Potential Bee Movie glitch? Odd playback with PS3, interested in input from others

[neo_reloaded]

I was watching Bee Movie on BD with my girlfriend today, and I was rewinding to get to where we left off after somebody interrupted us, and I noticed the screen pixelating all over the place during the rewind.

After the movie finished, I went back and did some tests, and sure enough when you fast forward or rewind, the screen pixelates every once in awhile. We're talking a steady clip, huge noticeable artifacts everywhere maybe once every 5 seconds or so. During normal playback, or the sped-up 1.5x playback the PS3 offers, everything is fine. Slow-mo fast forward is fine as well (pressing pause, then holding down the fast forward button). I even went frame by frame through a small section where I had seen pixelation to make sure it was fine. But go to 10x, 30x, or 120x (in either direction) and you will absolutely see problems.

I had never before seen something like this in any of the 100+ BDs I own. Just to make sure my PS3 wasn't acting up (or I had just somehow never consciously registered this pixelation before), I popped in Ratatouille and did a series of fast forward/rewind tests, and every image shown on the screen was perfect - no pixelation or artifacts in sight.

It's possible that my copy of Bee Movie is just a bad disc (it looks fine underneath, but you never know what internal problems could be going on) and that's an avenue I plan to pursue if I have to. But I thought I'd check here and see if any other owners of Bee Movie (with the PS3 or another player, all results are welcome at this point) could confirm or deny similar activity. This is Paramount's first Profile 1.1 title, if I'm not mistaken, so it crossed my mind that maybe they have some software problem where whatever BD Java stuff they have running is putting too much of a burden or something on the PS3 when it attempts to fast-forward/rewind, resulting in the minor instances of pixelation. It could also just be a PS3 issue for all I know, something they need to patch with firmware.

There are quite a lot of possibilities for what could be wrong, so that's why I would greatly appreciate any response from any Bee Movie owners - confirmation or denial of this activity on the PS3 or any other Blu-ray player would all help understand this issue. Thanks for reading.

[trunksvegeta187]

worst thing for me was the screen went blank for like 1 second
btw psyched Target put it out early

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The rewind/forward functions work - the movie moves forward or back at a fine pace - but random images during this period will be pixelated. It's a quick thing - pixelation, then bam gone as the forward/rewind continues through the movie.

I managed to fast forward then pause right on one of the brief screens of pixelation. Here's what it looks like:

[Prog5000]

Could be a potential problem. But as long as the film plays a-ok then whats the problem?

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Originally Posted by Prog5000

Could be a potential problem. But as long as the film plays a-ok then whats the problem?

I'm just wondering if it's something others are experiencing, or if I have a defective disc.

If it's just some Paramount BD-Java or PS3 firmware issue, then whatever - I'll wait to see if a fix happens, but I don't care much either way. But if it's a sign that something is wrong with my disc, I'm going to get a replacement while I still can (within 30 days of receipt).

[USF Bull]

yup, same thing happens with mine, seems to just happen when it jumps a couple of scenes during the seek. doesn't happen during normal playback, so no big deal.

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Originally Posted by USF Bull

yup, same thing happens with mine, seems to just happen when it jumps a couple of scenes during the seek. doesn't happen during normal playback, so no big deal.

Hmm ok, so it may just be a currently unresolved software bug. That's certainly what I hope for - I don't want to replace my disc (I'd have to mail it back to buy.com, then wait another week for delivery of the replacement).

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Ok, I've confirmed this as not an isolated disc issue. USF Bull's post confirms that other Bee Movie copies do this, and I just experienced this exact same issue with Rambo (2008).

The funny thing is that it only happens when you turn the Bonus View option ON in Rambo. With Bonus View off, it fast forwards and rewinds completely normally. This is consistent with my Bee Movie experiences because Bee Movie's Bonus View module is technically always running (it can be toggled on and off in mere seconds because the content is always loaded, it just doesn't have to be displayed). With Rambo, turning Bonus View on restarts the movie or kicks you to the menu or something - meaning that it's not running when you just play the movie back normally.

So, while it is technically possible my PS3 is dying, given that USF Bull confirms the symptoms I'm seeing and that this would require an extremely specific (and possibly impossible) hardware defect, I'm thinking it's a more widespread thing. I'm guessing PS3 firmware bug. I'm going to look into finding a contact email for Sony, and I might post this issue again in the BD Hardware forum as that now seems more applicable.

edit: Ok, it doesn't affect V For Vendetta's Bonus View. In my opinion, that further confirms that my PS3 is working properly (as now the defective hardware would have to be even more specific), and points to a bug in relation to whichever functions are used in Bee Movie and Rambo (and potentially other titles). I'll try some Fox, Disney, and Sony titles when I have a chance.