OK everybody,
I told you I'd update you when I got my 7000es back from repair.
To recap, I called and set up the shipment, shipped it off (cost $45 to ship it, but was the only/entire cost to me even though I had a refurbished/b-stock that technically only had a 90 day warranty which has long passed) and literally two business days after they received it, it was fixed and on its way back to me.
This was an amazing turn-around time. Three business days shipping, via UPS Ground from OH to TX. Two days for diagnosis/repair. Three days back to me (they shipped FedEx Ground) from TX to OH.
I wish I would've sent it back a long time ago!
I put a note (taped to the top of the unit) detailing three problems. I went in to a lot of detail on these a page or so back, so I won't repeat here, but a quick recap of the problems, in the order in which I noted them are:
1. Invalid Disc - Will not play any Blu-Ray at all now and doesn't even seem to try any more. Still plays DVD/CD without issue though.
2. Scratches my discs. Take brand new Blu-Rays directly from new/just opened package, place carefully in player, and when removing them, notice several "buff marks" and a long vertical scratch in about the same place on each disc.
3. This doesn't happen often, but does happen, when selecting a new disc, from discs previously loaded in the player, sometimes the mechanism that places the current disc (the one last played) back in its slot will miss and jam trying to place it in the slot directly preceding or proceeding the proper slot. This jams up the player, sometimes makes the door hard to open/respond, and always creates more scratches and an awful sound like gears grinding. This happens maybe once a month, not more, maybe less, but shouldn't happen at all.
The invoice I got back with the unit (anywhere a charge/dollar amount would appear, it simply said N/A) only noted that the "Optical Drive" was replaced, with the same model number/part number previously referenced by Krichter1 and myself.
There was no mention of them even trying to do anything about issue numbers 2 and 3. I'm not saying they didn't do anything, just that the only part that was replaced was the optical drive. It's too soon to tell if the other two issues were addressed/fixed as I've only had it back about 24 hours.
After reading that Krichter sent his original box and got back a generic box, I also put, in big bold letters, on the note attached/taped directly to the unit, that I preferred my original box back due to resale value.
Unfortunately, they did NOT send my box back, rather a simple, generic, brown box. (NOT Double Boxed BTW) with some green bubble wrap laying under, on top, and around all four sides, but not "wrapped around" the player (I wrapped bubble wrap around the player first, on all 6 sides, when sending it to them, in addition to placing bubble wrap on top, underneath, and in between the box and all four sides, to be safe.)
As soon as I unboxed the unit, I hooked it back up in the rack and immediately put in the first disc, which happened to be near the player and also just happened to be the first disc I ever experienced the Invalid Disc issue with. Jeff Beck - Live at Ronnie Scott's. Weird coincidence, eh? (All other discs were put back in their cases and stored on bookshelves in another room and somehow this disc was on the rack in the spot the 7000es normally occupied, along with a few other misc data dvd's and audio cd's!)
I wanted to listen to the unit (it's in a different room than my dedicated HT) as I learned the different noises the 7000es made when it was having problems and could tell if it was going to work or not without having to turn the projector on. (I used it for Blu-Ray audio a lot, and didn't want to have the noise from the projector fan, so this is actually quite common).
It didn't load the disc though, so I went back into the HT, turned on the projector, and noticed all the settings were gone and it brought up the first time setup wizard like it did when I purchased it for the first time, so they must've flashed it or something to get it to think it was being hooked up for the first time ever.
After I went through the setup wizard I was taken to the screen that said, "Unkown Discs" (1) - I crossed my fingers and selected Load Disc.
After about 20 seconds, Jeff Beck started playing!!!!!! I was so very happy!!!
I immediately stopped it and added about 5 more discs, all Blu-Ray concerts.
I loaded them, individually, one by one, instead of selecting Load All Discs, so I could choose the order and go back and forth and load a few different discs several times before actually/physically adding an additional one and didn't have any issues at all.
