Playstation 3 DVD Skipping

[Trekker4747]

My Playstation 3's DVD/BD-player seems to be skipping a lot.

Now, here's the thing.

A) It's not regular. Some discs it skips on some it doesn't. The ones it does skip on it isn't constant but once it gets in the "habit" of doing it doesn't correct easily.

B) Aside from some very, very minor and tiny scuff marks and blemishes the discs are otherwise flawless.

C) Right now it only seems to be doing this on DVD-Rs and not on factory-made DVDs.

D) I recently purchased a "laser-cleaning kit" and ran it so, in theory, the laser should be "clean." (The kit did not contain any chemical solutions for cleaning and simply lightly "brushed" any debris away from the laser lens in a soft and fairly passive manner.)

E) The Playstation hasn't been abruptly moved, bumped, or jostled in any meaningful way that may have knocked the laser out of alignment.

So what's the deal here? Is there an issue with Playstations freaking out on DVDs after a recent update? (It has, however, been a bit of time since I last updated the player.) Are the minor "scratches" on the discs (though similar or worse scratches exist on other discs that have no problems) causing the problem?

All of the discs that have the problem mostly look fine when you look at them, the surface of the disc (label side) is also flawless. I mean tiny hair-fine little blemishes maybe a smudge from grease or something. Nothing to big. I have had discs that look worse.

Is this a problem Playstations have with DVD-Rs?

Do I maybe need a kit or something to clean the discs themselves?

 

[Captain Pike]

I've never had this problem, but then I don't play many DVD-Rs. What PS3 do you have, is it a slim one or one of the old 40gb/60gb models?

I did hear about an issue with the 60gb models and Bluray playback, described here..

Also, here is someone who had a similar issue to yourself, taken from another board -

I have had problems with DVDs skipping and having to cycle back chapters. I have also had problems with not being able to view some material at all. I thought it was the discs at first, but when I returned the one disc that wasn't working and got a new one from Best Buy, I was having the exact same problem in the exact same spot on the disc. Here is what I did to fix the problem. In the main menu, navigate to the disc icon under "video" and hit the triangle button. Select "play disc from beginning" instead of "play". For some reason this worked for me.

You might want to give that a go.

 

[Trekker4747]

I've never had this problem, but then I don't play many DVD-Rs. What PS3 do you have, is it a slim one or one of the old 40gb/60gb models?

I did hear about an issue with the 60gb models and Bluray playback, described here..

Also, here is someone who had a similar issue to yourself, taken from another board -

I have had problems with DVDs skipping and having to cycle back chapters. I have also had problems with not being able to view some material at all. I thought it was the discs at first, but when I returned the one disc that wasn't working and got a new one from Best Buy, I was having the exact same problem in the exact same spot on the disc. Here is what I did to fix the problem. In the main menu, navigate to the disc icon under "video" and hit the triangle button. Select "play disc from beginning" instead of "play". For some reason this worked for me.

You might want to give that a go.

It's an "old" 40GB regular (non-slim) model. The issues I have is more with DVD-Rs (copied disks) than BDs or commercial releases.

 

[Sparky]

Could be an early warning sign of optical drive failure. It could also be just crappy recordable media though. CDR and DVDR media IMO is easily the worst recordable media out there. Easily prone to failure.

 

[JustAFriend]

Cleaning doesn't fix broke.

You get it fixed or you replace it.

 

[Sheep]

If you're not seeing any problems with factory-made DVDs and BDs, it's more than likely crappy DVD-R media that's the culprit.

At any given time I've had 3-4 devices that play DVDs in my house and I don't believe I've ever had a single DVD-R that played on all of those devices, and I use pretty high-quality DVD-Rs.