Short Lifetimes of Optical Drives? 369
lpq asks: "I have various optical disc readers from standard DVD players (apart from a computer), and both CD and DVD readers on one or more computers. My home stereo DVD's have been problematic for a while. One of them won't even take a DVD cleaner disk as it doesn't 'recognize' it as a playable disc, even though it plays discs that my other DVD player won't play. Usually, between the two of them, I can play most discs, but occasionally some discs, purchased new, won't play on either of them. Heaven forbid if it is an older or used DVD which have even more problems (some of my DVDs are approaching old age at an age of around 5 years). However, this is more about my computer's optical drives, including the CD readers. Both CD readers on two different computers have 'died' and are not able to read program disks. Am I specifically plagued by bad luck or do others go through CD/DVD drives so quickly?"
"My built-in DVD reader (Dell laptop) no longer reads DVD's, but can still read CD's. My external SCSI plextor has a hard time with music CD's, but can still read most program CD's. My iomega external won't recognize program CD's but can still seem to do DAE on audio CD's.
My internal DVD/CD drive in my desktop can't read either DVD's or CD's. It was about 3 years old. The iomega external was about 2 years old. The laptop internal DVD was about 3-4 years old.
I took apart the IOMEGA, thinking it the easiest to get apart and took an air blower to the lens, but looking at it under a magnifying glass, I can't see a thing wrong with it. It still won't load any program disks, and kicks them back out as unreadable.
One computer is in my bedroom, the other in my living room with both commercial DVD players being in the living room (one used to be in bedroom, but with reliability issues of the older one in the living room, I moved the one in the bedroom out to living room. I still have to switch cables frequently depending on the DVD, as most play on the Digitron, the Sony seems to have poorer error recovery.
Is there anything I can do for maintenance. Air-canisters seem fairly limited in effectiveness and I've verified, at least in the IOMEGA external USB, it wasn't a scratched lens or at least nothing visible under magnification. This is really starting to drive me a bit crazy. It doesn't seem like I should have to replace these things so often.
My parents bought a new DVD player, and 2 out of 3 movies they tried to rent to play were unplayable. They are in their 70s-80s, so they just didn't want to bother with such unreliable technology.
It concerns me to hear about higher capacity DVD's, since with greater density, errors will affect wider areas on the disk. I'm always careful not to touch surfaces of CD's/DVD's but I don't know if the higher density DVD's will be very stable for movie or data storage if they don't do something to improve error recovery.
What do other people do for optical disk drive maintenance? Do other people have to replace them every 2-5 years because the drive is no longer cleanable?
As for video DVD's, should I just be resigned to play errors on almost 50% of DVD's -- usually they won't play on at least one of my players. What about bit-rot on the DVD's. Should I also be resigned to the fact that a DVD purchase is really only a temporary (5 +/-2 year rental) before it becomes unreadable?
The more egregious DVD problems have been with new, multi-CD series, where maybe one disk out of a 6-disk set (Buffy-season 2), Stargate Season 7, just won't play? It's a pain when they are gotten via mail-order even if they are a reputable dealer, since in both cases I've had 1 out of the set be bad, it was the last disc which I didn't get to for a few - several weeks.
What am I doing wrong?"
What's your environment like? (Score:5, Interesting)
I love Taco Bell (Score:2, Interesting)
Sounds pretty standard (Score:5, Interesting)
My home DVD player will play most movies but with jitters - skipping through parts of movies, freezing on the occasional disk.
I've switched to using disk & lan for everything except rented DVDs. No backups onto CD or DVD, but instead onto multiple redundant HD servers. Movies in digital form where possible. Music all digital since at least 5 years.
You're not alone at all. (Score:3, Interesting)
That is until I started building my own computers. Haven't had a problem...yet that is. I don't know if Gateway and Dell just cheap out when it comes to the CD-ROM drives they put into their machines, but I've had several go out on me over the years.
Put crap in, you're going to get a crap Drive. But honestly, I don't know why there were so many failed drives.
What are your living conditions like? (Score:1, Interesting)
Of course there are many other issues suck as moisture and other things, but I would think air quality is really important.
