Do I need to replace by Bluray player?

[rob_981]

My blu ray player (Sony BDP-S350) was struggling to play Lord of the Rings 3 last night. The firmware is up to date, but about 45 minutes in, it started skipping, and eventually stopped altogether. It wouldn't respond to pressing any buttons, even the power button on the player itself. I had to remove the power cable and restart it. It worked fine for a few minutes, but then started skipping again (at a slightly different place, so I don't think it's the disc).

Is the blu ray player knackered, or might it be something else? Does it just need cleaned or something? I don't know how the technology actually works, but is LOTR 3 just a more difficult disc to play, given it's so long?

Thanks

 

[nads]

played all 3 LOTR discs over the Weekend on my old Panna. BD35 with no problems.

so I would say player or disc have issues.

 

[roger06]

Get the 370 - £89.99 at the mo. Fantastic player, you won't regret it. I started off with the 550 and the 370 blew it away in every respect...

 

[professorhat]

rob_981:Is the blu ray player knackered, or might it be something else? Does it just need cleaned or something? I don't know how the technology actually works, but is LOTR 3 just a more difficult disc to play, given it's so long?

It's not going to be because of the length of the film. If the player works fine for other discs, I'd say it must be an issue with that particular disc. Give it a clean and, if that doesn't work, get a replacement disc and try that.

 

[rob_981]

Thanks all for your help. Roger06, that's exactly what I was thinking of doing - getting the S370 from Richer Sounds if they have it in stock.

But if it is the disc, then maybe I don't need to. But the player wouldn't even recognise the disc when I first tried playing it a few days ago, so I updated the firmware, and it worked fine, until it started skipping. The problem is, my parents got me the boxset from Tesco for Christmas, and I don't have the receipt, so not sure if they'd believe I got it from there if I tried to change it. May need to buy the film again.

 

[Lee H]

Blockbuster (or somewhere like that) to rent another copy and establish it's the disc. If it is, take it back to Tesco. The lack of receipt shouldn't be a problem as all you want is a like-for-like exchange rather than a refund or change of product.

 

[professorhat]

Any friends with Blu-ray players? If so, take the disc round theirs and see how it performs on their machine. I'm not ruling the player out completely, but I'd say it's more likely to be the disc if it's now started to play after the firmware update. However, some players are fussier than others when it comes to playback e.g. my old high end Denon DVD player would sometimes refuse to play certain DVDs, skipping etc. but I'd find they worked fine on another cheap player.

 

[rob_981]

Many thanks to professorhat. It was indeed the disc. Took a chance last night and bought the film on its own and tried that. Worked perfectly. So now I'm left with a broken disc, which is annoying. As I expected, Tesco wouldn't exchange it without the receipt, as I could've got it from anywhere.

As much as I did want to get the S370 (and I really did), I can't really afford £90 at the moment (it is still just after Christmas after all), so this was a good result. And the film was excellent on BD.