5 Ways To Cure Blu-Ray Freezing Issues

Freezing issues with Blu-ray are quite common, and can be down to issues such as electro-static, volume, or a variety of hardware issues that can be fixed with a master reset or a firmware update.

Quite often it is possible to get fixes for one of these issues from the manufacturer’s website – however it isn’t unusual to find that not all of these resolutions are covered, and many Blu-ray player manufacturers don’t provide the best online support.

PlayStation 3 owners too may encounter some of these issues, and there is a fix that is specific for these devices.

If you enjoy watching the latest HD Blu-ray releases with the surround sound cranked up to cinematic levels, you might be unaware of the sensitivity of your Blu-ray player.

A player situated too close to a sub-woofer or placed on the floor (not a recommended placement) is likely to react unfavourably to the vibrations caused by explosions or even just the bassline in a musical number.

Similarly if you’re using a TV with built in speakers on a dedicated stand with the Blu-ray player situated close by, you’re also likely to find that the player picks up vibrations from these.

You should take care to situate your Blu-ray player as far from and speakers or sub-woofer as possible, place the player on a well-supported shelf and avoid having the volume too high in order to troubleshoot this particular issue.

Blu-ray players – like DVD players, games consoles and PCs – are susceptible to static interference. Static interference is easily generated in rooms with carpets, wearing rubber shoes or failing to store your Blu-ray discs in their intended cases.

It’s possible that when walking across a carpeted room with a Blu-ray disc in hand and placing it into your player, a certain amount of electro static is generated which can then transfer to the player, resulting in various functional issues. This problem might be increased by attempting to walk back across the room and press play repeatedly or ejecting the disc – every time you come into contact with the player, more electro static is discharged into the player.

Switching the player off at the mains for a short time should resolve this – meanwhile avoid the possibility of a electro static discharge by keeping your Blu-ray disc in the box for as long as possible, and make better use of your remote control.

A Master Reset can be performed on your Blu-ray player if it persists in freezing during your favourite movies.

The exact steps required to do this differ from player to player – however the process should be detailed in your player manual or will more than likely be found online by typing your Blu-ray player model and manufacturer name into any popular search engine.

A Master Reset reconfigures the player back to its factory settings – a useful function for getting rid of any niggly irritations the player might have developed.

Note however that a Master Reset will lose any favourite options you might have set and the Blu-ray player will need to be setup with your TV as a "new device".

Users of older PlayStation 3 games consoles may not be aware but various updates are available to avoid the issue of freezing caused by a current connection to the internet.

If you don’t have any updates, this issue can also be resolved in the main PS3 menu, where you can change the Online/Internet option to Disable.

It seems that Blu-ray disc freezing issues on the PlayStation 3 are caused by a current connection to the internet, and disabling this prevents memory resources being allocated to networking tasks. Later updates have resolved this problem however, which should mean that users with a newer PlayStation 3 shouldn't encounter this issue.

Finally, your Blu-ray player might have an inherent issue that causes freezing due to for instance an inability to correctly manage various layers within the audio track. Something like this is mainly a software issue, and can be resolved by upgrading your device firmware, the set of device drivers and software that come pre-programmed onto your Blu-ray player so that the device can work as intended.

Manufacturers often release new versions of the onboard software that can be downloaded from their website or sent out on disc by calling their support line or service center.

One or more of these fixes can be applied to the freezing issue you’re experiencing and should hopefully resolve any future freezing, leaving you to enjoy trouble-free High Definition movies and TV shows on your Blu-ray player home theatre.