What standalone DVD players will allow me to override auto-repeat, etc?

[ambushed19]

This has been driving me crazy: Every stand-alone DVD player I own reports in the user's manual that you can disable auto-repeating the movie (or title or whatever) when it reaches the end, but every single one of them LIES! (at least regarding DVDs which were apparently authored (?) to auto-repeat, as opposed to manually enabling auto-repeat yourself). The DVDs that I'm certain are authored with auto-repeat automatically enabled are official Mystery Science Theater 3000 DVDs from Rhino and also their new distributor or whatever named "SHOUT!". But there may be many others which are also authored this way.

Why do I want to do this? Because I'm a severe insomniac who has learned over the years that I need to fall asleep while watching and listening to dialog which is complex enough to distract my attention from my own internal monologue. If the dialog is funny, too, that works best of all. But all that is for naught when the damn things keep repeating all night & morning long! That wakes me up and forces me to manually shut if off, but when I do that, I can't fall asleep again! One pass through is perfect, two or more is a nightmare.

Each of my standalone DVD players insists on the OSD that I've successfully disabled auto-repeat, but when one of these MST3K DVDs reaches the end, it auto-repeats anyway!

The only player that's a bit different is my Sony BDP-S300 Blu-Ray player, which not even Sony tech support has been able to tell me how to disable auto-repeat, the morons! Why do I call them morons? Because when I phone them, email them, or chat with them online, they always insist that they've never heard of such a thing. "Auto-repeat? What's that?" When in reply I direct them to the exact page and paragraph in their own user's manual (page X in section Y and paragraph Z) where it tells the user what button to press to bring you to the auto-repeat control stage, they reply: "Oh, you've got to press the button to bring you to the auto-repeat control stage, as described on page X in section Y and paragraph Z". In other words, all they ever do and did is repeat back to me the exact same thing I just told them!!! Surely the word "moron" is exceedingly apt in these cases.

What actually happens with that Sony Blu-Ray player is that when you get to the OSD page that says "Title Auto-Repeat", that's all it says. Neither it nor the manual tells you what to do next to actually disable auto-repeat. I've tried every single button on the entire remote, and the only buttons that do anything are either to press "Display" again (or whatever it's called) which then shows "Off" -- which accomplishes nothing whatsoever -- and "Power" so you can turn the damn thing off in a fit of rage vowing never to turn it on again!

Bottom line: Not one of my 7 standalone DVD players is capable of preventing a MST3K DVD or equivalent type from auto-repeating under any circumstances whatsoever. So I've performed more research developed the following hypothesis as a result: If the engineer who authored the original DVD sets the "automatically repeat title" bit (or whatever it's called), then it is impossible for any of my 7 players to prevent it from repeating, no matter what! I learned that if I author a DVD myself from scratch, I can turn off the "automatically repeat title" bit and the resulting DVD will actually not auto-repeat, even without any other manual intervention on the DVD player. All 7 of them will stop the DVD at the end, just as you'd expect it to. But I'm sure as hell not going to re-author every single one of my MST3K DVDs!!

Sorry for all that verbiage, but as this forum's header page says: "Try to frame your question clearly with details on what you've done. No one here is psychic... " I felt that if I hadn't laid all that out ahead of time, people would not fully grasp exactly what I'm now going to ask, to wit:

What standalone DVD players will allow me to actually force an MST3K or similarly-authored DVD to STOP playing at the end, no matter what? Obviously, this cannot be determined from reading the product literature / user's manual, because all of the players I already own either insist that it can do that or don't mention the possibility at all. I think that means that you'll have to have direct experience achieving this goal yourself rather than relying on a user's manual. Here is a list of the manufacturers of all the standalone DVD players that do NOT allow me to accomplish that:

• Apex
  Hitachi
  Philips
  RCA
  Sony (x 2)
  Toshiba

One last thing: I'd prefer the ability for the player to upconvert standard DVDs to 1080i HDMI output, as many new standalone DVD players can do. The RCA I listed above is their model DRC286 which performed that upconversion rather well for $50 (if still imperfectly as I saw a few color glitches every once in a while). But again, it would NOT let me over-ride the auto-repeat bit for MST3K DVDs, so back to the store it went...

