planned breakdown - the motor weakens quickly - weak in the first place too

[keeptruthfree]

I've noticed a problem.
The motors used in these players, especially the newer ones, are weak.
A sticky disc or anything that causes a jam weakens it further.
In any case, the motor becomes weaker progressively.

The slower it goes, the less data it can read per minute...

Soon you cannot play high bitrate DVDs like double-layer encrypted.
Then you can't play double-layer at all, then regular dvds encrypted,
then regular dvds...

then you're stuck with DivX... which most of us don't mind really
but we paid for DVD players which quickly don't function properly.

The warranties on these players are brief.
The companies don't care at all and will provide no information.

I watched my Norcent DP-220 player die in this way.

I recently bought a LGDVB418 player through an Amazon Marketplace seller.
It had the weak motor problem out of the box -- it could only play a CD with a DivX movie.
It wouldn't play ANY DVDs of any variety -- because the motor was too slow already.
I found it was refurbished by "GCR" and they had voided the original LG warranty.
The new warranty GCR provided was to the seller and NOT the end user (me).

I bought a LG DN191H from Radio Shack and it's already having high-bitrate problems.

Do you see a pattern here?

They get out of the warranty almost immediately
and they are selling us machines which become
too weak to function almost immediately.

Get it?

[redwudz]

That's either bad luck or bad brand DVD players. I've got a Toshiba that still works perfectly after 5 years use. It won't play anything but commercial DVDs, but never did. Radio Shack and Ebay(Amazon), you take your chances.

[keeptruthfree]

A DVD Player which only plays commercial DVDs is the whole idea here.

Remember three years ago when the whole standalone DivX DVD player thing hit.
There were tons of players on the market but none got delivered.
Everything was "backordered" and eventually those were cancelled.

Quickly, there were only two that one could obtain: the philips and the norcent.
(okay there were really really expensive ones like KISS too)

Recently, all the held-back players appeared on the market all of a sudden,
exactly the same machines... with manufacturing dates three years old.

Somebody (the entertainment industry) was forcing the manufacturers to hold them back.
Apparently they couldn't hold back Norcent and Philips and now nothing is held back.
But... But... But... the machines are very very weak.

Oh, I'm sure the ones that play ONLY the official commercial DVDs will work forever.
But... the DivX ones won't work for very long.

Plus... they're moving the direction they were discussing three years ago...
where they want the players to have online access... DUH, so they can turn off the movies.
I'd check into DVD+R and avoid them... control is the difference between DVD+R and DVD-R.

They want control.

Imagine a nightmare future where all media is locked down like RealNetworks wants.
Imagine you pick me up in the car and I put in my CD... and it wants money!
Then we have to swipe our national-id card... oops... credit card... to pay for another play.

Laugh at me and we'll quickly be back to the original Best Buy DIVX (the rental you own)
which most of us thought was buried and dead forever.

These people don't give up. We just go to sleep. WAKE UP.