Blue ray and standard dvd's and two dvd players mystery

[outfoxed]

We have a new Panasonic LCD/LED TV with an old Denon DBP-1611UD multi-region DVD player and a newer cheapie 'no-name' multi-region DVD player connected to it. The Denon player used to play all Region codes on our old Sony TV - except for a few (not most) Region 1 DVD's that had extra tricky coding on them. So we bought a new cheap player that played everything except, as it turned out, all blue ray dvd's. But with both players connected we could play everything, as we could when we got our new TV. (Although now the Denon player would only play blue ray dvd's, but that doesn't matter.)

Now I've just bought some new dvd's on Blue ray, including Series 4 of "Downton Abbey". The Denon player plays the first disc of the series, but doesn't recognise and won't play the second and third discs. I can't imagine why. Can anybody here explain this mystery please? And it won't play the other new blue ray dvd's I bought either. It does still play some older blue ray dvd's.

Thanks very much to anyone who can enlighten me.

[yoda313]

First off please don't call them bluray dvds. It's either-or not both.

Bluray's are high def 1080p video discs.

Dvds are standard def 480p/576p (480p for ntsc 576p for pal).

One obvious question is were these purchased used? You say "new" but are these new to you and not new in the wrapper?

If they are new store bought I would see if you still have time to return them for replacements. Every store would have different lengths of time you could exchange an open item for a replacement.

If you bought them used than I'd raise hell with the seller and try to either get a refund and return them or make other arrangements for your satisfaction.

And if they were cheap enough to begin with you might just chalk it up to tough luck and write it down as a loss.

Edit - also an extreme unlikely possibility is region problems. You bought a set but is there any chance the set was made up of multiple region discs and you then wouldn't be able to play them? It's an extreme unlikely possibility but still a possibility. Though if they were bought new in wrapper that is virtually impossible.

And if they were bought used I don't know how in the world a seller would sell multiple regions of the same set.

Just thought I'd mention it as a possibiility. Otherwise they are scratched to hell. YOu might try any of those disc cleaning methods.

Edit 2 - another thought -

Update the players firmware.

I can't imagine why certain discs in a whole set would need an update but the first wouldn't. But we want to try every possibility first.

You will need to go to the players setting option and look for an update choice. Then download the update and let it install. It will probably reboot itself after installation.

[outfoxed]

Thanks for your advice yoda. Yes, they were bought new from Amazon and I'm returning the Downton Abbey series 4 to them. Don't feel very confident about updating settings as you suggest, but I'll try.

[yoda313]

they were bought new from Amazon and I'm returning the Downton Abbey series 4 to them.

Good you should be ok since amazon is so big they should be ok with returns.

Don't feel very confident about updating settings as you suggest, but I'll try.

If you are returning the only discs with problems than you won't have to update.

And it isn't anything to be afraid of. It's a system feature designed for your player. It's MEANT to be updated from time to time for access to new features and improvements and such.

And also if you are only dealing with actual dvds and NOT blurays I don't think there is any need to update the firmware.

So far as I know the firmware updates are only potentially needed for bluray issues not dvd issues. Reason for that thinking is there are probably still landlocked dvd players you can buy that don't have any internet access and no upgradeable firmware. They have the dvd logo and are supposed to be able to play all dvds.

Thinking about car dvd players there mostly since it seems like even dvd players probably have smart app features like netflix these days.

Anyway glad you can return the discs.

Edit - and you could have just had a flukey bunch of discs that were bad from the manufacturer - it happens from time to time.