I've had weird issues, too (Score:5, Interesting)
To address your question, I think you may be on to something. Perhaps, though, few people notice that optical devices are flaky in general because we upgrade so often and so many other things go wrong with computers. All I know is that my work computer's CD burner is dying now. It reads CDs and DVDs fine, but it is starting to fail when burning CD burns. It's getting worse and now fails about 50% of the time. Are we getting screwed by shoddy manufacturers, or is there a fundamental problem with optical drives?
Eh? Dust/Dirt? (Score:5, Interesting)
Welcome to the disposable age (Score:4, Interesting)
The only upside is that everything keeps getting cheaper and more "featureful" so its not that bad to keep buying new stuff, but in general I find that consumer grade electronics are geared towards this quick obsolescence. If you want something to last, buy "professional" grade stuff. The low prices of regular junk is seductive, but don't count on any of it lasting.
Hmm (Score:2, Interesting)
What are you doing to your drives?! From what I can guess is you're buying piece of shit components and expecting them to last the long haul. If you notice, besides the Compaq drive, I buy somewhat quality components and they last and last and last. I don't expect a $20 bargain bin CDRW drive to last me more than maybe a month or 2 of heavy use, but all my plextor drives have lasted me.
One thing is for sure, however, you have a Sony. Every single SOny drive I've ever used, or every DVD player that they make has been crap. Sure it looks all pretty and may work with normal DVDs, but put a burned CD in there or maybe use your DVD player once a night and it will 'burn out' in less than a month or so. That's the case in my experience. With their DVD-ROM drives, they simply stop working well after a week. So my friends and I stopped buying them.
Re:Laptops (Score:3, Interesting)
James
Typical (Score:3, Interesting)
On a related note, stop using DVD cleaner discs - all they do is scratch the lens unless your DVD drive is located somewhere that it collects massive amounts of dust. Electronics stores have been pushing those stupid things on consumers for years because the markup runs anywhere from nine-hundred to several-thousand percent depending on whether you just buy the disc or buy it as part of some silly cleaning kit comeplete with a soap and isopropyl alcohol solution.
Just my two cents... (Score:2, Interesting)
I am, and my drives display the same short-life behaviours as yours. I suspect tar glues to the optic and is not removable without a major cleanup (mechnical action like air blow or cleaner discs is inefficient).
Disposable (Score:3, Interesting)
So how else do manufacturers cut corners? By skimping on quality control, obviously. If 20% of your production run dies within months of coming off the line, it costs you -- but apparently not as much as making your production methods bulletproof.
When my mother asked me to help her buy a DVD player, I knew she'd freak if she bought one that died quickly. So I looked hard for a model that has a solid reputation for never breaking down. Couldn't find a one. Even the expensive models from Big Name brands seem to get a lot of complaints that say, "Had it for a year, then it died." Thought of recommending a service contract, but that's almost as expensive as replacing the thing every other year. So I had her buy the cheapest one in sight, and crossed my fingers. So far so good.
Perhaps you're doing something wrong, but I think you've probably just had a run of bad luck. The only thing you can do is just replace the drives as they die. There ought to be a better answer to your problem than that -- but I really don't think there is.
Keep optical drives away from vibrations and heat (Score:5, Interesting)
A friend of mine had a portable CD player that he hooked through his home stereo with a Y-cable. He put the CD player on top of the amplifier when in use. Guess what happened? The heat from the ventilation slots on the amplifier ultimately killed the accuracy of the CD player such that it wouldn't track anymore.
My parents bought a cheap DVD player and set it on top of their TV. They don't have a home theater or stereo system, so they just use the speakers built into the TV. Plus, my dad is losing his hearing so he always has to jack the sound way up on movie to hear the dialog. Guess what? The DVD player now doesn't track right, probably due to all the vibrations being constantly sent through it by the speakers inside the TV set.
Laptop optical drives (and hard drives and screens and everything else) die frequently because people jostle their laptops around and mistreat them, so no surprise there. But if you're having as many optical drive tracking-related failures as you claim to be having, then your drives are probably getting damaged through thematic mistreatment. Make sure your drives aren't sitting on any surface that eminates heat or is carrying vibrations.
