Has you ever had this happen?

[Mr Peabody]

I have a rented DVD that played fine on my Denon 1600, it played fine on a $30.00 no name player in my kids room, but it would not play on my LG. The LG is the only one of the group that has HDMI or upsampling, I wonder if that might have been the reason. I can't remember the LG's model but it's supposed to play just about everything under the sun. So I ruled out a Region code problem. The Denon is the older of the group. It wouldn't play a bootleg disc a friend brought over but that $30.00 player would. I thought that may have been because those cheap players use computer DVD drives, or it could have been the Denon's age.

Any ideas or similar experience?

[StanleyMuso]

could never play DVD-Rs successfuly, even when new. It would play about one third or halfway into a movie and jam. My new Panasonic plays everything without a glitch. I believe Denon and Marantz belong to the same stable, so perhaps its due to the chips they were using. Also, I suspect newer machines have different decoding chips and handle multiple formats more successfully, and can better compensate for coding errors on the disks.

[Woochifer]

Yup. My parents have a cheap RJTech DVD player, and it indeed handles certain discs that my Denon and Toshiba players have trouble playing. But, the picture quality on the discs that both players can handle is indeed better on the Denon. Also, the DVD drive on my laptop also seems to fare better with damaged discs in particular.

[Dusty Chalk]

The new LG does not have a CD laser -- perhaps it's a Video CD?

[Woochifer]

The new LG does not have a CD laser -- perhaps it's a Video CD?

A VCD should be able to use the same transport as an audio CD, but not all DVD players will decode the video signal from a VCD. I have read though that some of the Blu-ray (and HD-DVD?) players will not play CDs (either audio or video).

[N. Abstentia]

This is why I:

A) Have multiple DVD players
B) Hate Denon equipment

[Mr Peabody]

Please re-read my post. The Denon did fine.

Now,new pieces to the puzzle. The first movie was Open Season, I also had Talladega Nights, both rented from Hollywood video, neither would play on the LG through HDMI into a Sony tube HDTV. So I hooked up a JVC DVD recorder just to see what would happen. I hooked it up using composite video into the same TV. To my surprise, the same problem, now I wonder if it's something with the TV. Since, so far, I've only had trouble with these two rentals, I wonder if there is some copy guard incompatibility. I really doubt if the kids behind the counter at Hollywood have any idea. This is very strange.

[N. Abstentia]

Please re-read my post. The Denon did fine.

Ahh..well I still hate Denon DVD players

[Mr Peabody]

OK, why do you hate Denon DVD players? I've only had one and it's been great. I like the Sony's I've had better for picture quality. But I have had problems with recent Sony gear purchased and I don't think I will buy Sony again.

[Luvin Da Blues]

and Dodge is better than Ford? What about Chevy?

every manufacturer has good, bad and better products but Denon has a consistently good prod. line. Unless your buying High End equipment you can't beat a Denon or Yammy

[N. Abstentia]

OK, why do you hate Denon DVD players? I've only had one and it's been great. I like the Sony's I've had better for picture quality. But I have had problems with recent Sony gear purchased and I don't think I will buy Sony again.

I'm not a fan of Sony either, but I do like my 300 disc player.

But most of my friends have owned Denon equipment becuase they thought it was high end (I tried to steer them away!) and it has all failed..especially the DVD players, which cost around $500. Meanwhile the $120 Panasonic I bought at the same time has been handed down and is still going strong!

[Woochifer]

One more thing. If you get a lot of disc read errors, it doesn't hurt to pop in a lens cleaning disc once in a while. I tried this with my Denon and it worked quite well.

[minye]

I think the cheap DVD players target the market point of compatibility. They may read all discs and decord all formats. For scratched discs, they may be able to play on by skipping the error data or other mechanics. Those features don't cost much compared to the quality oriented DVD.

I have an old Denon DVD 5000 which was called a "HiFi DVD player". It is as heavy as a power amp. But it is a little picky to the discs and doesn't read DVD-R since it was built at the time when there was no burned DVD. Newer Denon DVD playerer x910s should have no problem. But they are expensive. I think Denon's DVD players relatively have the highest price compared to other Denon's AV products. So they are supposed to be good...

I mainly use my Pioneer Elite DVD player as DVD/CD transport. It is also solid quality one and reads most discs. I don't know how much better the new Denon x910s are than the Elites. But I believe when used as a transport, Elite has better value. Sometime I still think about using the old DVD5000 as a decorder for better picture( not tried yet) or HDCD decording, but it is too heavy and my audio rack has no more place for the stuff heavy like that.

A bedroom Samsung DVD player ($99 five years ago) will do the left work that can't be finished in the living room.

Another question I have about DVD player is that OPPO brand. It has some award winning models. I wonder if it is really good besides its list price. Anyone here has tried that?