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

[JurassicBD]

Thanks. That possibility occurred to me, but it didn't look like any of the consumer made BD-Rs I've seen, and neither this site, nor amazon is listing it as a BD-R. Our Oppo also reads the disc as BDMV, same as a pressed disc. I don't know if its info screen is designed to distinguish between pressed and burned discs or not though. I'll check it in the PS3 to see if it specifies a difference.

Surprisingly, this must be our first BD from Gravitas. If all they produce are unprofessionally burned discs, that would explain it. I wrongfully assumed it was from Magnet or Well-Go when we ordered.

[zeze]

Originally Posted by JurassicBD

Thanks. That possibility occurred to me, but it didn't look like any of the consumer made BD-Rs I've seen, and neither this site, nor amazon is listing it as a BD-R. Our Oppo also reads the disc as BDMA, same as a pressed disc. I don't know if its info screen is designed to distinguish between pressed and burned discs or not though. I'll check it in the PS3 to see if it specifies a difference.

Surprisingly, this must be our first BD from Gravitas. If all they produce are unprofessionally burned discs, that would explain it. I wrongfully assumed it was from Magnet or Well-Go when we ordered.

I'm not an expert on BD-Rs (I only have a few in my collection) but both blu-rays came out mid 2018 so if it is disc rot that would be pretty quick even for BD-Rs.

[Aunt Peg]

All the BD-Rs I've ever purchased (I generally try to avoid them) are much darker looking than pressed Blu Rays. Never had a playback problem yet with any of them or DVD-Rs for that matter.

[Aunt Peg]

Originally Posted by Aunt Peg

I have a 2011 edition of Les femmes du 6eme étage (The Women on the Sixth Floor). Its from M6 Video.

It has a large brown/gold band around the inner circle like my 2010 Gaumont discs that have failed (Danton, A Man Escaped, The Night at Vareness & Cousin Cousine).

However, the Les femmes du 6eme étage played loaded fine and played fine when I did a chapter to chapter skip through it.

I actually purchased the Australian disc which was pressed in 2012 and it doesn't show any colouring of the inner ring and plays fine (its a better disc for English speakers anyway because it doesn't have French subtitles for the dialogue spoken in French).

Anyway, I'm holding onto the French disc and will check it every six months. I do need to check if the disc was pressed by QOL.

I checked this disc in another machine and it would not play. And I can confirm its another QOL disc.

[MassiveMovieBuff]

Yet another early Lionsgate title bites the dust. My copy of Cujo died on me. Covered with disc rot spots. They just continue to drop like flies. Instead of rebuying the Lionsgate I'm just going to get the Eureka collector's edition.

[eddyw78]

Originally Posted by MassiveMovieBuff

Yet another early Lionsgate title bites the dust. My copy of Cujo died on me. Covered with disc rot spots. They just continue to drop like flies. Instead of rebuying the Lionsgate I'm just going to get the Eureka collector's edition.

The first BD I ever bought!!!! Can’t check my copy yet as my son is using the tv to play Fortnite but the disc surface kinda looks ok if ever so slightly discoloured towards the centre.

[Partyslammer]

Originally Posted by MassiveMovieBuff

Well this one really, really stings. My OOP Lionsgate blu ray for Near Dark went bad on me. Just tried to watch it and it froze around 3 minutes in.

I checked my copy last night, fortunately no issues.

[Monterey Jack]

My Lionsgate copies of Cujo and Near Dark still worked as of this month, but my copy of The Monster Squad shit the bed, freezing up during the "vortex" climax. Yeah, I was able to replace that for cheap with the Olive reissue, but that edition contains zero extra features.

[eddyw78]

My copy of Cujo just loaded up fine. I presume it plays the whole movie though. I haven’t the time to play it in full.

[Torrente]

Reported problems mainly occure throughout the movie so just checking if it "loads up fine" won't be enough unfortunately

As a matter of fact, it should be noted once and for all that checking a disc isn't totally accurate if it only means trying to load it up. One can only be 100% sure after watching the entire disc at regular speed (movie and special features).

[MassiveMovieBuff]

Originally Posted by eddyw78

My copy of Cujo just loaded up fine. I presume it plays the whole movie though. I haven’t the time to play it in full.

I got through around 15 minutes of the film before it started skipping and freezing.

[TripleHBK]

Originally Posted by Torrente

Reported problems mainly occure throughout the movie so just checking if it "loads up fine" won't be enough unfortunately

As a matter of fact, it should be noted once and for all that checking a disc isn't totally accurate if it only means trying to load it up. One can only be 100% sure after watching the entire disc at regular speed (movie and special features).

This is only partially true. Playing a disc from start to finish is essential, but any disc rot errors or encoding errors can still be caught at faster speeds. When speeding through a film opening the time stamps and watching the film progress will still identify issues. Problematic sections will pause momentarily in small problem areas and freeze up for a considerable amount of time for significant areas.

Dirt or scratches to the disc that result in skips however will not be caught in this fashion. I've been checking discs for years (both retail and bd-r's) and this process has never once let me down. Using speeds from 4x to 16x pretty much work all well and good on the players I've utilized.

In regards to Cujo... I actually just watched my Lionsgate edition less than a month ago and it played start to finish just fine.

