High end DVD player ate & destroyed my disk!!!

clearvu wrote on 6/14/2003, 7:29 AM
I have a Pioneer Elite platter style player. I just took it in for repair and to everyone's surprise, discovered that inside of it was one of my burned disks split in two with pieces chewed up everywhere.

The fault seems to lie with the HP disk. It somehow came unglued, divided itself in two and then, I guess, flew around within the player. Unfortunately I don't have a backup, so my precious video memory is gone.

I have heard of this happening before, but, never would have thought this would happen to me.

I'm waiting for a call from HP to see what, if anything, they will do about it.

I've also noticed some thread about labels on disk that may cause problems, but this one have NO lable whatsoever.

How common a problem is this? Should we be making copies of every disk we burn? Thought DVD was supposed to be a safe and permanent solution verses degrading tapes.


Frustrated

Comments

seeker wrote on 6/14/2003, 9:45 AM
Clearvu,

"How common a problem is this?"

Yipes! As far as I know, you are the first. I guess I won't be buying any HP discs anytime soon.

In the early days of LaserDiscs, back when they were being touted as permanent etched-in-metal solutions, there was some problem with de-lamination, but they apparently corrected a manufacturing problem that was responsible for that.

Did you or your repair service happen to photograph the situation inside your Pioneer Elite platter style player? Incidentally, what is a "platter style" player? What other kinds are there?

Let us know what you hear back from HP about this. This is bizarre.

-- Seeker --
BillyBoy wrote on 6/14/2003, 3:28 PM
I could be remembering wrong, but I think someone did mention they had the same problem either in this fourm or the DVD-A one. If not those I read it in some forum or web site. Anyhow a DVD disc spins at a much higher RPM than a CD, so while very rare, what happened to you can happen.

I would assume if a disc broke up like this is would have had to make a lot of LOUD noises. Nobody noticed?

As far as losing your disc, sorry YOUR fault! Always make backups of anything you don't want to risk losing. I make three sets of EVERYTHING I don't want to lose

1. burned to a DVD
2. copied to DV tape
3. copied to removable hard drive, stored off site.

A bit extreme, yes, but I don't lose anything. Better safe than sorry.
clearvu wrote on 6/14/2003, 5:52 PM
"Platter style"

This is a simple 5 disk type player.

As for a "picture". No. We just simply removed the pieces that we could. I have them in order to forward them if necessary to HP for proof.

Brian
clearvu wrote on 6/14/2003, 5:56 PM
<<I would assume if a disc broke up like this is would have had to make a lot of LOUD noises. Nobody noticed? >>


Well let me put it to you this way. the carousel was open and my wife simply pushed the open/close button. In view of this the unit was still running without her knowledge. If could have happened while she was in the room or not. If there WAS a noise, she might not have thought much of it. She's not exactly into technical gizmos, if you know what I mean.

BillyBoy wrote on 6/14/2003, 10:14 PM
Just my attempt at humor... I would think it would make goofy sounds like when a vacuum cleaner picks up a coin or something. Who knows, maybe your DVD player was just hungry. I've broken a few 'coaster' CD's in my time, by deliberately breaking them in two... or ten. Great release...