# Stupid Consumer Grade Junk



## headcrab (Jan 23, 2010)

About a year ago I found a low-quality DVD player and expropriated it for our control booth. But tonight during a show it stalled partway through the video, refused to obey any sort of input, whether local or by remote, and then refused to eject the disc. Nobody was pleased. I had to dismantle the unit to get the disc out.
Sounds like I need to buy a reasonably good device for the future...
Has anyone else experienced this?


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## cprted (Jan 23, 2010)

You get what you pay for.


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## MNicolai (Jan 23, 2010)

cprted said:


> You get what you pay for.



I didn't want to be trite when I first looked at this thread, but it's true. Most venues will pay more for playback equipment to ensure things don't crap out in the middle of shows. That's why we use $400 Denon rackmount CD players instead of $30 personal CD players that _could_ get the same job done.

If you were in the movie-showing business and this happened, you'd be refunding potentially 500 tickets, and we'll say they were at $10/ea, so as much as $5000 down the drain. That's many movie theatres end up doing when their projectors crap out. Therefore, lots of money goes into making sure those things either don't happen in the first place, or happen on an extremely rare occasion.


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## rwhealey (Jan 24, 2010)

In my experience, even pro CD players are prone to random failures. We had a nice Denon recorder/player stop accepting CDs.

Playback is definitely something worthy of having a backup.


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## Eboy87 (Jan 24, 2010)

rwhealey said:


> Playback is definitely something worthy of having a backup.



Agreed. I've seen more DVD and CD players crap out at work than any other piece of equipment. We have two that are disassembled right now or being cannibalized for parts. BTW, the CD trays are great for a DIY projector shutter.


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## Anvilx (Jan 24, 2010)

cprted said:


> You get what you pay for.



True. However I find it appalling just how poorly some of the consumer stuff is. Our society seems to accept worse and worse products as the years go by.


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## MNicolai (Jan 24, 2010)

Anvilx said:


> True. However I find it appalling just how poorly some of the consumer stuff is. Our society seems to accept worse and worse products as the years go by.



We've picked up this culture where when electronics stop functioning at 100%, we throw them away and get more. In the consumer world, it's perfectly acceptable to cheap out on things like DVD players, and rather than have them last a long time, just replace them when they break. It's even cheaper to replace them every year or two than it is it spend more money the first time and have it last.

In an unfortunate turn of events, products have gotten so cheap that it's almost never worth it to pay someone open up a broken device, fix it, and return it to the user. Really the only products people own these days that they will take to someone to get fixed are computers and cars.


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## chris325 (Jan 24, 2010)

I suppose that we're lucky; the DVD player we use is a generic consumer one, but it's worked fine for a long time now. However, even some of the theatrical-grade stuff can crap out much earlier than it should. Most of our Colortran 5/50 shutters are completely shot (and very difficult to replace,) and they are only about 6 years old. (A lot of lamp bases, reflectors, and a few fixtures have already bit the dust in that 6 years.)


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## DuckJordan (Jan 24, 2010)

it all depends on the manufacturer we have an old and i mean really old dj setup deck with a 6 slot cartridge and a single cd tray, the only thing that doesn't work on the thing is the single cd tray and its 20 years old. for some reason the colortran lights breaking is not that strange to me as we have several sheets of repair docs for all our colortran stuff including but not limited to shutters, lamp sockets, adjusting screws, lenses, barrels, cords, plugs, and there's about 10 pages of just gobo holders.


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## WestlakeTech (Jan 24, 2010)

headcrab said:


> About a year ago I found a low-quality DVD player and expropriated it for our control booth. But tonight during a show it stalled partway through the video, refused to obey any sort of input, whether local or by remote, and then refused to eject the disc. Nobody was pleased. I had to dismantle the unit to get the disc out.
> Sounds like I need to buy a reasonably good device for the future...
> Has anyone else experienced this?



Something like that many moons ago... in Middle School.

I was sound board op(/stage manager, kinda.../light board operator at times). We had many musical acts and a 5-disc cd player. 1st act using a cd, I hear the cue and hit play... the song plays and the guy on stage looks back at me like i'm crazy. We're back there for like 10 minutes trying to figure out what went wrong before we figured it out...

Despite the fact that the CD player was set to play Disc 1, it was in fact playing Disc 5. I spent the rest of the night really on edge and nervous (hey, I was 14 and everybody was looking at me like I was the idiot...). The rest of the night I only put discs in 2, 3, and 4.