Please help me get some sleep!

[jman98]

Good luck with this. To be blunt, your needs are rather unusual. Your post reminds me of posts we have here from time to time where one person wants to do something that nobody else in the world wants to do and they can't understand why there isn't an easy way to do it. The fact is that firmware is finite and all possible options can't be supported. Imagine if I was all adamant that I wanted a feature on a DVD player where whatever video was selected for playback, the player would play it exactly to the half way point, stop the playback, remember the location, and power itself off. Exactly how many people do you think in the world want that? Yet we gets posts like this from time to time here. I understand what you want, but well, I'm just finding it hard to believe that there is really enough demand for this for DVD players to deal with DVDs that are essentially misauthored. Yes, I know that it is possible to deliberately make DVDs that repeat, but I don't think that is real useful. So few do it that I just can't imagine DVD player manufacturers saying "Well, that option to change subtitles is going to have to go because we have to make room in the firmware for the ability to stop automatic repeat on the 1 disc in 10000 that does it." This is really an authoring feature in the disc and not a function of the DVD player itself. You are asking for someone to help you to override a function on the disc and DVD player manufacturers get crap from Hollywood if they make it easy for consumers to override disc functions. The DVD players you have tested are doing EXACTLY what they are supposed to do - play the disc exactly as authored.

You might get some benefit from visiting a sleep disorder clinic in your community. Some of my colleagues have done that.

[jagabo]

Just re-author the discs without the autorepeat.

[TJK1911]

....

Please help me get some sleep!

Here you go:
http://www.amazon.com/Intermatic-TB121C-Digital-Tabletop-Appliance/dp/B000E8XGBI/ref=pd_sim_dbs_sg_2

[qpskfec]

tjk1911 - exactly what I was thinking, many TVs also have built in sleep timers

[ambushed19]

Good luck with this. To be blunt, your needs are rather unusual.

Thank you for your good wishes; in gratitude for your candor, I shall return you the courtesy of a blunt reply.

Your post reminds me of posts we have here from time to time where one person wants to do something that nobody else in the world wants to do and they can't understand why there isn't an easy way to do it. The fact is that firmware is finite and all possible options can't be supported. Imagine if I was all adamant that I wanted a feature on a DVD player where whatever video was selected for playback, the player would play it exactly to the half way point, stop the playback, remember the location, and power itself off. Exactly how many people do you think in the world want that? Yet we gets posts like this from time to time here. I understand what you want, but well, I'm just finding it hard to believe that there is really enough demand for this for DVD players to deal with DVDs that are essentially misauthored. Yes, I know that it is possible to deliberately make DVDs that repeat, but I don't think that is real useful.

I quite agree. That is the point of my OP: Why, indeed, should any manufacturer "deliberately make DVDs that repeat"? Why not simply design players that play a DVD through once and then simply stop playing it when it reaches the end regardless of a single bit set during the ludicrously inept misauthoring of a DVD, and then turn itself off? If the user wishes to watch it again, how intrusive and difficult is it to simply ask that they press "play" again?

Really! I'm quite in full agreement with what you say there! Why waste precious firmware instruction space simply to annoy the customer and spuriously over-consume electricity and the global-warming-worsening electrical generation capacity simply to avoid presenting the stupid consumer with the "crushing burden" of pressing the "play" button again if he or she wishes to watch the exact same movie again and again and again and again, ad infinitum?

Or do those words that I quoted from your post verbatim somehow misrepresent your position, say perhaps as the result of a typo on your part or some other error? Surely not! Because I would like to imagine that you might at least tentatively accept that my decades spent designing, programming, and debugging embedded ASICs and the custom firmware, software, and even custom embedded real-time operating systems that run the scores of embedded devices I helped design and develop, from those I helped develop for NASA for use on the U.S. Space Shuttles and their early, ultra-high-tech RPVs including NASA Dryden Flight Research Center's experimental Highly Maneuverable Aircraft Technologies (HiMat), including that experimental aircraft's Flight Test Maneuver Autopilot embedded system, all the way to being a U.S. design leader for Sony's first foray into embedded Web Video consumer devices serve as at least a barely adequate knowledge base regarding the oh-so ultra-tiny EEPROM, RAM, Flash memory devices etc of modern embedded processors and their firmware within consumer DVD players? After all, some of them have only a few hundred megabytes of internal electronic memory, whereas I had the extreme luxury of 256 entire bytes of EEPROM to work with! Where do they find the room these days?!

