[DCTampa]

My Sony 9000ES seems to have developed a problem that you folks may be able to diagnose. It's approximately 8 months old and I use it primarily for music but occaisionally DVDs. It worked perfectly until 2 months ago when blue and white speckles started appearing in some DVDs. Searching various internet forums, I believe this phenomenon is called "snow" but I'm not sure. The speckles seem to be most pronounced for the first 20-30 minutes of a movie and then discontinue. There is no problem with the sound or sound from analog outputs for CDs or SACDs. DVDs which used to work fine now have the speckles. Sometimes I'll switch disks and the second disk will have speckles and sometimes not. FYI, I'm using progressive output through menu selection. Any help or thoughts would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks in advance from a new member.

 

[SilverSonic]

Is it pixelation you are seeing? You might try cleaning the laser lens (alittle involved on the 9000ES) or since you have a five year warranty, send it in for repair.

 

[DCTampa]

Thanks for your reply, Siversonic.


I found the following defintion of pixelation on HT Forum:


"Pixelation appears as colorful blocks that randomly pop up all over the picture causing drop outs in both the picture and sound, and on occasion can cause your player to freeze up."


This does not sound like the problem I'm experiencing. What I see is small white and blue flecks that seem to cover the whole screen. What is really strange is that after 30mins or so of playing a movie, if I return to the earlier chapters where this occurred, it will play normally. And there are no problems with sound while the picture otherwise looks perfect. The speckles can occur on brand new discs, rentals and discs in my collections. Also, I have changed discs at the time speckles are appearing and sometimes the second disk plays perfectly and sometimes without speckles.


Unforutnately, I no longer have a warranty on the 9000ES as I've had it modded by Audience to upgrade the sound. It serves as a phenomenal CD and SACD player post-mods, but no warranty.

 

[DCTampa]

Hasn't anyone else seen this type of problem with a DVD player? FWIW, the last movie I played didn't have the flecks, which is the first time in 2 months they did not appear.

 

[RJ28462]

Are you talking about for 30 minits after the unit has been powered on or if the unit has been powered on and running for several hours and then each movie has the same result. If the prior case, then it sound's temperature related, but in either case if you can't clean it and swap out the cables then sounds like a warrantee call may be due.

 

[DCTampa]

Well, total confusion is appropriate at this point. I played another movie last night and had no flecks again. Perhaps it has "fixed itself" somehow as every movie I've played for the last two months prior to these last two had the flecks. Your suspicion about temperature is the best diagnosis I can come up with too. The 9000ES has two lasers and the DVD/SACD laser is always cold (unused) when the flecks occur. I usually leave the machine on and frequenlty play CDs prior to movies so the chasis stays warmed up most of the time. If the problem persists, I'll post a picture of the flecks so everyone can share in my joy.

 

[otzdig]

Is it only with DVDs? Maybe it's the tv's picture tube itself warming up. They take about a half hour to reach optimal temperature if I'm not mistaken.


Or has the TV already been on a while when you start the DVD?


Mike

 

[DCTampa]

Mike,

The TV is almost always warm when I play DVDs. I haven't played one since my last post so I don't know if the flecks are present at the moment or not. The exact same setup worked without any flaw for 6 months before the flecks/speckles/snow/really annoying imperfections started showing up.

Doug