MY dvd recorder was about to explode! I think...

[Sudden Impact]

This was crazy. I played a movie, then stopped it, and I went on my computer. All of a sudden, my dvd recorder sounded like it was explode, how does that happen. I had it since october. It sounded like a lawnmower...

Anyway, I pulled the plug out of the DVD recorder.

[guns1inger]

It is a physical machine. Parts break. Sh*t happens.

Was the disc seated properly in the tray ?
Have you turned it back on to see if it still works ?

[jagabo]

It sounds like a severe balance problem. Possibly the DVD shattered while playing.

Try plugging the player in, then press the eject button to turn it on and eject the disk. This way the player should eject the disk before spinning it up.

Don't use the power button to turn it on. If you do the player will start spinning the disk in order to play it.

[oldandinthe way]

If your recorder has a manual eject (usually a little hole in the drawer) - a paper clip in the hole to eject the disk. You can do this with the unit unplugged.

[jman98]

While I seriously doubt that it was really and truly going to explode, manufacturers use cheaper and lower quality components to keep prices low. Your recorder may be going bad already. Quality control by some companies and on some models may be low. I've known of various models that have frequent problems and may be unusable within a month or even days of purchase. About 5 or so years ago, Apex made a 3 disc DVD changer that I honestly think was shipped to stores with most units being defective, based on personal experience with this unit and things I read at the time in an Apex forum. Apex also made an infamous SACD/DVD-Audio combo player that shipped defective as in every single unit was defective. Every one. They ended up having to recall it under embarassment as none of the units worked totally as they were supposed to. I remember at the time that the forums were shocked that they shipped something so defective and apparently they just gambled that they could fix the problems later with firmware upgrades, but they were wrong. There were serious design flaws that showed that their whole concept was unworkable and they obviously hadn't done their testing in the QA labs prior to shipping the unit.

You might have some kind of warranty on the player, but I'll warn you that if you have to pay any of the repair costs, it may be cheaper to just throw it away and buy a new one. DVD players are so cheap these days that any purchase from a major manufacturer is going to be a crap shoot. My Philips DVP-642, for example, is over 2 years old and it still works fine, but I have read about people who had to replace theirs after 1 or 2 months.

One bit of advice I have is that as manufacturers have moved to thinner designs, this is actually worse for the life of the player. The players today are usually so thin that they can't be properly cooled and many players overheat. The only way to deal with this is to make sure that your player has plenty of ventilation. If you have a very thin recorder and it has stuff stacked all around it, you better find a way to get open space for it or you will constantly have to buy new DVD players/recorders because of overheating. This happened to my brother and I've read about it happening to others.

[Sudden Impact]

thanks jman, i have a very thin dvd recorder, it is a lite on and they bragged on the box about how small it is...

The machine really went crazy on me, and I pulled out the plug. After letting it cool down, I plugged it back in and took out the dvd, which was fine...But an odd expierence never the less..