It has been fairly solid for the past year.

I basically use it like a vcr and leave a dvd-ram disc in all the time.

Last night I started getting: cannot read. please check the disc.

I have 5 dvd-ram discs, same story on all of them.

I popped in a dvd-r, no problem.

Today I bought a new pack of 5 dvd-rams, same story, cannot read.

Seems odd it can read dvd-r but not dvd-ram.

Ideas?

tia

I did not originate this. Wash the DVD-RAM discs in warm soapy water and carefully dry them with a soft lint free towel or rag. Try it with 2 -3 and see what happens. I have had a Panny ES10K "suddenly" refuse to read a disc I had been using for years, and then refuse to read a brand new one fresh out of the pack. When I washed them per suggestion of someone here on this board, it would again read all my DVD-RAM discs. Not kidding.

Wow, seems odd but will give it a try.

Sounds right for a disc with "Random" in its name! :D

Seriously, just a VWAG, but maybe there was a surge or sag in the power while it was recording, which might have corrupted the RAM instructions in the read/write strategy, but the -R portion of the FW is still OK???

Try washing first, as suggested, then maybe a reboot...or might require a FW reload?

Thx but the warm soap wash did not work.

Yep, dvd-r is just fine, will read, record, erase dvd-r, but it chokes on dvd-ram, that's what's got me scratching my head.

Put in a commercial disc (the Matrix), fired right up.

Put in another dvd-r disc, no problem.

Put in a new dvd-ram disc, will not read it.

Opened the case and cleaned the laser. Nothing came off it, seemed very clean.

Turned it back on, same results. Everything EXCEPT dvd-ram discs work fine.

Read my thread on a similar problem:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=838859

Mine would playback everything except DVD-V's. The RAM reboot did the trick. I've also heard to try powercycling it first (not just turning it off but unplugging it for a while).
I don't know if the RAM reset key combo is the same for your ES20, but I bet someone on this forum knows!

Thx for getting back to me.

(unit off, hold down "skip rev" + "time slip" + "open/close" for 5 seconds)

skip rev and time slip are not buttons that are on the unit

I did try with the remote but it did nothing which is what I thought

update

dvd-ram - cannot read

commercial dvd - works fine

philips dvd-r - works fine

just bought a pack of sony dvd-rw - cannot read

I'm stumped

Isn't there a option to format a DVD-Ram? Have you tried reformating one of your discs.?

Yeah there is but....can't get there because it won't read the disc :(

Well I found a reset sequence

On the unit, press channel up and channel down and the same time, hold for about 10 seconds.

Doing this caused it to ask for the language, do a channel search and set the time.

However dvd-ram and dvd-rw still cannot read while commercial dvd and dvd-r work fine.