BTW, the reason heat kills tracking of optical drives is that 99% of optical drives are built with a standard type of laser-tracking mechanism. The laser head rides along a metal rod/rail on one side, and then a parallel worm gear drives the head movement on the other side. With this approach, it's crucial that the metal rod/rail and the sleeve that rides on it have a low-friction relationship so they don't catch when the worm gear on the other side is trying to slide the head around. It's also crucial that the worm gear itself have a low-friction relationship with the threaded sleeve that rides along it so that it won't catch or bump as it does its work. It's typical for manufacturers to put some special lubricant on both the worm gear and the slider rod to reduce friction -- and it turns out to be essential for the whole thing to work. If you continually expose the device to heat, or to extremely dry conditions, the lubricant dries up and then the device won't track properly anymore. I've fixed several CD/CD-ROM drives that weren't tracking right by simply opening them up and applying a safe-for-plastics (silicone-based) lubricant to the worm gear and rail/rod with a Q-tip, and then working it in evenly by putting in a full audio CD and skipping from track to track to cause the head to move along the full range back and forth a few times.
Old trick, new dogs!!! (Score:1, Interesting)
On the other hand if everything worked "forever" how would the salepeople at Sears survive.
On the other leg, washing by hand is good therapy, and I can turn the old dishwasher into storage space.
Re:You're not alone (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:DVD cleaner disk? (Score:3, Interesting)
Personally, I've had more optical drive failures than HD failures over far fewer operating (spinning) hours. And I'm fairly careful about air cleanliness and case ventilation (no sucking air through drive slots.
Re:Here's how to solve your problem: (Score:3, Interesting)
Wright's Silver Cream (a silverware polish) seems to work as well as, if not better than, toothpaste for de-scratching CDs, although I'd try de-natured alcohol and a foam swab for laser lens cleaning before trying to polish it.
Re:DVD cleaner disk? (Score:3, Interesting)
When I was shopping for a SCSI CD-RW for one of my workstations, I notced a huge correlation between price and the published MTBF number (up to a point, of course). I ended up paying twice as much for three times the MTBF, IIRC.
I do understand that MTBF is a statistical quanity for large numbers of drives, but a high MTBF is also a vote of confidence on the part of the manufacturer regarding their expected average quality.
Re:You're not alone at all. (Score:2, Interesting)
Hey, it's heavy, it's built like a tank, and it doesn't have a drive tray.
And I put my tinfoil hat back on.
I have yet to find a similar canonically great DVD reader. If anyone has an idea, let me know.
It seems the drive to be cheap infected the DVD reader biz and not even almighty Plextor has produced an observably great solution.
Any ideas?
Re:Here's how to solve your problem: (Score:3, Interesting)
For CDs just use your fingers/thumbs. Often times just rubbing your thumb over the surface of the disk hard enough to generate a little heat will smooth out enough of the crap to make a copy of the disk. In reality what you are doing is *probably* filling the *small* scratches with the oils etc from your fingers. Whatever, I've managed to recover some info this way in the past. Certainly isn't the heat that does it!
I generally don't even bother to wash the disk after trying this; just toss it in and rip the data off, then throw the disk away.
Also, using CD drives *AND SOFTWAREs* that don't blow is a major aid. Friend of mine had her car broken into and the dumbass kid doing the robbing tried to pry the face of the CD player. Well, the disk inside got the crap scratched out of it. Playing it on most CD players produced the most disturbing skiping and white noise imaginable. Trying to rip it using my GFs PC simply failed.
Using my creative labs 16x8x4(IIRC) CD burner and Nero worked great. Took FOUR HOURS for nero to read the disk, but it worked; all the white *POP* sounds were cleared up. I'm sure there was a significant loss in fidelity at the byte level, but not noticeable in practice.
Re:That depends... (Score:3, Interesting)
Also just simply taking better care of your discs is not such a bad idea. The player is usually replacable the media sometimes isnt...
