Car DVD Player Troubleshooting

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Although car DVD players may seem parallel to a CD player, they are far from it and run on a very different kind of optical technology. Not only are they more complicated to set up, but they also require more maintenance.

Video images breaking up or freezing

Make sure the car DVD player is clean and the DVD is unscratched.

DVDs can be cleaned in the same way that CDs can, but they are more fragile and more sensitive to scratches than CDs are.

DVD disc not recognized after loading

Check that disc is loaded the correct way.
Check that disc is encoded for your geographical region. A disc from Europe (Region 2) will not play in a North American (Region 1) player.
Turn off player with disc inserted, unplug temporarily from wall outlet, plug back in and turn back on.
If your player has a transportation lock (usually a plastic screw on the bottom of the unit), make sure that it is not engaged.
If you have an older car DVD player, check with the manufacturer to see whether an update to the firmware is available. Many newer DVD titles with lots of special features are famous for causing problems on older car DVD players.

Movies playing with subtitles

Go to disc's menu and turn off subtitles. Some players will let you turn off subtitles by pressing the Subtitle button on the remote and then pressing 0 or clear.

Squished picture

Check player's setup menu to make sure it's not set for a wide-screen TV if you don't have one.

CD-R disc not recognized after loading

Most car DVD players can't read CD-R discs, even if they can play normal CDs.

Picture quality alternates between light and dark

This is caused by Macrovision copy-protection scheme if you copy DVD video to VCR or if you hook up DVD to TV by way of VCR.

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