Putting the Oh No in Sony

How many computer programmers does it take to figure out why some Netflix DVDs don't play on our Sony SLV--D300P DVD/VHS player? Apparently, two.

Some, indeed most, played. Some would say Loading.... and then PLAY....and then nothing. No ABORT, no FAIL, no YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO WATCH THIS DVD...THINK AGAIN. Sometimes, flicking the player off and on again would make it work, usually not. We got an error at one point, when we tried to go into SETUP, saying that we couldn't do that when the DVD was playing, and we thought but the DVD ISN"T playing.... so, being programmers, we 'thought like the machine'.

Hmmm....it thinks its playing. Maybe it is, or at least trying to, and something's blocking it. What could that be? And we thought Parental Controls. Turns out the DVD that would not play was non-rated. You would think that a nonrated DVD would just go -- as, indeed, they all should, since we did not have controls turned on -- but what if the player was stupid, and if it couldn't verify the rating, it just would not play? So we turned on parental controls, made up a passcode, said 'this code allows you to play anything', got out of setup, hit PLAY.

It worked.

Man.