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DVD Player and poor tracking

Samsung manufactured a very inexpensive VHS/DVD player under the label, Go-Video

This unit displays very strange tracking on a favorite DVD. It seems to 'lock up' when it gets to the track. Sometimes can't go passed the scenes once into them. That includes PLAY, FF, and even super FF. When the player gets to this section it just doesn't seem to go further.

Luckily, depending on temperament of the day, the player has 'unlocked' and jumped through the "bad" section so we have seen the end of the film. But usually takes a good six to seven or more 'back up and forge through it' attempts.

Besides the obvious, where is a tutorial describing tracking, tracking failures, etc?

My questions are:

From the experiences of the membrs of this group who deal with actual machines, which machine generally has the best playing and tracking?

Which DVD player is the best in terms of robustness at playing less than perfect DVD's?

And, which machine lasts enough time to make it a purchase, not a rental of trash?

Robert

Reply to
Robert Macy
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clean and relube the sled. could also be the laser struggling with the

2nd layer of dual layer disc.

-B

Reply to
b

Good morning Robert,

While it might be possible to find a player that handles this one disc better, if it is the only disc that is really giving you problems, then the problem is a damaged disc, not your player.

So, you might find that buying a new copy of the disc in question is the hot ticket. Alternately, you can look for a video rental store that has a professional disc polisher (like Research Technology International's "DiscChek" system) who will polish out the disc for a few dollars. These polishers cost thousands of dollars. I have not had satisfactory results with the home kits, though there could be some good ones.

Keep in mind that like an audio CD, DVD's play from the center out, so if your disc is scratched at the outer edge, it is likely to be your problem.

Regards, Tim Schwartz Bristol Electronics

Reply to
Tim Schwartz

I agree. A careful visual inspection of the DVD may reveal some obvious damaged area.

However, I'm not sure one can infer the location on the DVD based on when the problem occurs as easily as on a CD expecially if it is double layer.

Try the DVD in another DVD player, or your PC to see if it also has the problem.

The key may be: "Samsung manufactured a very inexpensive VHS/DVD player under the label, Go-Video". :)

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Reply to
Sam Goldwasser

On Mon, 9 Mar 2009 09:24:33 -0700 (PDT), Robert Macy put finger to keyboard and composed:

Try the disc on your PC. I'm not suggesting that you copy it, but DVD Decrypter will report read errors if the disc has bad blocks. IIRC, if it starts to struggle, the read speed will be reduced.

You may be able to detect whether you have difficulty reading the second layer of a dual layer (DVD-9) disc by watching for abrupt changes in read speed in the case of a Parallel Track Path (PTP) disc, or slow reduction in read speed for an Opposite Track Path (OTP) disc. OTP discs start reading from inside out on the first layer and then outside in for the second layer, whereas PTP discs read from inside out on both layers.

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You could also watch the file sizes -- there would be approximately

4.3GB of data on the first layer.

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- Franc Zabkar

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Reply to
Franc Zabkar

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