DVDFilter

August 18, 2005 6:20 PM

My DVD player (Sony DVP-NS325) hangs. The discs work okay on my computer. It's 2+ years old and is currently the source of a great amount of agita in my life. My television is ancient, so I'm running the DVD player through a box that is supposed to allow me to connect multiple components (DVD, VCR, games) to a single television, although I don't have all the other components, so only the DVD player is running through it. Is it time for a new player? Will cleaning the discs help? How does one clean (um, and not DAMAGE) DVDs?
posted by fingers_of_fire to technology (8 comments total)

Take discs that won't play in your current player to an electronics store. If it plays in players there, get one. Players are dirt cheap (<$50) now.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 6:37 PM on August 18, 2005

Clean discs with dish soap and dry with a soft cloth. Wipe radially, from the center out.
posted by caddis at 7:23 PM on August 18, 2005

If the discs are playing fine on your computer, the discs aren't the problem. Try one of the dry lens cleaners and run it through your DVD player. It helped us with our three-year-old JBL player, and only cost about $10.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:04 PM on August 18, 2005

You probably don't need a product... Open it up and find the lens for the laser and blow some dry air on it. Not from your mouth! Pretty much anything else you can imagine - try squeezing a clean plastic bag with a hole in it.

If blowing at it doesn't work you need to get more aggressive - try a Q-tip with alcohol on it. Be very gentle! You can certainly damage the lens this way, the Q-tip and alcohol is something you do at your own risk.

DVD players that can play downloadable formats like DIVX are quite cheap, and they are probably easily hacked for multi-region and macrovision (I am thinking specifically of the Philips DVP 642 at about $50, but it is a little old now so something better might be around). Don't just go and buy a name brand replacement, check out the model at vcdhelp first.
posted by Chuckles at 8:25 PM on August 18, 2005

Ugh - those NS325's are nasty little players; I have one at work and threaten to destroy it on a daily basis. Like ROU_Xenophobe says, it's going to be in your best interests to give it to someone you don't like and buy yourself a nice little Cyberhome or something for 40 bucks.

I'd have to respectfully disagree with mr_crash_davis though - I often find that both CDs and DVDs that won't play in hardware players will play fine in ROM drives. I'm assuming this is because better lasers are used in ROM drives to read data faster, whereas in hardware players there's little benefit to playing CDs or DVDs faster (unless you're a wee bit mad).
posted by forallmankind at 8:37 PM on August 18, 2005

I should add before someone chimes in that I don't believe when you hit FF & REW the disc plays faster - I think you just make discrete jumps of increasing size which reflect FF or REW of increasing speed.
posted by forallmankind at 8:41 PM on August 18, 2005

I have a cheap little Zenith DVD player - it started intermitently hanging and not recognizing discs until it finally went kaput. Luckily, it was still under warrenty (long story) so I got it fixed - it turned out to be a bad disc-loading actuator. Actuator got fixed, the little guy's chugging on just fine.

Yeah, it doesn't sound like your discs are a problem - since it's out of warrenty, it's probably more convenient just to grab a new one.

It sucks throwing electronics away, doesn't it? See if there's a recycling depot close to you. Sometimes I wished that electronics were more expensive but commensurately better built - but that will never be.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 8:53 PM on August 18, 2005

This is similar to my previous question on crud-tolerant DVD players. What I learned from that and further exploration is that many of the players best able to read difficult disks do a substandard job of decoding and displaying what they do read, Lite-On being a prime example. It's a trade-off.

I also found out that convincing information on the robustness of reading by DVD players is tough to come by. Let me know if you do find a good resource.
posted by NortonDC at 9:17 AM on August 19, 2005