Toshiba DVD player acting up?

[Guy]

My $50 Toshiba SD-3960 DVD player is acting up. I've had it for about
18 months. While playing a movie the other night, the video broke down
into ever increasing-in-size squares, then the image froze. It stayed
that way for a few minutes. I was unable to stop or fast-forward.
Pressing the forward chapter button worked. I then rewound from that
point and it again soon froze up.

Thinking the problem was with the media, I tried it on my laptop from
that chapter; it played fine. I even played the movie from the
beginning and it played fine.

The next day, I played the movie on the Toshiba again. It froze at
about the same spot. After about 10 minutes, the image started to
slowly change and then began playing normally. I left it play while I
did other things around the house. I noticed frequent
freezes...sometimes lasting over 15 minutes...but then it played again.

Now I've noticed the problem on a second DVD. It plays fine on my
laptop.

If I didn't know better, I'd think the Toshiba is having trouble
decompressing the data.

Any suggestions? Is it time to ditch the Toshiba?

[Brad Clarke]

On 27 Aug 2005 12:16:38 -0700, "Guy" <newsgroupposter@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>>My $50 Toshiba SD-3960 DVD player is acting up. I've had it for about
>>18 months. While playing a movie the other night, the video broke down
>>into ever increasing-in-size squares, then the image froze. It stayed
>>that way for a few minutes. I was unable to stop or fast-forward.
>>Pressing the forward chapter button worked. I then rewound from that
>>point and it again soon froze up.
>>
>>Thinking the problem was with the media, I tried it on my laptop from
>>that chapter; it played fine. I even played the movie from the
>>beginning and it played fine.
>>
>>The next day, I played the movie on the Toshiba again. It froze at
>>about the same spot. After about 10 minutes, the image started to
>>slowly change and then began playing normally. I left it play while I
>>did other things around the house. I noticed frequent
>>freezes...sometimes lasting over 15 minutes...but then it played again.
>>
>>Now I've noticed the problem on a second DVD. It plays fine on my
>>laptop.
>>
>>If I didn't know better, I'd think the Toshiba is having trouble
>>decompressing the data.
>>
>>Any suggestions? Is it time to ditch the Toshiba?
If the label on the back of your Toshiba says "Made In Thailand", toss
it and get a DVD player by a manufacturer other than Toshiba (Toshiba
has been outsourcing a lot of their products to Orion).

[John Jones]

On 27 Aug 2005 12:16:38 -0700, "Guy" <newsgroupposter@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>My $50 Toshiba SD-3960 DVD player is acting up. I've had it for about
>18 months. While playing a movie the other night, the video broke down
>into ever increasing-in-size squares, then the image froze.

Similar to what my Toshiba was doing. I bought a DVD cleaning disk
from Radio Shack and ran it last Sunday, then played a disk from
Netflix. It ran flawlessly.

John Jones, Detroit

[Guy]

Thanks, John. I'm not sure how a cleaning disk would help. I mean, it
seems to have the same problem every time it reaches certain
content--which makes me suspect it's just having trouble with the
decompression. The DVD itself *looks* fine. The problem sections play
fine on my laptop's player.

[John Jones]

On 28 Aug 2005 11:05:24 -0700, "Guy" <newsgroupposter@hotmail.com>
wrote:

>Thanks, John. I'm not sure how a cleaning disk would help.

I wasn't sure it would help in my case, either, but it seemed worth a
shot, as opposed to scrapping the player and buying another one.

John Jones, Detroit