Lesson Learned: No matter how small the production, REHEARSE IT AT LEAST ONCE!... and sign up for light board instead of sound.  kidding, kidding...


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## chris325 (Jan 24, 2010)

DuckJordan said:


> it all depends on the manufacturer we have an old and i mean really old dj setup deck with a 6 slot cartridge and a single cd tray, the only thing that doesn't work on the thing is the single cd tray and its 20 years old. for some reason the colortran lights breaking is not that strange to me as we have several sheets of repair docs for all our colortran stuff including but not limited to shutters, lamp sockets, adjusting screws, lenses, barrels, cords, plugs, and there's about 10 pages of just gobo holders.



I've heard pretty unanimously on this site that Colortran equipment is becoming, with age, a big hassle to deal with, and I certainly agree based on my experiences with the fixtures, boards, dimmers, and accessories. (My school had a lighting renovation in 2003, and ended up choosing the cheapest option, Colortran, instead of others like ETC, Strand, etc. We now have 5/50 fixtures, i90 dimmers, and an Innovator 600.)


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## DuckJordan (Jan 25, 2010)

I share your predicament although the newer I96 racks are a little bit more reliable. I'm trying to convince our director to slowly start switching from colortran to ETC source 4's as his main lighting extravaganza is the 500 lbs. of gel in our booth.

But again you do get what you pay for in this and every other industry. but there are a few freak occurrences.


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## Lotos (Jan 25, 2010)

DuckJordan said:


> I share your predicament although the newer I96 racks are a little bit more reliable. I'm trying to convince our director to slowly start switching from colortran to ETC source 4's as his main lighting extravaganza is the 500 lbs. of gel in our booth.


 
Switch from? Or purchase in addition to? Personally, I try and avoid 'removing' inventory from the space, unless it has SERIOUSLY outlived its usefulness... Hell, I just finished rebuilding a bunch of Altman 360 6x16's... Hopefully I get a chance to use them this season...


As for Colortran... I *LOVE* the old Berkey 213-065's I have kicking around... Toss an Iris module in the, and they make for an excellent toplight wash @ 20ft, toss some scrollers in them and shabam!
I've never had an issue with these guys melting gel, killing scrollers, or in general doing much other than their job... Sure I have to replace a socket now and then, but that's normal with almost any fixture...
Workhorses I tell you, workhorses.

And who DOESN'T love having 500lbs of gel as his disposal? 
I have... Well, far too much stock in colours I don't use, but that's another issue... At some point in history, someone gave a co-op student Sheets of R05 and a few others, and just said 'Cut some gel'... I don't know if I'll *ever* make it through all the cuts of R05 that I have...

That being said, I'm also not a fan of Colortran dimming or consoles... Used both in College in the studio space... By my second year, the Colortran board was gone, and an ETC in its place... Hopefully the dimming has gone the same way.


On topic, however... It's true, even pro-grade gear dies eventually... We've had issues with (ironically enough) a Denon CD Deck, that just refuses to accept discs burnt on 700Mb media... It'll only take 650Mb... And that's a pain...

But as with anything else, we have a backup... A CD in case the SFX Computer dies... Spare control cards incase the Light Pallete's card goes again... A laptop to hook up if the PC inside the control surface goes... A UPS on the Clear Com line... etc...

The moral here, really should be "Hope for the best, but expect the worst... With any grade of gear."


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## Anvilx (Jan 25, 2010)

WestlakeTech said:


> I was sound board op(/stage manager, kinda.../light board operator at times).



Reminds me of the time my friend, the sound op, got sick mid show and I ran sound with my hands and lights with my feet. But thats a whole other story.



MNicolai said:


> We've picked up this culture where when electronics stop functioning at 100%, we throw them away and get more. In the consumer world, it's perfectly acceptable to cheap out on things like DVD players, and rather than have them last a long time, just replace them when they break. It's even cheaper to replace them every year or two than it is it spend more money the first time and have it last.
> 
> In an unfortunate turn of events, products have gotten so cheap that it's almost never worth it to pay someone open up a broken device, fix it, and return it to the user. Really the only products people own these days that they will take to someone to get fixed are computers and cars.



So much for the push to go green and all this greenwashing ^*$# if we just keep throwing stuff away. (I believe you do what is best regardless of what is the cool or hip thing to do.) 

