I have a Sony Dvd player about 4 years old, It recently started acting up on burt discs. A movie that played a month ago won't play now, it starts stalling skipping and locking up and then jumps back afew chapters and starts playing again. this hapens with several discs. Is my player shot? has anyone else had this problem with sony players or players in general?
yours is a real Newbie question.... it's ok..... we were all Newbies once....... Your problem is a media problem. You used poor media..... what once worked fine now doesn't! skipping/freezing/pixelations are due to poor media..... use the MIJ rule...... the good quality media is [bold]made in Japan[/bold]. Read the label on the spindle or box and make sure it says MIJ. the only exception to this rule is Verbatim, which is made in Taiwan and a top notch media! here is a media guide for you: http://www.digitalfaq.com/media/dvdmedia.htm use NeroInfoTool, DVDIdentifier, DVDInfo Pro, or VSO Inspector to identify your disks.
Agreed, poor media rather than player, would be the most likely cause. You also have to understand that blank media is not as durable as the originals, so you have to take proper care, storage and handling wise. Look for smudges, fingerprints, scratches, etc. which may cause playback issues. You can try cleaning the disc, if this is the case. Deep scratches could be a problem. NO LABELS, use a cd/dvd marker. http://www.backupcritic.com/faq/dvd-care.html
Hmmmm, I have used sony ,maxell and vakoss media and all do the same. I do label my discs but my daughter has a cheap $30 dvd player and hers plays the discs fine, so I don't know.
@Wetworker, I noticed in your first post at AD you were using DvdXCopy. As stated in that thread, XCopy will burn at the fastest speed of the media. You could be having problems with 16X media. I was having problems with 8X media (MIJ). XCopy was burning at 12X and I was having playback issues in some players. There are much better programs now, where you can control the burn speed and so much more. Myself, I turned to Slysoft and haven't looked back. One the above post (just to give a bit of humor) My son complained that my backup was not working properly, pixelating at the end. I'm thinking "HUH???, I use good media, etc, Oh well, maybe just the odd bad disc. I looked the disc over and sure enough ....boogers EWWWWW....the darn kid had sneezed on it.
Wetworker, I use Maxell and Sony as well, but I always make sure the label says "Made in Japan". I would not recommend Vakoss at all. Labels are notorious for causing playback issues. Some players skip errors better than others and are barely noticeable, but they are there!
another issue is booktyping your drive to accept +R media as DVD-ROMs! If you can booktype your drive then you have a better chance of compatibility for most DVD players! But if you're using the slap on labels then you run the risk of making your disk unbalanced and get read errors causing skipping, freezing and pixelations! If you want labels then get the media that you can print right onto the disk: it's not expensive at all and my printer (epson R320 is cheap now) does a great job as you can see. these disks are Taiyo Yuden which are really great media! top notch. Plays in everything I have and my friend has 3 other DVDs that are different than mine and they all work just fine. Also my son has his Xbox 360 that plays great in there, too.
How? Paper/sticker labels? UGGH! Inkjet printable? which is safer! Some drives will have a harder time with the sticker labeled discs. Try peeling one of them off and see how your sony player reacts to them. I can't get lucky enough with having a player last more than a couple years. Get some quality media,keep burn at 4x-8x and try one in that sony player. If that don't take care of it, I'd try a laser lens cleaning with a hard cleaning disc,which is a last resort before replacement. Some people clean the lens with a cotton swab.
Hmmm, It is sticky Labels I use and I have been using the slysoft products as if lately. If it is the labels do you think recopying the disc from the problem one to a new disc and not labeling it will solve this problem or do I have to copy them all over again from the originals?
Recopying backups that have sticker labels will be trickier than non labels. Worst case scenario is lots of crc errors while reading back to harddrive. Even riskier if trying to re-rip on the fly. Best thing to do is try to peel off one of those backup discs at issue. Goo Gone is noted as a good label remover.I also heard of using alcohol.I've heard it is very time consuming. Paper/sticker labels need the proper application tools. They lead to imbalanced disc, bubbling/puckering,heat buildup,pcs of paper/glue break off,or even entire cover flying off inside of drives. Some peeps have luck with them,a lot others don't. When it comes to playback issues,there's dozens of things that can give stand alone players fits. Media quality,burn speed,burn engine,fragmented hd,spyware,multi-tasking,burning the outer edge,burner quality,dirty laser lens,and a dozen + more possibilities. You've got it narrowed down to the sony player. After pulling off one of those stickers-if it still gives issues,one of the above items is the culprit. Quality media would rule out the most likely candidates.
Hey Guys, Thanks for all your help, I recopied one of the problem discs for that copied disc at 4x and it played perfect, I then added a label and it again played perfect so it must have been my burn speed. I noticed that the recopied disc at the slower copying speed did not take up as much written room on the disc where as the original wrote right to the edge, maybe this was a factor? Oh well it looks like this was the problem though Thanks again.
