Norcent DP300 woes

[kenmo]

I have two Norcent DP300s and they used to play any media I would toss at them in the past except for Kodak DVD-Rs.... Now one Norcent is getting real picking.... It will freeze on Memorex +R, Maxell +R or Fuji +R & Fuji -R...

However the other Norcent will play this media... The Norcent which is giving me problems plays other -R or +R fine and has no problems with commerical DVDs...

Any ideas....

And YES I did try cleaning it a few times but it didn't help... I used one of those DVD lens cleaning discs...

Cheers

Kenmo

[oldfart13]

Time for a new one. Players are cheap and the cheap ones were meant to be thrown away when they break anyway. What's holding you back? Money? Can't be. I have seen new players that will play almost any format as well as PAL discs, have region hacks and play DivX and Xvid for as little as $30CAD. Even I can afford one of those and I have a limited income....

[p_l]

Listen to oldfart's advice.

A friend of mine's Norcent DP300 was starting to act up like yours and I recommended simply to replace it with a Curtis DVD1084. I liked it so much I replaced one of my Norcent DP300s with one, too. It plays all DivX/Xvids, I easily hacked it region free, and you can plug an SD card and USB flashdrive or external USB hard drive into it. Not bad for CAD$50.

[kenmo]

Where in Canada can I pickup one of those Curtis's...

As far as buying a new one...

Well in the last 12 months I've purchased

A Toshiba DR-2 recorder, Lite-On 5005 recorder, Philips 642 and a Kosch DX-721 (becoming my favourite DVD player of all time)...

Plus I have a failing Pioneer DV-333 (tray woes) two Norcent DP300 and a Zenith DVB410....

Money never seems to be an issue when it come to computer upgrades, video/audio equipment, photography of auto parts for my 1960 Vette...

But I prefer to not spend money when I don't have to....

[p_l]

Did you click on the picture in my post above?
















Hint: <-Click me!

[kenmo]

Yes and many thanks....

[oldfart13]

60 bux and a 1 year warranty? Nothing wrong with that...

[oldfart13]

Hmmm...looks like it can't use large USB drives, so I would imagine it's still running under FAT32 so no recognition beyond 128 GB. I bet if you reformatted an external drive to those specs it would work great...

Maybe something to toy around with for 30 days before returning just to see what it IS capable of...

[p_l]

Here's one guy's suggestion:

Tip:
Seems there is a limit to the number of files it will index. So if you have a big HD with lots of files, they won't all show up. To workaround this, you can set a directory to hidden. Then that dir and its subdirectories and files will not be indexed. Only the root dir needs to be hidden.

But I like your FAT32 128GB theory. Sounds plausible. Someone should check it out.

[Cornucopia]

I've got a Norcent 300 also--it still works fine, but my problem is the REMOTE is busted.

Anybody here who's trashed their player and wants to offload a still-working remote? I'll pay a reasonable amount (+shipping)...

Scott

[oldfart13]

None at the pawn shop? I bought a bunch of universal remotes (brand new) from an estate sale a couple years back (15 total) that I give away to friends when their remotes break. The instruction set for them is available online so they are pretty simple to set up. I haven't tried them with the Norcent but no reason at least one of the codes shouldn't work. Like the sign outside the door of one of the places I frequent says "Pawn Shopping Is Fun"...

[oldfart13]

Well, I checked all the Canadian Tire stores within 200 Km of here and none have one for sale. Special order only it says from the website. Bummer that...

[Cornucopia]

Most "Universal" remotes DON'T support Norcent, I have found out. Only one which I can tell obviously does is the Kameleon, which is ~$80US--a good deal more than the cost to replace the whole unit.

AFA Pawn shops, I'm not sure I'd trust the reliability.

Scott

[oldfart13]

Ah well, I have dealt with the same pawn shop guys for many years so I know and trust them.

Bad news on the Curtis 1084 is that Crappy Tire says they are discontinued, BUT I have found them also available at The Brick:

http://www.thebrick.com/Application/Cart/BuyRoom.asp?TraderID=34DC92B9-3DBD-438F-AA0B-...2D98FE1ED68EED

I'll try the One For All remotes I have and see if any will work with the Norcent....

[p_l]

Nice find at The Brick. Even though it's out of stock at Canadian Tire online, you might be able to find some remaining in stores: http://www.canadiantire.ca/store_inventory/store_inventory.jsp. A store near me still had some.

And you can use your

[Cornucopia]

Ah well, I have dealt with the same pawn shop guys for many years so I know and trust them.

...

I'll try the One For All remotes I have and see if any will work with the Norcent....

You misunderstood me. I have known some pawn shop people for years and also decidedly trust them to be honest and knowedgeable. What I don't trust is the quality/pedigree/history of the unit brought into the shop. Yes, it may work enough to satisfy the shop broker, but it doesn't really have a warranty, and then I might be stuck with a dead remote 31 days later...

...

Tried One-4-All a couple models. Not "explicitly" supported, so what happens is only 1/2 of the controls are workable--it's a crap shoot--and you have to go into manual million-keypress typing mode to access SOME of the right keys. Thank goodness I could use that remote on other devices I already had.

Scott

[oldfart13]

Do any of the OneForAll remotes that can be updated have codes for the Norcent? Just wondering. The other remotes I bought are all Jensen. I will have to find out if they work on the Norcent...

[p_l]

One option, if you know someone with a functioning Norcent remote, is to get a learning/programmable remote and input from the Norcent remote. Sure, the cost of those would be more than the Norcent, but most of them are all-in-ones, so you could justify the cost by using it as a single replacement for all your remotes and reduce remote clutter on your coffee table.

Good info on remotes on this site, which also has a forum: http://www.remotecentral.com/index.html

[oldfart13]

Just checked The Brick store in my area and they have the Curtis 1084 in stock at $60CAD. I think I'll get one later this week...

[p_l]

Let us know when you've put it through its paces.

[oldfart13]

Looks like they are on sale at The Brick this week, $48CAD ($46CAD if bought off the website). Since I won $60 at the Casino I guess I can afford to buy one...

[oldfart13]

A couple things...it won't accept files from my Lexar USB 2.0 jumpdrives, nor will it recognize my Sandisk memory card reader. Has anyone got a listing of what drives it will support? I haven't tried an external USB 2.0 HDD yet but hopefully later this week. The loader is also the flimsiest I have ever seen, much worse than the Philips 642 and hard to get the discs out of the drive (you can't pick the disc up by it's edges, only from the center hole). After using the hack for the region, you can see that the player has a 16 bit OS and 32 Meg of RAM. The region hack took less than 10 seconds to implement. It's also a lot faster than my old Apex AD-1500 which it is replacing (though not as sturdily built) both on disc loading and access. It also has the "audio" button which is used to select the correct audio codec especially useful when playing raw mpeg files. I was unable to open the divx test disc I downloaded other than the read the mp3 and wma audio files so I can't check the maximum bitrates for avi playback. One good thing is that it doesn't lock up on fast forward or reverse as the Apex would do on anything over 4X FF or 2X FF reverse. I did play a Region 2 Japanese disc as well as some PAL SVCDs and they work great, right down to the correct aspect ratio on widescreen content played on an NTSC TV. So far at least it's not bad for a cheap player. It would be nicer if i could hook it up to a good progressive scan TV monitor as well as a good sound system so I could check out those aspects but they are unavailable at this time.