Skipping problems w/ Panasonic RV-31

[Bill_st]

I am having increasing skipping problems with my 2 year old Panasonic RV31 player (european version that doesn't play MP3). I thought at first it was due to dirty lens (the player is in a room next to the kitchen with no door between them, so I fear cooking grease may have stained the lens), but after buying a DVD cleaning disc and ran it for a number of times there hasn't been an improvement.

I get pixelization/audio glitches/freezes every now and then with more than half of the DVDs I rent (when it was brand new it could play almost all rental DVDs just fine).Most of them have very minor scratches, but I always clean them before playing, and they don't skip on other players. Everything else seems to play fine so far (VCDs and CD-A).

It doesn't skip always at the same points for every disc. There will be one or more points in the disc where it may skip for a particular disc, while it will always play fine in others, and another disc will have different points where it will skip. Also, some discs will skip maybe a little once or twice during the whole movie, while others will skip/freeze continually and are totally unwatchable.

What I'd like to know, is if there is a way to tell whether it is a dirty lens problem or not, or if there are other possible causes for this behaviour, especially with this particular brand/model. Like I said the DVD cleaning disc didn't make any difference, and I'm almost 100% sure it is not a heat problem, because I've seen some DVDs skip during the studio logo that plays before the menu, and the player had been off for many hours.

Also, I took the cover off to take a look and see if I could clean the lens myself, but it was covered by a plastic part that sits on top of the DVD during play. I guess I could try to disassemble the drive from the chassis to expose the pickup, but I'm wary of doing it wrong and damaging something, is there any online document that I could follow to service the unit?.

[Popee]

2 years ago, that Panasonic probably cost you about $200. The starting cost of a new DVD player nowadays is about $40. At that price, rather than be upset, and spend hours worried about cleaning the lens, etc. Wouldn't it make more sense to consider a new player?

Ron

[Bill_st]

Probably, but like my crappy english probably tells you I don't live in the US, but in Spain, and even an entry level player costs more like 120 euros -160 euros, which is something like $180 in the US. For less than $100 I can only get one of those no brand asian POS (Saivod, etc..) that wouldn't hold a candle to the Panasonic. I think I can put a little more thought into it before trashing it for good.

[psx_pirate]

it seems to be a common problem wiyth the RV31 (and RV41 for that matter) your laser has drifted out a bit and needs readjusting this needs to be done professionaly (could be expensive) also the RV31 picks up even the slightest faults on a dvd / vcd including any faults in the mpeg files and caurses it to freeze ......... i have tested this theory by deliberately burning a disk with a slight fault and playing it .. the disk froze every time it reached the deliberate fault if i jumped past the fault it would continue playing fine ..... my advice .... do as i did .... throw out the RV31 and buy a new player .... i now have a P&B 2233 (also marketed as ARIANET 2233) it does everything the RV31 did and the picture is compariable it also plays svcd and mp3's which the RV31 cant and it only cost 80 gb pounds which is about 120 euros although i bought it a while ago and the price has fallen somewhat since