Video Asylum

Posted by Joe Murphy Jr (A) on September 16, 2010 at 12:42:12

In Reply to: RE: HELP! posted by jimbill on September 16, 2010 at 08:02:02

I had a Denon laserdisc player many years ago. It was purchased as a refurbished model, so I knew upfront that it wasn't new and had previous problems. But as you may know, refurbished is supposed to mean that any problems the unit had were addressed and repaired/replaced. Well, it wasn't too long after I got it that it had problems playing the last 5 minutes or so of a laserdisc side. The full 1-year warranty came with the unit, so I was able to have this "repaired" for free. It worked fine after the repair. Until it started doing it again. Back to the repair shop and it worked as good as new, until...

By then it was out of warranty and there was no fixing it for free. Not being able to use it as a laserdisc player, I used it to play CDs. I wish I had done this earlier, because that laserdisc player was excellent for that task. It had a variable audio output (all analog) so I could run it directly to my amps. I used it for a year or so and finally sold it (I did let the person who bought it know upfront that CDs were fine, but laserdiscs had a problem).

The optical pick-up was bad and couldn't stay in alignment for very long. If you can get a drive from Denon, you may be able to swap it out yourself. If you can't do it yourself, then some repair shops will do it for the labor charge. I had a CD player repaired long ago by this method.

Or, if you're interested, I have an oppo DV-983H sitting in the closet that was used for about 6 hours. The first $300 gets it.