Sony MDP-455 won't play disc, just ejects

Hi everyone!

I bought a Sony MDP-455 LaserDisc player at a Goodwill store several years back, along with a few dozen movies ("Blade Runner: The Directors Cut"! Yum!) for $20 or $30. Now, here I am, wanting to (finally!) get this thing running, but I'm having a snag. When I load a LaserDisc movie, the tray shuts (after I push the "Close" button), the player flashes "PLAY" for a bit (it also shows the same flashing "PLAY" on the TV screen), but after a few moments, the tray slides back out as if I'd ejected the disc. I tried doing the same thing with an audio CD, and it (more-or-less) repeated the same pattern, but with considerably more time spent flashing "PLAY."

Any ideas? I'd hate to let these great movies (not to mention cool player!) continue to go to waste!

Thanks,

Huxley

If you let this player lay around for a couple of years then it would not hurt if you gave it a thorough cleaning job. Laser optical devices do not take kindly to an accumulation of dust. Be careful with cleaning the optical system, lenses and all.

If it's an electronic failure then you're just out of luck. Not a chance you can get it repaired for the kind of money you spent on it to start with. You might be able to find another laser disc player somewhere so you can enjoy your discs but these players tend to become collector's items nowadays.

I have a large library of laser discs that I decided to start viewing. But when I reconnected the MDP-455 to my system I had the same problem. The tray would close and then open on its own so the unit could not play any discs. I opened the unit and attempted to load a disc with the housing off. I noticed that the main spindle that is supposed to lift into the center of the discs after the tray closes did not lift. So tried the "gentle bump" approach . But the jarring did not release the mechanism. However, I also noticed that there is one black rubber drive belt that is visible when the housing is removed and that that belt looked a bit over-stretched. I removed the belt and saw that it had taken on the shape that it had been sitting in for years including two rounded "kinks" matching the diameters of the two pulleys. I reinstalled the the rubber belt making sure that the kinks did not realign with the pulleys. And the unit started functioning properly. I have ordered a new belt: Sony Part No. 3-949-030-01 (I hope).