It worked perfectly.
Then last night.... I put in the first new Blu-Ray I've purchased in awhile, which just came out Tuesday. Sherlock Holmes 2. Here's what happened...
I put the disc in, went back into the HT, and it said, "Loading Disc." Now, when the Invalid Disc issue FIRST started happening, it would stay on this screen for a few minutes, trying and trying to load it, then eventually saying, Invalid Disc." (As the problem got worse with more and more discs not loading and finally, NO Blu-Ray's loading, the amount of time it "tried" to load the disc Decreased severely to the point that after less than five seconds of displaying, "Loading Disc" it said, "Invalid Disc.").
This message, "Loading Disc" lasted for what seemed an eternity. After about 10 minutes, I realized it was hung up. It never said Invalid Disc or did anything else, it just continually displayed, "Loading Disc." I have never had this happen before, and needless to say, it really concerned me.
The 7000e wouldn't respond to any remote commands so I physically had to go to the equipment room and press the power button. It turned off. I waited a few minutes. Turned it back on.
I then went back to the HT and decided I would load a few discs that worked a few hours earlier, to make sure they still worked. Indeed they did. (BTW, Loading times SEEM a bit faster than before. Has anyone else who has had the optical drive replaced noticed this??) Every disc (all five of them currently loaded) worked fine.
I thought to myself, that maybe, since Sherlock Holmes 2 just came out three days before and there hasn't been a firmware update in a little over a year, that it was possibly just an isolated incident. I decided to try it one more time and see if the same thing happened...
It loaded fine this time, just like the other discs, and we watched the movie. There were no issues, no stuttering during playback (this happened a lot near the end, even if the disc did finally load, a lot of times I couldn't play it all the way through without the player acting like there was a badly scratched disc or something), and it worked flawlessly.
Needless to say, I've only had it back a little over 24 hours and there is only so much testing that can be done in that amount of time, but after the movie, and after everyone else went to bed, I did play a few more discs, and had no issues.
So.... Maybe/hopefully I had a one time lockup (which, again, never resulted in an Invalid Disc message and I don't believe it ever would've. I believe if I would've left it alone, it would now, 24 hours later, still say, "Loading Disc.") and hopefully I won't have any more problems.
The torture test will be when I load about 250-300 Blu-Rays in the machine and do a full, "Load All Discs" while MyMovies is open, to get them all back in the MyMovies database (as I didn't take note of which disc was in which slot, but since MyMovies loads them automatically, it's no big deal, as either way, I'd have to load all the discs back in.)
I plan on doing this in the next few days... My sister is in from out of town, Father's Day is tomorrow, etc. So check back in a few days and I'll post as soon as it has to load several hundred Blu-Rays in a row, over a several hour span.
If it passes that test 100% I will feel more confident that I won't have the problem any more. If I hadn't have had the problem with Sherlock Holmes 2 last night, I'd be that confident now, as even though I haven't loaded that many "different" discs and haven't had the player back that long, the problem was so bad before it is extremely obvious that it has been repaired since I haven't seen the Invalid Disc error even once.
Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to be very explicit in the details as this is the information I always want to know when I'm reading about other people's journey's in A/V hardware, troubleshooting, and repair/replacement.
Thanks again to Kevin, ddingle, and everyone else that tested the waters, so to speak, and reported on the fix. As you all know, there is no other product like this, and a computer server is just way too expensive, high maintenance, and isn't ready for mainstream yet, so this is truly an important product, especially for people with dedicated theaters and equipment in another room or even another floor in the house, who have a large Blu-Ray collection and don't want to have the hassle of inserting (and keeping track of) one disc at a time.
Since I've had this device, I've both purchased and watched and TON more Blu-Rays than I used to...I don't know if that's a good thing or not, lol, but it is the truth and I have grown attached to and accustomed to my 7000es!
Good luck to everyone else, and PLEASE share your stories with us, too!
--J
