Toshiba trouble

[Gilling]

Hi everone, thank you all for your advice I was at my wits end with the thing. I bought a head cleaner but no joy. My son said I have something like that upstairs and he gave me a furry one. Put that in, and hey presto everything works.
Very many thanks,
Tim.

[Chewy]

what brand? it probably really cleaned the laser lens cover?

[petsbug]

So not the laser then, you will just waste your time opening it. Maybe the disc you are using are just to slow for the drive itself. I always buy disc with at least conforms with the maximum speed of the drive. Say if its 16x capable i buy 8X or 16X disc though I used mostly 4X in burning.

[petsbug]

Sorry i missed that you've solved it already. Yeah, what brand?

[Gilling]

Hi all,
The boy uses it to clean his playstation its called '4Gamers DVD Laser Lens cleaner'. |This is the web site quoteed on the box.

https://www.spectrum-accessories.com

Thanks again,
Tim.

[Gilling]

Hi everyone,
I may have spoke too soon, the machine works perfectly with Tuff discs multispeed, but has the same problem with Maxell 1-2x speed and
Panasonic RAM 2-3x speed.
There is nothing in the speciifications to say what the prefered speed is but it does say to only buy 80 minute discs. All of mine including the Tuff discs are 120 minute. They have always worked in the past.
Still at least I can record on disc again, I have been using VHS tapes and the quality is not so good.
Many thanks,
Tim.

[kirk1701]

Hi everyone,
I may have spoke too soon, the machine works perfectly with Tuff discs multispeed, but has the same problem with Maxell 1-2x speed and
Panasonic RAM 2-3x speed.
There is nothing in the speciifications to say what the prefered speed is but it does say to only buy 80 minute discs. All of mine including the Tuff discs are 120 minute. They have always worked in the past.
Still at least I can record on disc again, I have been using VHS tapes and the quality is not so good.
Many thanks,
Tim.

I'd stick with the Tuff disk then, plus since your using RW's it's not like the disc will become currupt due to poor media since it sounds like your using the same disk and re-writing over it hu?

[Gilling]

Hi Kirk,
Thing is I want to see the quality on Maxel and DVD Rom, the Tuffs are cheap DVDs.
Tim

[kirk1701]

Hi Kirk,
Thing is I want to see the quality on Maxel and DVD Rom, the Tuffs are cheap DVDs.
Tim

True, it is cheap media but if your re-using the disc thats one thing. If your making backups to keep now thats a whole new ballpark which is where I would say yea find better media to protect your work/investment.

The quality (picture quality) will be null to none in my opinion since the same data is getting wrote to the disc. Now if your getting momentary freezes in the pic or skipping or totally freezes during playback now thats the quality I would be concerned with.

Hope I am not confusing yu?

[Gilling]

Hi Kirk,
Are you saying that no matter if the discs are cheap or dear the picture/audio quality remains the same?
Thanks,
Tim.

[Chewy]

as a general rule bad disks can give good image quality but spotty playability

data is just data, the margin of error in reading that data increases with better disks/burns

bad disks overwhelm the error correction mechanism built into dvd technology

[Gilling]

Hi chewy,
Thanks for that. I thought the more I paid the better picture quality. Thats why I bought the DVD Rams £18.00 for five which will not initialize, as opposed to £5.00 for Ten Tuff disc, that will now. To be fair the manual doasn't say the dearer discs are better quality, it just says that the Ram discs are better for editing purposes, but to be fairer if the f things wont initialize I will never know.
Oh well,
Thanks chewy,
Tim..

[Chewy]

well make sure your next drive writes to dvd-ram

[Gilling]

Hi Chewy,
By that do you mean the next time I buy a DVD recorder, It should have provision for recording DVD-Ram? Because this one said it did.
Tim.

[Chewy]

just about everybody I know that gets a combo unit, whether combined with vcr, tv or home theater seems to have issues

recorders might be the same way

my toshiba standalone player has served me well for over 3 years

at least if the units don't hold up well they are cheaper to replace