General DVD picture breakup question.

[truan]

I have a Sony combo dvd/vhs player (don't think the model number is important for this question, but if it is i can get it.). Every once in a while I'll purchase a dvd and its picture will break up in certain scenes, and sometimes it will just freeze up and not play. But most often if I put it in the Toshiba laptop it will play just fine. Sometimes I exchange the dvd for a different copy and the new one will play just fine.

What's the term for this problem?
is it the dvd player's fault?
is there any way to fix it?

Thanks for any help.

[dugpa]

Hard to say but it sounds like the player is to blame if the discs play okay in your laptop. Though it also could be a faulty disc that your laptop is better at compensating for than the Sony player. There's no easy fix to any of this beyond buying a new player or returning your discs. How often do these problems happen? If it's a lot, then the player is probably to blame. If it's only every now and then, and especially if it's on dvd-18 discs, then the discs are probably at fault. That's about the best advice I can give you without more information.

[limacharliewhiskey]

Dugpa's advice is pretty much what I was gonna say. If the Sony player is commonly glitching on several discs, it's generally the fault of the player, where sometimes a certain player may have incompatibilities with discs from certain studios.

Some older Sony players have a diagnostic menu that you can run to recalibrate the alignment of the laser. I don't know if your DVD/VHS combo unit has the same service menu to do any such maintenance.

Glitchy discs are pretty rare, as you shouldn't run across these in more than 2% or 3% of the discs you play. If it's more than that, it's the player that needs to be replaced.

The way to determine if the disc is faulty is if the same problem occurs on multiple players. If you get the same glitch at the same exact spot on 3 different players, the disc is faulty.