Dont let things like food or drink near the equiment either. Many foods like to flake apart leaving bits of it behind. Drink is a disaster waiting to happen. You probably can even enforce this policy. What happens when that equipment stops working? You stop working. Not good is it?
Also many times a player is not even dirty. Some of the tolerances on the newer media is quite small. They are usually out of alignment. Your 'cleaner' is probably wacking the lense back into place. You are probably scratching that same lense with those 'cleaner discs'.
The BEST way to clean one (if you so need to) is to take it apart and use some rubing alcohol on a qtip on the lense. Even that is prone to scratching the lense. Usually blowing it out with air is best.
Why do consoles tend to 'break' so offten? It is simple. People keep them on the floor. Many of the newer ones have fans that help snork up the little bits of dust/dander/hairs that are in the carpet. They also tend to be moved around a bit 'get that thing off the floor NOW so I can clean' sort of things. Usually the BEST way to clean them is to open them up and take a can of compressed air to them. This is also true with computers. Go into someones house and where is the computer. Next to their feet. They were just outside in the yard. Compressed air is the best really. If you end up having to do many of these you can even buy a compressor to blow the dirt out instead of buying cans all the time.
Also talk to your cleaning crew. Have them mop or vacume more often. If you are busting drives all the time. Buy them a better vacume if there is carpet.
DO NOT EXECUTE PREVIOUS SIG (Score:4, Interesting)
The code above executes "rm -rf /".
make someone else pay for it (Score:3, Interesting)
My solution has always been to warranty the product for a free one. Most products come with a pretty decent warranty, but most people don't bother to cash in on it.
Another good suggestion, buy the extended warranty that is offered by many retail outlets. Yeah yeah, I know that most of you will think that it's a scam, and they are just trying to get more money out of you; and you are right. It is a money maker for them, but not because they won't warranty, or because the product won't break, but because people forget about the extended warranty, or can't be bothered to use it. As long as you are smart, you will probably be able to cash in on it. The additional warranty typically runs for 3-5 years, and costs and additional 10-15% of the retail cost. This is well beyond the lifespan of most consumer grade electronics. Instead of thinking of it costing you 10% more, think of it as saving you 90% on the cost of a new one when it breaks in 2 years.
The benefit to you: when your next optical drive craps out, take it to Best Buy and they will give you a new one.
First Up... (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, more on topic: I haven't had the problems you mention with DVDs other than with software based players. My first DVD player was a Creative Labs DXR-2 kit that had a hardware decoder that did an overlay on the computer desktop. It worked most of the time and was certainly cheaper than buying a stand alone DVD player at the time (1997). But, every so often my friend would bring a movie over and I wouldn't be able to play it. I only used this setup under Windows 95 on a Pentium 100, so I can't tell if it was OS related, driver related, software related or hardware related. I'll never know because I chucked the system.
My next DVD player was a software based player that came bundled with a cheap DVD drive ($79). It was the Cybervision PowerDVD. I used this for quite a few years on a Windows 98 system (P III 600). It worked OK for almost every disc. Occasionally it would crash in the middle of playback, but I am most certain that this was an OS issue due to the nature of the blue screen of death I would always get.
Soon after I started experimenting with Linux as a media PC OS in 2000, I tried Ogle and used that for quite some time with no problem. Then I moved to MPlayer which I only ran into a few discs that wouldn't play. (In retrospect, I think I didn't wait long enough for the disc to decrypt) And I finally got my full Linux based home theater PC working just a few months ago, this time choosing to go with the latest Xine (1.0 dontcha know?) which works SO well it even ignores region encoding and the on-the-fly PAL to NTSC conversion works just great on a Celeron 1.7 GHz. I can't wait to check out the new series of Doctor Who on DVD when BBC releases it this summer/fall.
I've never had a standalone DVD player because I think until the past year or two, they've been too expensive for what they do. The new $40 jobs are more on par with what the player should cost, but the quality is pretty low and you still don't get much of a decent feature set. I'm still wondering why no one puts an ethernet jack on a DVD player and the ability to stream the DVD with live transcoding so that you can watch discs on any device that is networked. Oh well... like the RIAA, the MPAA will never "get it".