After all, look how hideously complicated the pseudocode would be for what I want these players to do:

WHILE DVD_Movie = NOT (Movie_End_Reached)
    Play DVD_Movie
END WHILE
STOP

But I see that you insist that I take the auto-repeat authoring bit into account. Very well. Here is that pseudocode:

SET UserIsSubMoron = TRUE
WHILE UserIsSubMoron = TRUE
    WHILE DVD_Movie = NOT (Movie_End_Reached)
        Play DVD_Movie
    END WHILE
    IF Idiotically_Mal-Designed_Play_DVD_For_All_Of_Infinity_Mal-Authored_Bit = TRUE
        QUERY ["Some sub-moron set the stupidest, most wasteful bit in all of modern
                 consumer electronics because he or she wants you to watch this DVD
                 at least until the Sun dies.  Proceed to waste considerable
                  electricity for no sound, rational reason whatsoever?  [Y/N]"
         ]
         IF UserRessponse = "N"
             SET UserIsSubMoron = FALSE
         END IF
    END IF
ELSE WHILE

But, you're right. That's wasteful of space and is enormously complicated. Whereas the simplicity of what the manufacturers are doing now is truly elegant and crystal clear:

WHILE DVD_Movie_Play_Count < Infinity
    WHILE DVD_Movie = NOT (Movie_End_Reached)
        Play DVD_Movie
    END WHILE
    IF Mind_Bogglingly_Complex_Bit_To_Stop_Movie_After_1_Play = Installed && Enabled
        STOP
    ELSE
        IF Idiotic_Play_DVD_For_All_Of_Infinity_Mal-Authored_Bit = TRUE
            IF (Global_Warming || Greenhouse_Effect) = FALSE
                WHILE Ambient_Air_Temp < Prevailing_Temp_On_Venus
                    Continue_Pumping_CO2_&_Health_Harming_Pollutants_Into_Atmosphere
                END WHILE
                STOP Most_Multi-Cellular_Life_On_Planet_3_IMMEDIATELY
            ELSE
                IF Electricity_From_Fossil_Or_Polluting_Or_NonRenewable_Fuel = TRUE
                    STOP Human_Civilization_On_PLanet_3_Somewhat_Less_Immediately
                ELSE
                    WHILE Consumer_Bank_Account_Balance > 0
                        Continue_To_Deplete_Bank_Account_via_Electricity_Bills
                    END WHILE
                    CALL Subroutine [Government_Welfare_Agencies]
                END IF
            END IF
        END IF
    END IF
END WHILE

How can that kind of sublime simplicity ever be improved upon? Please forgive my arrogance at merely suggesting the possibility!

So few [DVDs] do it [auto-repeat] that I just can't imagine DVD player manufacturers saying "Well, that option to change subtitles is going to have to go because we have to make room in the firmware for the ability to stop automatic repeat on the 1 disc in 10000 that does it."

Great! I've been researching that statistic for quite some time now, but I've never before found even an estimate of what proportion of commercial DVDs automatically repeat themselves for eternity or until manually stopped by the user, so I very much appreciate your input on that point.

Sadly for me, that statistic proves I'm a real weirdo with hopelessly obscure tastes in DVDs who manifestly deserves my fate! How else to explain that not only all of my Mystery Science Theater DVDs I own (here's a list of them...

Episode 0102 - The Robot Vs. The Aztec Mummy - SHOUT Factory
Episode 0103 - Mad Monster - SHOUT Factory
Episode 0104 - Women Of The Prehistoric Planet - Rhino
Episode 0106 - The Crawling Hand - Rhino
Episode 0202 - The Sidehackers - Rhino
Episode 0204 - Catalina Caper - Rhino
Episode 0206 - Ring Of Terror - Rhino
Episode 0207 - Wild Rebels - Rhino
Episode 0209 - The Hellcats - Rhino
Episode 0211 - First Spaceship On Venus - SHOUT Factory
Episode 0212 - Godzilla Vs. Megalon - Rhino
Episode 0301 - Cave Dwellers - Rhino
Episode 0303 - Pod People - Rhino
Episode 0320 - The Unearthly - Rhino
Episode 0321 - Santa Claus Conquers The Martians - Rhino
Episode 0402 - The Giant Gila Monster - Rhino
Episode 0404 - Teenagers From Outer Space - Rhino
Episode 0406 - Attack Of The Giant Leeches - Rhino
Episode 0407 - The Killer Shrews - Rhino
Episode 0408 - Hercules Unchained - Rhino
Episode 0409 - The Indestructible Man - Rhino
Episode 0410 - Hercules Against The Moon Men - Rhino
Episode 0413 - Manhunt In Space - SHOUT Factory
Episode 0414 - Tormented - Rhino
Episode 0419 - The Rebel Set - Rhino
Episode 0421 - Monster A-Go-Go - Rhino
Episode 0424 - Manos, The Hands Of Fate - Rhino
Episode 0503 - Swamp Diamonds - Rhino
Episode 0504 - Secret Agent Super Dragon - Rhino
Episode 0506 - Eegah - Rhino
Episode 0507 - I Accuse My Parents - Rhino
Episode 0509 - The Girl In Lover’s Lane - SHOUT Factory
Episode 0511 - Gunslinger - Rhino
Episode 0512 - Mitchell - Rhino
Episode 0513 - The Brain That Wouldn't Die - Rhino
Episode 0514 - Teen-Age Strangler - Rhino
Episode 0515 - The Wild Wild World Of Batwoman - Rhino
Episode 0517 - The Beginning Of The End - Rhino
Episode 0518 - The Atomic Brain - Rhino
Episode 0603 - The Dead Talk Back - Rhino
Episode 0604 - Zombie Nightmare - SHOUT Factory
Episode 0606 - The Creeping Terror - Rhino
Episode 0607 - Bloodlust - Rhino
Episode 0609 - The Sky Divers - Rhino
Episode 0612 - The Starfighters - Rhino
Episode 0613 - The Sinisiter Urge - Rhino
Episode 0616 - Racket Girls - SHOUT Factory
Episode 0619 - Red Zone Cuba - Rhino
Episode 0622 - Angels' Revenge - Rhino
Episode 0706 - Laserblast - SHOUT Factory
Episode 0810 - The Giant Spider Invasion - Rhino
Episode 0811 - Parts: The Clonus Horror - Rhino
Episode 0812 - The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies - Rhino
Episode 0816 - Prince Of Space - Rhino
Episode 0820 - Space Mutiny - Rhino
Episode 0821 - Time Chasers - Rhino
Episode 0822 - Overdrawn At The Memory Bank - Rhino
Episode 0902 - Phantom Planet - Rhino
Episode 0904 - Werewolf - SHOUT Factory
Episode 0907 - Hobgoblins - Rhino
Episode 0908 - The Touch Of Satan - Rhino
Episode 1001 - Soultaker - SHOUT Factory
Episode 1004 - Future War - SHOUT Factory
Episode 1008 - Final Justice - SHOUT Factory

...) does, in fact, automatically repeat in all the DVD players I own that I've tried to play them in? (which, after all, would only require a few solid weeks to re-author, re-label, and reprint if I did pretty much nothing else during that time...)

