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DVD failed to Import (using Non-Factory DVD ROM Drive)

C

charris

Member
I have posted this in the "Import Errors and Issue Forum" but this is now becoming a bigger and more serious problem.

We have a problem in a customer's system with some discs. Playing any of the discs or episodes from the server after they have been copied somehow causes the player to crash "lightly?" and so you can not play any of this. Basically what happens is you either loose video connection to the tv and then you get the big K logo or you get a warning that K can not play the disc.

Playing directly any of the discs from the tray works.

The video output from the movie player is set in component. Since you can play the disc from the tray this should not be a video output/signal problem.

This is a big 2x3U server system with over 2200 dvds from all regions and most of everything else works perfectly.

Kaleidescape issued an RMA for the Kplayer and we tried the new 6000 player today. The problem is still there! We brought our own Kplayer 5000 for more testing and we still have the same problem.

We also deleted and copied again one the problematic discs to the server and we had the same problem.

These are some of the discs that we can not play from the server:
Desperate Housewives Season 5
Weeds Season 3
Private Practice Season 2
Brothers and Sisters Season 3

I have brought one of the above discs to try in our own system and see if this will help us with the troubleshooting.

The customer and owner of this system participates in this forum. I hope we can find a solution asap.

Thanks for any help in advance.
 
I know you already know this, but K clearly has the ability to diagnose this problem (or at least narrow it down). I'm assuming that whatever they saw when the system logs were checked indicated a player problem, or likely player problem. Based on your testing it now sounds like a server, or software, problem. The problem with the software idea is that I would suspect the problem would be universal across all DVD's.

What is K saying now that the player doesn't work?

I would suggest buying a "new" copy of the one of the bad DVD's and importing that with the new player (in case the older player caused import issues that are now being seen with the new player).

Also, just curious, any way of testing HDMI with the same DVD's?


Jim
 
charris said:
These are some of the discs that we can not play from the server:
Desperate Housewives Season 5
Weeds Season 3
Private Practice Season 2
Brothers and Sisters Season 3
Click to expand...
I do not know if this may be part of the problem or not but the DVD's you listed above, all but Weeds, are on Kaleidescape's poorly authored DVD list. According to Kaleidescape the DVD's listed on the poorly authored DVD list may or may not import and if imported may or may not play properly on Kaleidescape.

Just an FYI
 
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charris said:
The video output from the movie player is set in component. Since you can play the disc from the tray this should not be a video output/signal problem.
Click to expand...
Have you tried switching to HDMI just to make sure? Just to eliminate out side variables I would try a different component cable and also try outputting over HDMI and see if any of those make a difference.
 
Last edited:
cinelife said:
I would suggest buying a "new" copy of the one of the bad DVD's and importing that with the new player (in case the older player caused import issues that are now being seen with the new player).
Click to expand...

This is/was a good idea. We have ripped more than 2000+ DVDs with our speed reader. Maybe all of the discs that have problems were ripped using the customer's Kplayer 6000. This is what I thought also.

But today I deleted Private Practice Season 2 and re-imported Disc 1 using our Kplayer 5000 on the customer's system and we got the same error.

I am running out of ideas at the moment and I am expecting an answer from Tech Support to see how we can solve this.

I have also brought back Pravate Practice Season 2 and I am importing it right now to our own server to see if it works here. My 2nd Kplayer 5000 has been trying to import disc 1 for over an hour but this sometimes happen.
 
DigitalStudioWerks said:
Have you tried switching to HDMI just to make sure? Just to eliminate out side variables I would try a different the component cable and also try outputting over HDMI and see if any of those make a difference.
Click to expand...

We cannot test HDMI - all the componets are centrally placed in a rack. The player is connected with component to a matrix switcher and from there cat5e is used to send the signal to the tv.

Since all the other dvds play fine and the problematic dvds also play fine from the Kplayer's tray this cannot be a cable or signal problem.
 
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It sounds like you will have to await an answer from K, but I suspect it will end up being either "bad DVD's" (as suggested by James), or a server problem. Please post when you get this resolved.


Jim
 
charris said:
We cannot test HDMI - all the componets are centralled placed in a rack. The player is connected with component to a matrix switcher and from there cat5e is used to send the signal to the tv.

Since all the other dvds play fine and the problematic dvds also play fine from the Kplayer's tray this cannot be a cable or signal problem.
Click to expand...

