Philips DVD 825, only plays gold-colored DVDs

[pdxsteve]

Yeah, I have an older Philips DVD 825. Recently, it has been refusing to play any silver/white colored DVDs. It will only play gold-colored discs. If I put anything but a gold disc in, it just attempts to read it a few times, and then ejects with an error message. Any ideas what I should look into to fix it? I've already run one of those lens cleaning discs thru it, to no avail. Thanks for any ideas you might have!!!!

[pdxsteve]

As an aside, just last night I updated the firmware in the 825 from 8.00 to 9.25, just on a lark. The upgrade went smoothly, no problems, everything still works... but I still can only play gold colored DVDs. :evil: I'm starting to think it must be some type of hardware problem! lol
Do players use different lasers depending on the color of the DVD inserted? I know they use separate lasers to play music CDs... HELP!

[Anonymous65]

Yes, older players have weaker lasers, and are calibrated for the store bought pressed DVD's. Newer DVD players have much stronger lasers, and have higher gain so they can read DVD's that have different reflective properties.

[pdxsteve]

Hey, thanks for replying, I appreciate it. The weird thing about my problem, though, is that my Philips 825 USED to be able to play anything that I threw at it.. gold dvds, silver/white dvds, cdrs, cdrws, etc... now it refuses to play anything but a gold dvd or cd. I guess the best advice would be "Get your butt to the store and buy a new dvd player, you idiot!!"