But isn't just cheap stuff! Here are two examples:
A $100 Rowenta iron is dying right now it is ~3 years old.
A $150 pair of Pioneer headphones snapped at the pivot after 6 months of extremely light use.

On the upside one mans trash is another mans treasure.


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## photoatdv (Jan 25, 2010)

Yeah... I'm about to tackle fixing an umbrella I found in the recycling (ironic) can today at work.


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## headcrab (Jan 25, 2010)

So can anyone recommend a good DVD player or should I buy a DVD drive for the computer?


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## DuckJordan (Jan 25, 2010)

personally i would do both for the just in case, i would suggest a pioneer DVD player just because they seem to last forever for me. also stay away from LG products i have never had good experiences with those devices if your planning on going consumer grade as far as pro i wouldn't know too much about pro equipment as the need for a dvd player really isn't that huge for a HS


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## avkid (Jan 25, 2010)

Don't buy a DVD player now, it's far too late in the game.

Get a BluRay disc player.


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## WestlakeTech (Jan 25, 2010)

I'd say get both, if you can. Just don't get whatever's cheapest...


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## MNicolai (Jan 25, 2010)

Cheap is probably not terrible so long as you have two players so that you always have a backup. So maybe buy one really good one, and then another cheapo player as a worst-case scenario backup. For the price of cheap ones, there's little reason not to have a backup. Just make sure you're prepared to rip open a CD tray, because as they say on Mythbusters, "Failure is always an option!"


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## avkid (Jan 25, 2010)

WestlakeTech said:


> I'd say get both, if you can. Just don't get whatever's cheapest...


Umm...no.
Blu-Ray plays DVD's and CD's in addition to Blu-Ray media.


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## Anvilx (Jan 25, 2010)

headcrab said:


> So can anyone recommend a good DVD player or should I buy a DVD drive for the computer?



Forget the drives. If you want a robust solution convert the media to a digital format and store it on a ssd.


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## GreyWyvern (Jan 25, 2010)

Okay, I am going to throw in my two cents on something that bugs me.

*Cheap* means low or poor quality.

*Inexpensive* means low cost.

It is possible to buy an item that is inexpensive and high quality, or expensive and cheap, or even inexpensive and cheap.

/rant


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## SHARYNF (Jan 25, 2010)

Just because it is expensive does not mean it is even different than the inexpensive offering

Blu-ray Maker Re-Boxes $500 Player, Charges $3,500 | Gadget Lab | Wired.com

Badge engineering has been going on for a long time

Sharyn


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## photoatdv (Jan 25, 2010)

Interestingly enough, one of their biggest complain about the Lexicon/Oppo was the boost above 20k. Since most people can only hear to 17-18k, that doesn't seem like too big of a deal.


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## Lotos (Jan 25, 2010)

headcrab said:


> So can anyone recommend a good DVD player or should I buy a DVD drive for the computer?


 
Figure out how much you're willing to spend... Then find a DVD/Blue-Ray/Whatever player for half that price, and buy two.
Make sure both are hooked up and ready to go, and you're able to switch at a moments notice.

You now have a backup. Just remember to make copies of anything you plan to use as media in case the original is eaten, scratched, trashed, whatever.


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## museav (Jan 26, 2010)

avkid said:


> Don't buy a DVD player now, it's far too late in the game.
> 
> Get a BluRay disc player.


And in less than 12 months you either have to upgrade all your video system to be HDCP compliant and accept the digital outputs of the player or else be limited to 480i SD resolution. And at the end of 2013 the analog outputs will stop working at all. As I understand it, these 'digital sunset' constraints are part of the Blu-Ray spec and would be applicable to any Blu-Ray players currently being sold.

This is indicative of some of the challenges with consumer products and technologies as many of them were never developed with professional applications in mind. And DRM adds a whole new wrinkle to that. I also think that consumer products are now often driven more by the ability to keep up with the latest and greatest technology and buzzwords rather than by durability and reliability. People now seem to almost expect to replace electronics every few years in order to stay up with current technology rather than expecting to buy an electronics product and use it for many years.

I always suggest checking the warranty, you'll find that many consumer product warranties specifically exclude 'commercial' or 'industrial' use, basically anything other than residential use. That not only means you may have no warranty but it is also a pretty good indication that the product was not designed to withstand the rigors expected with professional use.


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