new players for around $43

5

My DVD player is the cheapest one they had at Best Buy, and it does the same sort of thing. My current WAG is that the exact position of the DVD when it starts spinning effects whether or not the player will be able to read it, so it may take me several tries to get a DVD to play, then the next time I put it in, it starts the first time, then the next time…

6

I used to have a Mitsubishi DVD player that refused to play certain discs. Disc would load, player spins, and eventually it spat the disc out at me. The solution was to return it to the factory (or some service depot) for a firmware upgrade. It was still under warranty, and this was back when a decent DVD player went for $400, so it was a worthy effort.

Now that the things are at disposable pricing, I’d just get a new one.

7

I’m in a similar situation. I bought a copy of “Carlito’s Way” about five years ago, and for about four years, the DVD played just fine on my Panasonic A310 player. Then, starting about a year ago, everytime I would put that particular disc into the player, it would display a “Disc Read Error” on the LED screen and then ejects the disc. At first, I thought that this might be a case of the infamous “DVD Rot”, but it turns out that the disc plays flawlessly on my PC and on my Sony PlayStation 2. I guess it could be an issue of my Panasonic player going dead, but it has no problems playing any other of my 30 or so DVD’s, just that one. So I’m quite perplexed… :confused: