Pioneer 343 - worth repairing?

[EricB]

My Pioneer is acting wierd. It has always had a slight pause between chapters. Lately, with commercial DVDs it will refuse to play the menu. I rented a copy of Monster's Ball and it would play the movie company intro and then stop at the menu. The word "menu" appears on the player display, but no screen display is present. I returned the copy and a second copy did exactly the same thing. The DVD played fine on the computer.

Now my home-made DVDs are showing a similar problem. Will play intros but have to be tricked into getting to the menu. Then during playing, previously perfect DVDs start stuttering and pixellating.

I have no warranty from BestBuy. I assume this is a tracking problem. Anyone have experience with repair on their players?

[SLK001]

But chapters are only search indexes for the player. Otherwise, the movie is just a continous stream of data (or, do you mean that the pauses were between VOBs?).

I would try cleaning the laser detector lenses and hope that there was some foreign material on them, but your problem sounds more like a corrupted EEPROM or faulty processor.

Is this unit worth repairing? Depends on the repair costs. With the replacement of a DV-343 at around $100 through AMAZON.COM, it is probably cheaper just to get another.

I have a DV-343 and it will play my spare tire if I stick it in it.

[cchitson11]

I've never had a Pioneer set top but i had a similar prob with rca. the rca was piece of crap. a friend of mine got it from this guy that didn't understand the importance of cleaning the lens(apparrently beating it is an alternate solution). Anyway a traded my friend a ps 1 for it. Now this is
what I did to fix it after i tried a lens cleaner. **try at your own risk***Unplug DVD PLAYER First****I opened up the player and took a q-tip and rubbing alchol and cleaned the lens. Then I slid the lens back and forth a couple of time in the track. Do this part only if want to take the risk if its not working right you not losing much. also if there is a loud popping noise whn sliding the lens stop! you are stipping gears. most will slide fairly easily.Also give a few moments alchohal to dry before you plug it back in. This worked like charm and I got a DvD player in exchange for an old ps 1 that was residing in my closet. Alot people will tell not to use Q-tip and alch. or move the lens but I have fixed several cd players and a dvd player with this method.

[SLK001]

Cchitson11 explains what I had in mind. Lense cleaners that look like a DVD are a piece of crap (they don't even contact the lenses). Don't know how technical you are, Eric, but his suggestion is something to try. I don't like using Q-Tips because they are not tightly wound and the cotton tends to come off in strands (but in a pinch, they will do). I like to use surgical swabs because they are very tightly wound (and come on a long wooden stick).

[EricB]

Well, I've got an engineering degree and a couple of surgical swabs so I guess I'll give it a go.

Thanks for the feedback.