goHastings occasional defective disc

[growler]

Just experienced my 2nd used goHastings BD with picture freeze. "Warrior" freezes @ 1:01. I do see some scratches on the playing surface. I do have at least 10-15 used from them that play fine. But many others I have yet to watch. I can't return it, since it has been 6 months. I have hundreds of BDs waiting to be watched. I'm done with used BDs. I think some people may deliberately trade in a damaged movies bc they can get away with it. I had thought the thicker BD was very hard to scratch & used was as good as new. Not worth the hassle.

Actually had to stop watching! After the 3rd section of freezes @ 1:08! Now I must repurchase.

[wickerjay]

Did you try to watch it in another player?

[growler]

Originally Posted by wickerjay

Did you try to watch it in another player?

No, I don't have another player & don't know anyone locally that has BD! Wish I had the ability to do that. I have, however exchanged two previous BDs that froze & the new disc played perfectly so I am fairly certain the issue was with those (used) discs. I do wonder if my BD player has "lost" the ability to play slightly scratched or defective discs w/o freezing. Maybe error correction circuitry does not work as well as it once did? I have all the latest firmware updates. I have Panasonic DMP BD80 from 2009.

With all the great sales & deals the past couple years, I bought a large # of BDs & despite watching one almost every day, I have a large backlog!

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by growler

No, I don't have another player & don't know anyone locally that has BD! Wish I had the ability to do that. I have, however exchanged two previous BDs that froze & the new disc played perfectly so I am fairly certain the issue was with those (used) discs. I do wonder if my BD player has "lost" the ability to play slightly scratched or defective discs w/o freezing. Maybe error correction circuitry does not work as well as it once did? I have all the latest firmware updates. I have Panasonic DMP BD80 from 2009.

With all the great sales & deals the past couple years, I bought a large # of BDs & despite watching one almost every day, I have a large backlog!

try taking it to a place like best buy or something and feign needing to "test out" a blu-ray player etc like you're gonna buy. if it plays in those it may be the laser in your player going south.

[King Troll]

if it makes you feel better
BBY will have warrior for $5 after U&S

[growler]

Originally Posted by King Troll

if it makes you feel better
BBY will have warrior for $5 after U&S

That is my exact plan for Sunday! Most of the BDs on my U&S wait list will probably be OOS or not carried in store.

[growler]

Originally Posted by wormraper

try taking it to a place like best buy or something and feign needing to "test out" a blu-ray player etc like you're gonna buy. if it plays in those it may be the laser in your player going south.

I've saved a couple defective BDs & have been considering doing that. Or go to listen to Home Theater speakers & bring my own (defective) BDs. But the spots where they freeze are not typical demo portions of the movie. If it happens more, I will certainly do that.

[Jett Rink]

I had this same problem with Fantasia/Fantasia 2000, not only were the discs scratched, it looked like they were made wrong. They had these weird marks on them like the plastic was shaped while still soft. I returned it, waiting on a refund.

[MoulinBlu]

Moral of the story: always watch scratched discs within the return window or return the automatically, if you don't have time. Thanks for the reminder. I've got a half dozen with scratches from Family Video I need to check out.

BD does have a surprisingly scratch-resistant coating, but obviously it's not scratch-proof. Any used disc you get, be sure to clean it. The discs I've gotten from hastings sometimes have muck on them that's much harder for error correction to remedy than most scratches.

You can always contact the studio to see if they'll do anything for you, too.

[growler]

I just watched my new, replacement copy of Warrior, (BBY U&S $5 net) It played flawlessly.

I had thought that BD was playable even with some light scratches. No more.

Good idea to play used, scratched discs w/in the return window. May not be a bad idea to try to play all used BDs in that window. I'm not even shopping used BDs anymore. With past Blockbuster 5 for $20 sales, they were rentals & I looked carefully for scratches. With goHastings, they were sold to GH... perhaps by unscrupulous people who knew the disc was defective either through scratch damage or just factory defects.

Plenty of great deals on NEW BDS. Not worth the hassle for me to be 1/2 way into a movie & have to stop!

[UseY0ur1llusi0n]

I stay away from GoWastings and Deep D1ckcount... nothing but bubble mailer garbage

[wickerjay]

Originally Posted by UseY0ur1llusi0n

I stay away from GoWastings and Deep D1ckcount... nothing but bubble mailer garbage

You go out of your way to resurrect this thread to post that? Helpful.

[MoulinBlu]

Old thread or not, it's sadly still relevant: I've received two defective BDs from hastings in the past month: Grimm season 2 and The Imaginarium of Dr Parnasus. I could tell by looking at Grimm that it would probably have to go back, because the scratch was circular with the disc and went almost a quarter of the way around. But the scratches on Parnasus weren't that bad, so I'm wondering if the disc is warped or something. Either that, or I didn't get all the rental crud off when I cleaned it: Had to clean that one with soap and water even - it was a "used" disc, but you could see there had been a rental sticker around the center at one time. And the disc had some kind of gunk on it that wouldn't come off with just a clean rag.

It's got me worried about the dozen or so other discs I've bought from hastings and family video with minor scratches that I expected wouldn't be a problem, so I didn't rush to watch them within the return window. I've seriously got to stop buying more than I have time to watch - at least used stuff, as well as new Disney combo packs, and new box sets from WB, as those have just as I've gotten just as many of those already scratched even from the factory.