Arfa Daily wrote:
"jakdedert" wrote in message
...
Arfa Daily wrote:
snip
OK. The fact that it plays a CD ok, in general rules out mechanical
problems such as sticking sled mech, dirty laser, and generally
spindle motor, as any probs here usually show up even worse on a
slower rotating CD. On the other hand, playing a CD ok, but not a
DVD, is usually a sure pointer to the laser itself. Bear in mind
that there are usually two different wavelength lasers in the same
optical block. It is a near infra red for CD, and a shorter
wavelength visible red for DVD. A further pointer is if it
struggles with home burn discs over factory pressed ones, as the
reflectivity of home burns is lower, so any lack of laser
performance is further exacerbated by this type of disc. A final
test that you might try, if it seems to read factory pressed
commercial titles ok, is playing a film beyond an hour or so. After
this time, the laser will have reached the edge of the disc, and be
working its way back on layer 2. This layer is harder for the laser
to read, as it is reading through the first layer, which is semi
transparent. If you start getting skips or freezes after this time,
or you see the layer change take a couple of seconds to happen,
this is also a good pointer to a worn laser. If the player can read
all disc formats, you might try +R or +RW, or even just a different
brand. The ones that I use come from a local supermarket and are
real cheap 'own brands', but work in just about every player /
recorder that I get in for repair. Just in case, I take it that you
have cleaned the laser's lens anyway ? If the player had not had a
lot of use, it's just possible that the lens may be a little filmy,
particularly if it lives with smokers. I have known such a film to
affect the performance on CD and DVD play differently.
One thing to add to your otherwise informative post (I learned a
couple of things there, myself), is that most early (otherwise
excellent) DVD players did not--and never made any claim to be able
to--read burned CDs. That capability only got common a few years
after DVD players became a little more common. Most would/will play
burned DVDs, however. jak


Valid point Jak, and one well worth adding

Arfa

Another point is that most all DVD players made the past several years
actually have two laser diodes, one for CD and another for DVD. A red-laser
only type cannot read ordinary CD-R's, since the dyes used are essentially
invisible to that particular IR wavelength. This is why early Sony DVD
players (360, 560, etc)will play actually CD-RW but not CD-R.
It is entirely possible, even likely that it is still the laser pickup bad
on this Toshiba. They are notorious for this in fact - crappy laser pickups
and bad spindle motors.

Mark Z.