{"id":1607,"date":"2006-09-01T18:27:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-02T01:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=1607"},"modified":"2006-09-01T18:27:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-02T01:27:00","slug":"of-dvd-r-and-cr-vs-of-cabbages-and-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/?p=1607","title":{"rendered":"Of DVD-R and CR-Vs, Of Cabbages and Kings…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Folks may recall my previous post<\/a> about problems we were having with our DVD Recorder and the repairs on my wife’s car. Both are now resolved, reasonably happily.<\/p>\n

The DVD Recorder Saga.<\/b> A few months ago, I purchased a Toshiba D-R4 DVD Recorder<\/a> at Best Buy. The goal was to move our older Samsung player into the media room, and use the DVD Recorder to offload stuff from the DirecTivo. At the same time I bought the recorder, I bought a spindle of Fuji 16x DVD-R media<\/a>. Earlier this week, I tried to record on that media. Although it would record just fine, when I attempted to finalize the disk I would receive an Err-14, “DVD disc access error detected”. I tried the suggestion of Toshiba of unplugging the machine for at least 3 minutes, and trying again… still no luck. So, we started a quest for the recommended DVD-R media for the device: Either Maxell or TDK 4x DVD-R. <\/p>\n

Resolution:<\/b> At Frys, my wife picked up a spindle of Maxell 1x-8x DVD-R media<\/a>. This media is working like a charm. I’ll see if I can get some more of the same. Perhaps it is just reading the manufacturer block, and rejecting it if it isn’t Maxell or TDK. The 8x media also has an opaque top (yellow), as opposed to a silvery top — this might help the reflectivity part of the equation.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Honda CR-V Saga<\/b>. This is a more involved saga. The Thursday before we left on vacation 3 weeks ago, my wife was driving to my cousin’s house to help her with her son’s Bar Mitzvah preparations. As she was getting on US 101, the “Check Engine” light came on, the engine misfired, and the car died. It wouldn’t restart right away. AAA was called, and the car was trucked to Keyes Woodland Hills Honda<\/a>. They initially attempted to diagnose the problem, but every time they read the computer, they got a different result. We throught it was a computer problem. After a week of working on it, they diagnosed the problem as a valve problem, and sent the engine out to the machine shop for major rework. Time passed. More time passed. Everytime we called them, we were told the engine wasn’t back. They kept slipping the promise date. When we got back home, we were fed up, plus we felt this was an engine defect. So my wife called American Honda<\/a>. They opened a case. After some more calling, the car finally got back to the dealer. The ultimate problem was a broken valve retainer, leading to the valve problems. At the dealer they started it up… and got another “Check Engine” light. This time it was an exhaust valve. We were getting pretty pissed at this point. <\/p>\n

Resolution:<\/b> The car is back, the problems are fixed, and it is running like a charm. Further, we didn’t have to pay the full over $2,200 bill: American Honda is paying half of the bill, even though the car has just under 82,000 miles and is thus out of warranty. Good for them!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, what have we learned from this, kiddies:<\/p>\n