Is your Kaleidescape player set up with HDMI or Component? I know you stated . . .
charris said:
. . . .the problematic dvds also play fine from the Kplayer's tray
Click to expand...
But I would want to test the cables to absolutely eliminate every possible variable in between the player and the display. It could be the Matrix switch, the Cat5 cables, the baluns, etc.

Try Component from your player directly to a display and then try HDMI from your player directly to a display eliminating any type of switch. If you still get the same error after trying both component and HDMI directly to a display then I would say it's the DVD itself (poorly authored) or the server and since 75% of the problem discs you listed above are on the poorly authored list it might be safe to say it's the DVD's.

Has Kaleidescape looked at the server logs yet? If so what did they say or recommend? Do the logs show any server or player errors?

Hope that helps a bit. I feel your pain and frustration my friend.
 
Ok, we have some more updates. I just imported one of the problematic discs: Pricate Practice Season 2 Disc 1 on my 3U server. The import took more than an hour but I can now play this from the server. So this shows that this is not a media problem.

The problem is being handled by Rusty from K Tech Support and I cannot say enough about how helpful Rusty is and also about how helpful all the other guys at TS are. I really wished our other vendors could provide a similar or at least close to this level support. Nobody can compete with Kaleidescape on how they treat their dealers, how much they respect their customers and how they go out of their way to solve the small problems we sometimes have.

Back to our problem: This seems now like a server/chassis problem and tomorrow we will swap all the drives of Server A with the Drives of Server B to see if this is the problem. The other thing we can do is switch off Server A - which is where all the problematic discs are stored - and import one of the problematic discs on Server B.

I now really hope this is a bad Server/Disc/Chassis problem and we can isolate the problem as soon as possible and finally solve this.
 
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charris said:
The problem is being handled by Rusty from K Tech Support and I cannot say enough how helpful Rusty is and also how helpful all the other guys at TS are. I really wished our other vendors could provide a similar or at least close to this level support. Nobody can compete with Kaleidescape on how they treat their dealers, how much they respect their customers and how they go out of thier way to solve the small problems we sometimes have.
Click to expand...
I couldn't agree with you more. I have had Rusty on a few of our support cases and he is VERY, VERY knowledgeable and helpful.
 
DigitalStudioWerks said:
Hope that helps a bit. I feel your pain and frustration my friend.
Click to expand...

Thank you James. This K system's cost is over six figures USD in Europe and we would really like to have everything running as perfect as possible. And we also want the customer to enjoy this and not to have to deal with these issues.

I also hope this thread will help dealers that have similar problems to troubleshoot them faster and easier.
 
Ive had great experience with their service as well. It sounds to me like a network issue and that could be down to the server. Im sure you have a very involved setup. I would be curious to see if you could plug a player directly into the server and try playing to a near by tv. Try each server and see if it works and then you can diagnose from there- I realize that could be a real pain in the neck but thats my thought.
 
Playback fails on movies imported with non-factory DVD-ROM drive

I have just found out that there is another factor in the equation that I did not know about: It seems one of our engineers had previously replaced the DVD-ROM drive in the customer's KPLAYER used to import the discs, and the drive he installed seems that is not able to successfully import all the discs.

Kaleidescape has explained that they carefully test the DVD-ROM drives used specifically to avoid these problems. Others can avoid the problem in the future by leaving the original DVD-ROM drive in the player.

So this looks that this might be the problem. I will update when we do more testing.
 
Thanks for passing that info along. Unfortunately, we run the risk of unintended consequences when we try replacing gear on our own.


Jim
 
To close this thread, Harris has completed the testing he mentioned a few weeks ago. The replacement DVD-ROM drive was to blame. Discs imported using an unmodified player with the factory DVD-ROM drive play back fine.

Tom Barnett
Kaleidescape, Inc.
 
Wow, what a very undramatic conclusion to all this...it was becoming interesting reading until that non-K DVD-ROM curve ball was thrown in there at the end. No reason was offered why the original DVD-ROM was changed...the thread is closed but the story wasn't completely unraveled. Why was the factory DVD-ROM changed in the first place?

Tom, can I ask what DVD-ROM is in the player, I take it it's a commercially available off the shelf thing that's not unique to K?? Why I ask is one of my KPLAYER-5000's has a bone colored DVD-ROM disc drawer, and all the others I've seen have a black drawer.
 
I have 5 5000 players and they all have bone colored drawers- if that helps. Before you go suspecting some 3rd party messed with your machines, its possible K's supplier just went with a different plastic part.
 
I would fathom a guess that the dvd-rom was replaced with a unit that had been modified to be region-free so that the owner could import DVDs from Europe and America.
 
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