[MassiveMovieBuff]

What's odd is how inconsistent the lifespan for these lionsgate titles are. A few died on me just a couple to a few years after I bought them when they first came out while others have died 10-12 years later. Some even still work just fine like my Devil's Rejects disc. The replacements all work just fine still too. Very odd.

[Aunt Peg]

Another possible problem to report - this one with the Blu Ray of Pauline on the Beach from the Eric Rohmer French Blu Ray box set which was pressed by QOL. I posted the following on the thread in the relation to the box set on the French page:

I highly recommend anyone owning this set to start watching (or re-watching) is you haven't yet had a chance because I've had my first disc failure.

There have been reports of these Blu Rays failing (notably The Green Ray), however my Pauline at the Beach simply would not play on my preferred player.

It did play fine on two other players but the disc has that dark ring on the inner circle of the disc which can mean the end or the beginning of the end of the disc. The disc was pressed by QOL which are responsible for a number of Blu Ray disc failures in France.

This could also be a case of the player & the disc simply 'not liking' each other which can happen from time to time but I'll have to see what happens when I watch all the other films and what happens in the future.

I suppose on the only bright outcome in respect of this boxset is that it comes with DVDs, which to date and to my knowledge to failures have been reported.

I did watch Love in the Afternoon two weeks ago on the same player and there were no problems but am planning to revisit all the films (one a week) before they (may) go bad.

[Vilya]

I am happy to report that my copy of The Monster Squad played fine, but I plan to make a back-up just in case the same as I did with Near Dark, which also played perfectly.

However, my copy of Lord Of War failed. I called, and then emailed, Lionsgate and they are sending me a replacement. They did require that I mail back the defective disc, along with the proof of purchase tab from the disc case cover art, at my expense.

When a disc fails, which has been quite rare in my experience overall, and if it is still in print, it never hurts to reach out to the studio. I have had very good luck with getting replacements by simply asking politely. It may not work every time, but it takes little effort to ask.

[a priori]

Originally Posted by Aunt Peg

My Gaumont Blu Ray of Robert Bresson's A Man Escaped is dead. Like my Blu Rays of Danton (nearly dead) and La Nuit de Varennes (dead), they were all pressed in 2010.

I've ordered the UK Artificial Eye version.

I had a look at my Eric Rohmer box set and the Blu Ray's I checked all had that darkening brown in the inner ring but played fine. Of course nothing may happen to them and in a worst case scenario also included in the box set are DVDs.

Thank you for reporting on your issues with the Rohmer box set; really annoying given how expensive the set is. Imported this set from Amazon France a few weeks ago, and so far have watched 6 blu-rays (including Le Rayon vert and Pauline on the Beach) all without issue. However, you also mention cases of 'browning' on the inner ring, which none of the blu-rays are are showing so far in my set.

[Aunt Peg]

Originally Posted by a priori

Thank you for reporting on your issues with the Rohmer box set; really annoying given how expensive the set is. Imported this set from Amazon France a few weeks ago, and so far have watched 6 blu-rays (including Le Rayon vert and Pauline on the Beach) all without issue. However, you also mention cases of 'browning' on the inner ring, which none of the blu-rays are are showing so far in my set.

With any luck you may not encounter any problems in the future as they are probably recently pressed and my impression for earlier posts by others in this thread that it appears QOL have been taken over by a company who knows that they are doing.

However, I imagine that this is something that could be a problem in the future with any of our discs if a processing plant has not been pressing them correctly - but only time will tell.

It would be really interesting if every member of the board could find the time (which is simply impossible for nearly everyone I would say including myself) to actually check every Blu Ray and DVD we own - I wonder what the failure rate would be. Probably very low but 10 years from now - who knows.

[Killer Meteor]

Originally Posted by Aunt Peg

With any luck you may not encounter any problems in the future as they are probably recently pressed and my impression for earlier posts by others in this thread that it appears QOL have been taken over by a company who knows that they are doing.

However, I imagine that this is something that could be a problem in the future with any of our discs if a processing plant has not been pressing them correctly - but only time will tell.

It would be really interesting if every member of the board could find the time (which is simply impossible for nearly everyone I would say including myself) to actually check every Blu Ray and DVD we own - I wonder what the failure rate would be. Probably very low but 10 years from now - who knows.

I have one defective DVD - the Fox DVD of SHOCK TREATMENT, which I bought in 2008.

Given I have DVDs from 1997, I'd imagine they'd still play 20 years from now...but I wouldn't want to bet on it!

[MassiveMovieBuff]

Originally Posted by Vilya

I am happy to report that my copy of The Monster Squad played fine, but I plan to make a back-up just in case the same as I did with Near Dark, which also played perfectly.

However, my copy of Lord Of War failed. I called, and then emailed, Lionsgate and they are sending me a replacement. They did require that I mail back the defective disc, along with the proof of purchase tab from the disc case cover art, at my expense.

When a disc fails, which has been quite rare in my experience overall, and if it is still in print, it never hurts to reach out to the studio. I have had very good luck with getting replacements by simply asking politely. It may not work every time, but it takes little effort to ask.

Damn! I wish I would've tried this with all of my Lionsgate disc failures!

[AKORIS]

I've replaced/gotten rid of all of my early LIONSGATE releases.... no sense even bothering with them as they apparently are all going to go bad.