Early Blu-rays that may have playback issues (Criterion, Well Go USA, etc.)

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by joe_b

Seeing this thread pop up again reminded me to finally check my early Lionsgate titles. These three no longer play and have turned dark bronze with spotting on the data side:

The Phantom (Billy Zane)
The Relic
Universal Solider (2008 edition)

Did a keyword search of this thread and didn't find these mentioned as problem titles.

What are the IFPI numbers in the clear plastic at the center of the disc?

[joe_b]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

What are the IFPI numbers in the clear plastic at the center of the disc?

They're on there backwards and hard to make out. Did my best, though:

EDIT: Nevermind, I thought you were referring to the batch numbers. I don't see anything stamped on the clear ring of these discs.

[BluProofie]

I think the later pressings of Lionsgate’s early stuff are good. I have a few of the problematic ones and they work fine.

[neo_reloaded]

Originally Posted by joe_b

They're on there backwards and hard to make out. Did my best, though:

EDIT: Nevermind, I thought you were referring to the batch numbers. I don't see anything stamped on the clear ring of these discs.

There are usually IFPI numbers etched in the clear plastic, and those are the most useful. There are also IFPI numbers in the matrix/barcode area on the bottom of the disc, closer to the data area - those are also usually useful.

[AKORIS]

Originally Posted by MassiveMovieBuff

My copy of Cabin Fever (2002 unrated director's cut) got a form of disc rot. Bought it when it first came out in 2010 and it's played fine every year for my horror marathons but the movie started freezing and skipping this time around. I looked at the disc and there were disc rot spots all over it.

I tossed almost all of my older Lions gate titles for this reason--- I still have that one and will need to check it....

[The Valeyard]

Originally Posted by joe_b

Seeing this thread pop up again reminded me to finally check my early Lionsgate titles. These three no longer play and have turned dark bronze with spotting on the data side:

The Phantom (Billy Zane)

Great! Now I need to check mine. It played fine when I watched it last year. Now I'm nervous.

[AKORIS]

Originally Posted by The Valeyard

Great! Now I need to check mine. It played fine when I watched it last year. Now I'm nervous.

when it comes to stuff like this you can't really let it get to you-- you could check out that movie right now, and 2 weeks later it won't play...

the epicenter of issues does seem to be early Lionsgate titles... I plan on eventually replacing all of them.

[neo_reloaded]

If people posted their IFPI numbers, we could know what factories are producing the rot and thus conversely feel confident in discs from other factories.

[kaseaver]

Originally Posted by the blob

So has anyone been successful in getting a replacemt of The Lady Vanishes? My copy now doesn’t even load when it played fine watching it a long while ago.

Just noticed this thread. My BD of The Lady Vanishes froze repeatedly at around 1:20. Tried on multiple Sony players, same problem. Contacted Mulvaney, sent in problem disc. Criterion was great about sending replacement.

[joe_b]

Originally Posted by neo_reloaded

If people posted their IFPI numbers, we could know what factories are producing the rot and thus conversely feel confident in discs from other factories.

I checked again and looked really closely. The only defective disc that had anything stamped on the clear ring was The Phantom, but it was too small and faint to make out.

If anyone is paranoid and wants to know what to look for, just hold the disc up to a light bulb and check for spots.

[surfinhank]

All three discs from my Rambo trilogy boxset are bronzed. I wanted to watch Rambo II and III to see if I wanted to bother upgrading to the 4K discs. They played fine for the first 75 minutes or so, then they started freezing up and eventually stopped playing.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by surfinhank

All three discs from my Rambo trilogy boxset are bronzed. I wanted to watch Rambo II and III to see if I wanted to bother upgrading to the 4K discs. They played fine for the first 75 minutes or so, then they started freezing up and eventually stopped playing.

You want to upgrade either way, trust me.

[mande2013]

Does Criterion do defective disc replacements for overseas customers just in case I need to exchange one at some point? I have a few discs that are a bit funky when I try to play them on a Mac with Blu-Ray Player Pro, but they're just fine with PowerDVD on a PC and Nero doesn't display any errors. I've encountered this in particular with Red Desert and Vivre Sa Vie. They're not Sonopress-pressed disc by the way. They're from newer batches.

[TripleHBK]

Every time I see this thread bumped it causes me to go and look over my collection again. In the past I would actually go through and play each film but these days that's just not feasible and so for today I did the old Eye ball test. I've only ever had one disc fail on me thus far (SAW) which I was able to replace thanks to the free copy that was included inside early copies of SAW V. I own a significant number of those early lionsgate discs and outside of one manufacturing defect on a copy of the Expendables which was present right from the get go, I've been fortunate to only have the one disc failure.

Today after eye balling everything I identified 2 discs that I felt needed further scrutiny. Cabin Fever (a disc I purchased only a year or so ago, used, showed signs of the spots all over the disc and sadly failed to completely play through the film, so it is now my second failed disc. The other disc I checked was See No Evil. It had no spots, but was a bit more bronze than most discs but thankfully appeared to play just fine during a quick run through.

[Franchot]

Originally Posted by kaseaver

Just noticed this thread. My BD of The Lady Vanishes froze repeatedly at around 1:20. Tried on multiple Sony players, same problem. Contacted Mulvaney, sent in problem disc. Criterion was great about sending replacement.

My copy of The Lady Vanishes is defective as well. It won't play pass the "C" in the upper left corner as the disc loads.

[Majin Blu]

My heart sinks every time this thread gets bumped back up, lol.

I've had a few that have stopped working on me. It's been exclusively the early Lionsgate titles

Saw and Saw IV (I eventually got rid of the whole series)
The Last Unicorn
Brothers

I checked Basic Instinct last year and it worked, so I assume it still does. No bronzing or spots.

[fdm]

I recently got around to a good number of the bronzing Criterions I had left (the ones with the bad IFPI numbers), watching some for the first time, and skimming through all of the ones I already watched before in fast forward mode on my Oppo. They all still play (or skim) successfully, thankfully. Only one I haven't finished watching yet is 8 1/2.

I also skimmed through The Lady Vanishes and a couple others, played a few more, still no problems there either.

But also have a good number of other titles that have been mentioned here and there like Sanjuro to check out. Got a little sidetracked the past few weeks, but anticipate getting back to these any day now and making sure there's no issues with my copies.

And also I still have several of the replacement copies I got from Criterion about 4 years ago now to go through, though they should all be fine, but once that's done, I'll consider it mission accomplished.

Hope I don't find any more baddies while doing all this...

[Animatic33]

My The Lady Vanishes plays perfect. I re-watched it just now, such a great film!

IFPI L235.

Purchased Oct 2017 part of Hitchcock Collection from Criterion directly.

[StingingVelvet]

I have a lot of the old Lionsgate ones but they all play fine thankfully. Don't own many of the Criterions and the ones I do are probably later printings.

[shinobipopcorn]

Took my copy of The Last Unicorn out, and it looks a little weird... Has a white ring just outside the center hub, and a couple specks here and there. The player struggled to start it up, but eventually got it going. I'm afraid it might eventually succumb. Any recourse if it does, apart from buying the Shout version?