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Flakey Panasonic DVD Player - DVDA120

post #1 of 4
4/8/10 at 8:25am
Thread Starter 
My trusty Panasonic DVD A120 player I have been using now for maybe
9 years is misbehaving. Hoping maybe someone here can enlighten me if there is a fix or is it time to "put it down". Sort of suddenly and now regularly upon inserting a store DVD rental, player is not reading disc. I get the following: "This type of disc cannot be played. Please insert a different disc." For example: went to load movie Men Who Stare At Goats, got the "no play" message. After repeated attempts, opening and closing disc tray, maybe 9-10 times, disc suddenly became readable. Put in store rental, Step Brothers, and it loaded immediately. Tried other DVDs in household that I know have played in past and likewise get the "no play" message. But those DVDs ultimately may play after repeated tries. Ran a CD brush cleaning disc to be sure laser eye was clean. Appears to my limited knowledge to be something else going on here. Any thoughts, suggestions? Are DVDs being manufactured differently where maybe my player doesn't recognize them?


Tim
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post #2 of 4
4/8/10 at 9:00am
Laser lens might need a more thorough cleaning or it's starting to fail. There are walkthroughs online to guide you on cleaning the lens directly, but basically it involves opening the player and (carefully) swabbing the lens with a clean Q-tip and the purest alcohol you can find. If you're not comfortable with that, most places that service DVD players can do it for a fee.

If it's the laser going out, then it needs to be replaced. If the parts are available, most places should do it, but you're probably looking at the cost of a brand new DVD player (or even some cheaper Blu-Ray players.)

It's probably not the DVDs. My friend has my old Panasonic player from 2001 and it still plays any commercial DVD, new or old.
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post #3 of 4
4/8/10 at 4:12pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tulpa View Post

Laser lens might need a more thorough cleaning or it's starting to fail. There are walkthroughs online to guide you on cleaning the lens directly, but basically it involves opening the player and (carefully) swabbing the lens with a clean Q-tip and the purest alcohol you can find. If you're not comfortable with that, most places that service DVD players can do it for a fee.

If it's the laser going out, then it needs to be replaced. If the parts are available, most places should do it, but you're probably looking at the cost of a brand new DVD player (or even some cheaper Blu-Ray players.)

It's probably not the DVDs. My friend has my old Panasonic player from 2001 and it still plays any commercial DVD, new or old.

did the isopropyl alcohol cleaning on lens. No luck. still getting "no play" message. upon observing DVD load process with top off unit. I notice upon power up laser lens emits light for a second then dies out. When dvd is inserted, loads, spins 3-10 revolutions then stops. Thats when I get "no play" message. Does this sound like failing laser?
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post #4 of 4
4/8/10 at 4:41pm
Thread Starter 
while still had DVD player apart I loaded a audio cd and it loads and
appears to be spinning fine/playing fine. Don't have any audio out hooked
up to actually hear playback. Can the laser not play a DVD but play a CD?
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