Pioneer DV-414 problems please help.

I too have had a Pioneer 414 for a couple of years (bought new from BestBuy). It now has the same problem, with any kind of cd's or dvd's, commercial or burned. It does the ejected intermittently. Sometimes I can put in a disk and it will play fine, other times I have to insert it several times before it will play it. The most annoying thing is that I will be watching a dvd movie and part of the way through it will freeze up.
I have tried cleaning it but no dice. I am about to buy a new player but I am hesitant to get a Pioneer. Maybe I'll try calling Pioneer and see what they can do for me!

[googlioboy]

SirFrag, try unplugging the unit, wait a few moments and then plug it in again. Sometimes with these things you need to reset them. Also, if you could get a replacment remote, you might try getting into the setup menu and enabling MPEG.

[googlioboy]

Also, for playing CD-R media and VCD's, try recording on the silver-coated Imation brand discs. I've found that they work best in this application on my DV-414.

[floridastyle]

I been using a Pioneer 414 which kicks ass with DVDs and VCDs however it will gag to death on an XVCD and will not take an SVCD. I am mainly responding to the XVCD question since I have been burning XVCDs with my Panasonic 2.5 encoder. The audio and video is real jerky at a full 2500 kbs since it is a 2400kbs reader (I found out it is 2400kbs after I burned the 2500 CD after speaking with engineering at Pioneer in Cali.) I experimented with 2100kbs all the way to 1450 kbs to get better video quality and it wont play it smoothly but studders however it gets better the lower the read.

In conclusion you can only make a VCD leveled recording with the standard VCD defaults from the Panasonic Encoder with 224 in audio. I plan on getting a better DVD player so I can make SVCDs and XVCDs for my highlight flix.

[Stansell]

I have a DV-414 that also worked fine with VCD's.

Since it gags on commercial CDs also, but plays DVDs my guess is there is something wrong with the CD laser (they have dual lasers of some sort for DVD/CD)

I've seen DVD cleaners in the store also, I wonder if using one of these would clean the cd laser also (assuming there is a problem with dirt on it). It may not be so quick to spit it out since it would see it as a DVD.

As far as the remote goes, it is pretty much needed for DVD playback since there are no menu buttons on the front.

Sorry - some friend ya got there.

[patrickm]

if you're interested in a remote, i have one i could sell, but i'm using it in another project since i like its layout and it's got a ton of buttons, so i don't really want to. but i'd probably let it go for about $30 (pioneer charges 60-70). that's probably a lot for a player with a bad laser too, but private message me if you're interested.