No, my bizarre tastes in DVDs that would always automatically repeat an infinite number of times if I allowed them to, include for example the following arbitrarily selected titles that I tested just in the last hour or so (by skipping to the end credits then watching what happened next):

Airplane!
Blade Runner (Blu-Ray)
Branagh's Hamlet
Brokeback Mountain
Contact
Good Night and Good Luck
Goodfellas
Koyaanisqatsi
Kurosawa's Ran
Life of Brian
Manhattan
Monty Python's The Meaning of Life
Smiley's People
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn
Terry Gilliam's Brazil
The Departed
The Empire Strikes Back
The Holy Grail
The Little Drummer Girl
The Prestige (Blu-Ray)
The Purple Rose of Cairo
Thirteen Days
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
Wag the Dog
X-Men

In fact, the only DVD I tested that did not auto-repeat in my bedroom's two DVD players was Kurosawa's High and Low, which is a rather ancient DVD mastered with surprisingly small image dimensions in Japan in Japanese with English subtitles. Thus, according to your rough estimate of the proportion of non-auto-repeating to auto-repeating commercially mastered DVDs, there will be 870,000 non-auto-repeating DVD titles in a comparably sized sample of you home video enthusiasts. You folks are sure lucky!

You might get some benefit from visiting a sleep disorder clinic in your community. Some of my colleagues have done that.

Oops! I'm sorry; I didn't realize I accidentally posted my question on WebMD!

Oh, wait...

Wow, one-stop-service here at VideoHelp.com: Come for the technical audio-video advice, and stay for the psychiatric and medical advice for dessert! I'll bring this suggestion to the psychiatrists and sleep specialists who have been treating my severe insomnia for 20 years or so now. I expect a turn-around in weeks or even days!


-------------


Look, I'm genuinely sorry to have been such a miserably sarcastic bastard in this post. I realize now that it was entirely my own stupidly flawed judgment which prompted me to bring in my personal sleep problems as an explanation for why I was so desperately seeking a better solution that earned me off-point, off-topic, and insultingly condescending replies.

I've tried everything people have suggested here in this thread and elsewhere many times, but to no avail. Timers and the like -- and I've tried them from the most basic units to highly advanced relative & "dead man" timing switches -- only make the problems worse. For one thing, while I want the movie DVD in one player to stop after one pass and ideally turn off, I want only the pre-amp (and sometimes also a separate amplifier) and the speakers to be able to be easily powered on again when I likely wake up again later and wish to listen to quiet music to try to fall back asleep again. Furthermore, I have not been able to achieve sufficient regularity in my sleep schedule for timers to adequately help me solve my problem. And re-authoring all my DVDs (except High and Low, apparently) is not a realistic option for me either.

I understand that you were simply trying to help me out, but my severe insomnia makes it difficult for me to remain calm and patient at all times, especially when I feel I'm being chided or condescended to, which I'm sure is readily grasped by all. I'll depart now and I'll try not to cast a shadow near the doors at VideoHelp.com again. But at least I've gifted you all with something that will surely put you all to sleep!

You're welcome.

[jman98]

For what it's worth, I own none of the DVDs you mentioned except for the Monty Python ones. If I remember, I'll play my copies to see if they repeat, but this is rather unusual.

Like it or not, asking people like me for what is essentially sleep advice is really a bad idea. If you haven't been to a clinic about it, you should think about doing that. A doctor once gave me some advice for temporary sleeping problem that helped me, but I can't post it here because the USA is simply too litigious. I'm not sure that watching DVDs is really the solution to your problem and while I am not an expert in the field, I have a feeling that those who are experts would tell you the same thing.

To briefly summarize my previous points, you need to understand that what you are essentially asking for is a DVD player that will willingly ignore authoring commands. It's not really any different than trying to get a DVD player to ignore PUOs on DVDs. Hollywood has put a lot of pressure on companies to NOT do this, so you are looking for something that may not exist. And I still stand by my comment that essentially you want something that there's no real demand for outside of you.

[TJK1911]

[quote="ambushed19"]

I've tried everything people have suggested here in this thread and elsewhere many times, but to no avail. Timers and the like -- and I've tried them from the most basic units to highly advanced relative & "dead man" timing switches -- only make the problems worse. For one thing, while I want the movie DVD in one player to stop after one pass and ideally turn off, I want only the pre-amp (and sometimes also a separate amplifier) and the speakers to be able to be easily powered on again when I likely wake up again later and wish to listen to quiet music to try to fall back asleep again.

I fail to see what the problem is with a timer. Simply plug only the DVD player into the timer and set it for the approximate length of the movie. The amp and preamp would be unaffected.