BenQ DW1620: Why does it do this?

[Joe Fission]

First off, please forgive me if this sounds rather newbie-ish... but then again, that's why I'm here... you guys know a great deal more about DVDs than I do.

I've been using my BenQ DW1620 quite a bit lately for viewing DVDs on my computer. I have a rather extensive collection of anime (all commercially produced, no copies or bootlegs) and every so often I get a DVD that the drive just will not read or it will read certain chapters but not others. I just happen to have one right now... for the curious, it's Burst Angel Vol. 1. It reads fine in another drive (Lite-On 166S) and in my laptop (TSSTcorp drive of some sort) and in my home theater DVD player, but the 1620 seems to be choking on something whenever I try to play the first episode. It looks as though it's trying to read it as the drive light flashes wildly while it's doing so, but ultimately nothing will happen. I've had the same problem with other DVDs and reading them using my Lite-On 166S. Usually, its with DVDs that are relatively new titles to hit the shelves. Whenever I've had that problem, the first thing that I tried was to upgrade the firmware. In the case of the 1620, I tried that and it still refuses to read that DVD. Oh, and I'm using WinDVD 7 Platinum as the player.

I guess my question is why does this happen? I seem to remember reading somewhere quite awhile ago that this could be caused by the use of some wild and wierd new copy protection being used on certain DVDs. Does that sound plausible? Has anyone else encountered something like this? Is it more likely that the DVD disc is sorta messed up (even though it's brand new)?

This sorta leads me into another question... I'm going to be building a new PC in the near future and will be needing something to read DVDs. Can anyone recommend a drive that has very few problems reading DVDs and is extremely quiet (it doesn't matter whether it's a plain DVD-ROM or a writer)? That's the reason I use my BenQ DW1620 over the Lite-On 166S... the Lite-On is noisy in comparison.

Anything anyone can contribute is greatly appreciated.

[ItalianJob]

I'm owning a BenQ 1620 B7W9 and I never heard of such reading problem with it. I mainly rip Zone 2 DVD.

BenQ drives are known to be excellent readers and good PI/PIF scanners.

Maybe you have a failing drive ?

[Ian]

I'd try the drive in another computer. If it does the same thing, I'd RMA it.

[Joe Fission]

Well, I'd RMA the drive except that it reads all other DVDs fine except for only one or two. My anime collection is around 600 DVDs and 1 or 2 outta the bunch isn't bad. This leads me to believe it's got more to do with the drive not recognizing the proper copy protection scheme (or something strange like that), or maybe the error correction is kicking in and trying to get through a major read error (a bad press perhaps?) whereas the other drives I've tried may ignore that error or something like that.

At any rate, it was just a conundrum that I thought maybe someone here had heard of and maybe had an answer to. It's not a terribly big deal at this point. The discs in question still play on one drive or another.

At any rate, thanks for your input guys.

[dolphinius_rex]

I've got a few anime DVDs that are like that... they will NOT read in certain drives. Actually, it's not just limited to Anime either. (and I've got about 600 DVDs of anime and movies myself).

Sometimes there is a problem with the disc itself, that comes up in various scans, and other times there isn't. Consequently, I no longer import most of my DVDs, so that if/when things go wrong, I can return them easily.

[Joe Fission]

I've never really considered returning the discs I've had problems with mainly because there was always a drive that could read them... I would only return them if my home theater system couldn't read them. So far, that has not happened (knock on wood )

I suppose you could call ordering from the U.S. technically "importing" for me since, like you, I am also Canadian, but I wouldn't import from outside North America for the same reason you state.

[dolphinius_rex]

I've never really considered returning the discs I've had problems with mainly because there was always a drive that could read them... I would only return them if my home theater system couldn't read them. So far, that has not happened (knock on wood )

I suppose you could call ordering from the U.S. technically "importing" for me since, like you, I am also Canadian, but I wouldn't import from outside North America for the same reason you state.

Yeah, I hooked myself up with an account at TheCNL.com and stick to ordering my anime from there. All my regular movies come from either there, or Futureshop (and as little from Futureshop as possible, because I don't like them!).

And yeah, I consider ordering from the US to be importing in my case It's pretty rare I order from the UK or Japan.... but not unheard of