02-28-2004, 02:26 AM
Quote:Originally posted by Sheky
Ok, this is a dumb ass question but I have to ask. What gives some DVD player the ability to play some disks but not other players? Is it the driver? Lens or what?
This is not a dumb question at all. For one, dvd-roms/players are very picky. The DVD format has been plagued with problems from the very beginning. Most of the time the problem is as simple as a dirty lens that needs cleaned (those self cleaning dvd/cds work great), or maybe smudges/scratches on the disc surface itself.
Other times, the dvd-reader's hardware finds the disc unreadable, this could be due to the fact that the disc was made with an unrecognizable dye or format incompatible with your dvd player. Lately there has been incompatiblity with burnable mediums, such as DVD-R/W and DVD+R/W.
In serious cases where DVDs of all kind are completely unreadable, this is most likely caused by a malfunction of the lens or rotation of the disc. This leads me to believe it is motor malfunction (especially if the player still plays the CD format, yet not DVD (...yes, I have a player that does this)).
There are some things that trouble me, such as DVDs where certain episodes don't play on one player, but play on another, etc.
Depending at how you look at it, these problems can be blamed on the disc itself, or the players. In some cases some people find imports (and even name brand DVDs) to be pressed poorly in the factory. DVD player companies have tried hard to keep hardware and formats inconsistant in my opinion, with some players only reading DVDs (of a certain region mind you... we can thank the MPAA for that one) and audio cds. Leaving out burnable media (CD-r/rw; DVD-r/rw) all together (my friend has a player like this... haha sucker).
Some DVD players will read: CD-R/RW; DVD-R/RW;(CD/DVD/VCD/S-VCD/X-VCD/XVID/DIVX/JPG/MP3/WMA) not to mention other off the wall less common formats if you are lucky.
The best piece of information I can give you would be to go to:
http://www.dvdrhelp.com/ and look at different players and what formats they read and work with best. Other than that, there's an ocean of dvd media/readers out there, some good, some bad, some horrible.