Caution about French DigiBooks

[jscoggins]

According to Torrente, many French discs are now unplayable due to various manufacturing defects. Caveat emptor.

Originally Posted by Torrente

Well, as you may know (or not), we are currently facing a HUGE blu-ray disc fiasco in France, with a magnitude that is 100 times moreconcerning that what happened to Lionsgate / Criterion / Well Go discs in the US.
We (french customers) find a lot of our discs unplayable anymore.

Companies told us it was mainly a problem of material they used back in 2009 / 2010 that are causing a deterioration to the layers on BD-50s. But we recently discovered it was partly a lie. Because a lot more discs became unplayable. Discs that were released in 2011, 2012, 2013. And BD-25 too.
We at least discovered 70 to 80 discs that are unplayable anymore... and counting. Everyday another title is added to the list.
Today the following french releases were named:
- Tucker & Dale
- Brazil (digibook)
- Cleopatra (digibook)
- Speed (BD-25)

It affects a lot of french discs: most of the TF1 video "old" steelbooks (Polanski's Pirates, Pulp Fiction, The Mist etc), most of the M6 vidéo releases, Pathé, Europa Corp, a lot of Wild Side discs too (such as Sin Cuty and many others) and some Gaumont, Aventi, MEP.
Right now BD-25 that are affected are very rare, I agree on that. Still, some are concerned too. For example, my Speed disc is totally ROT. It's not a "bronzing" effect, it's more like a kind of a mist on the surface of the data side.

This issue is discussed on all the french blu-ray community forums. I don't think we discussed about it on the french forum of blu-ray.com yet 'though.
I chosed not to, because right now, most of the companies didn't say a word. They just said it was a problem with the factory and that we should all deal directly with it. But this very factory is in receivership right now. Her faith will be adressed on the 26th of February so we all wait to know how this will end.
At the moment, we only can check all our collection, hoping that just a few discs won't work, and not a huge lot.

03/03/2015 Edit: Further warning: Some are reporting that these discs are damaging their BD players.