"Ugh, get that filthy thing out of me at once."

May 7, 2008 6:33 AM

Why is my Mac's DVD player so stupid?

OK so this is a bit of a vague question, with an answer that I probably won't understand, but it's annoyed me long enough to ask. Here's the problem:
When I play a DVD in my MacBook Pro using DVD player, the software will often crash if the DVD is scratched, saying "An Error was encountered that DVD player cannot recover from"
Now call me naive, but wouldn't it be possible for the DVD player simply to skip on to the next bit of the film that it can read? As it is, I am forced to reload the software and refind my place in the film, which often just crashes again if I go back to exactly the same place.
What sort of 5th-rate brain designs a DVD player that can't cope with scratched discs? I'm reminded of the episode of the Twilight Zone where a man invents a virtual prison, but doesn't take into account that sompe prisoners might be innocent. He is subsequently jailed for this oversight, I feel rightly.
I feel like my Mac is putting unrealistic expectations of perfection on me, that it refuses to have anything to do with my sometimes imperfect physical posessions. Now if there was some vaguely techy reason for this apparent idiocy/snobbery, I'd feel much relieved. Perhaps someone could try and explain it to my not very technical brain?

posted by greytape to computers & internet (9 comments total)

You might consider taking it to a Mac store to have the folks there look at it. I've never had this sort of behavior on our macbooks (not pro) using dirty and/or scratched disks. It sounds like you have a software/hardware problem.
posted by nightwood at 6:46 AM on May 7

What version of Mac OS X are you running?
posted by nathan_teske at 6:47 AM on May 7

I've had a similar problem if I try ripping a scratched CD in iTunes.
posted by drezdn at 6:58 AM on May 7

I'm using Leopard and have seen significantly smarter "skipping damaged part" behavior in the DVD Player app.
posted by WCityMike at 7:55 AM on May 7

I have a Macbook Amateur edition running OS/X 10.4.11 (don't know what animal that would be). I haven't seen this problem. I would take the DVD itself to a MacStore and ask one of the geniuses there if they can play it. I suspect it's a problem with your hardware.
posted by thomas144 at 8:44 AM on May 7

If you do end up going to the fruit stand (like others, I think you should), be sure to make an appointment online so you don't have to wait very long.
posted by pete0r at 9:06 AM on May 7

There is a techy reason. A DVD is not a record, where things necessarily line up linearly. The scratch goes across the grooves of something spinning thousands of times per minute. It's not got a 'small section' it has to jump over...

But rather a problem with every revolution, damaging it's ability to 'make sense' of what's left.

If you're having this problem often, it's likely a hardware problem.
posted by filmgeek at 10:53 AM on May 7

(p.s.) most dvd software/hardware does some caching to work around problems like this...but as they get more serious, they all have problems.
posted by filmgeek at 10:53 AM on May 7

I have a couple of external drives; a CD burner and a DVD burner. Both of these will happily play discs that my internal drive chokes on. If you have access to another drive then you could see if your discs will play there, and if so make backup copies of your DVDs.
posted by nowonmai at 8:52 AM on May 8