disc rot or player choking?

[AlanHK]

The last month my DVD player, about 2 years old, has started to choke on my DVDs.

Commercial, pressed ones are still fine. But many of those I burnt myself are, it seems, suddenly unplayable.

The picture breaks up in pixels, as if the disc was badly scratched. But there are no scratches, and cleaning the discs and player doesn't help.

Retrying gives the same breakups in the same positions.

However, if I play the disc in my PC, it's perfect.

I can dupe a disc, and the dupe may play fine. Or it may fail after a short time.

I'm using the same media as I have for the last 5 months, a cakebox of Verbatim discs, that I had had zero coasters from, until this started.

What's most likely cause? Player dying? Burner out of whack?
I doubt bad media for reasons mentioned.

I have Nero, and CD/DVD speed, but have no idea how to interpret its results.

[Heywould3]

do you have lables on them? if so remove with goo gone or the like and try again

[tinker]

If they play on PC and you can duplicate them. Try one and put it in your player without using label (if you have them on old once).
I doubt it is in there, because if all do it than it is quite possible that the player is giving up.
Also how did you stored the DVD? Were they expused to a sun or higt heat?

[Bjs]

AlanHK

a cakebox of Verbatim discs

More specific , - or + , burn speed used , burner model ... How are disc's stored is one that gets overlooked , which tinker has pointed out .

You may want to remove the cover from the dvd player and clean the lens with pure alcohol and lint free wipes (let it evaporate) , and see how it gose .

[EddyH]

If you use the "Disc Quality" scan in CD/DVD speed, basically it should be self explanatory... for the bottom graph, PIF or C2 (for DVD and CD), you want as little as possible, ideally (but not realistically) none. So long as the graph is green or yellow, you're ok. Most players will be alright even with a fairly angry orange colour. Once it gets into red or violet for any region, and particularly extended runs, you know you're in trouble.
The upper chart is related, but shows less serious disc errors (PIE or C1), of which the number can be quite high before it indicated any real read problems, and usually a fatally high PIE/C1 is accompanied by high PIF/C2 anyway. Anything under about 100 is OK (though again, as few as possible is good, 20 or less)... about 250-500 you should get concerned; if it's into the 1000s or more, the disc's on it's way out, and it seems to top out around 1200-2000 on my drive before it starts locking up.

Those are the figures from memory, anyway! I know very little about what are 'real' acceptable numbers, but from experience with good & bad discs you get a feel for it (try inserting a fresh commercial one for reference!). Also, don't forget the Disc Quality score, which shows what the minimum rating is out of 100 across the whole disc. 100 = you won't see this , 90 = typical, 50 = still ok, 25 = uh oh, 10 = serious issues, 0 = some unreadable or nearly unreadable areas.

If it errors like crazy at maximum speed, try dropping it a notch or two and see if it improves; if it reads ok at, say, 6x or 8x DVD (20x, 24x CD) then a set top box shouldn't have any worries, though also test any particular trouble spots at 1x speed to see if the different spin speed (and therefore vibrations) have any influence.

As a final test, there's the "Scandisc" mode which simply aims to read each file from the disc, with any necessary error correction or re-reading, and reports on the result; either Green/Good (read ok with no errors), Yellow/Damaged (definite errors, but was recoverable with re-reading/CRC etc), or Red/Bad (unreadable area, or required so much error correction that it may have only been read by fluke). Can't say simpler than that.

Of course it's a different matter when it comes to your actual player, as it uses an entirely different mechanism, but it's a useful guide at least.

[AlanHK]

do you have lables on them? if so remove with goo gone or the like and try again

No labels. Just a CD marker pen.

They've been kept out of the light -- some in paper sleeves, some plastic.

[grannyGeek]

When my good JVC player acted like this, I took it to a local shop to have the lens professionally cleaned ($15 USD).
Got another 9 months of use.

When my cheap one did, I removed the case top and swabbed the lens myself.
got another 6 months of use.

Beg or borrow another player, and see if symptoms are the same.

[lordsmurf]

Hong Kong is where fake Verbatim are made. You may have some of those.