West Side Story 4K UHD (2021)

[Paul.R.S]

Originally Posted by rooboy78

I have the UB820 and my copy played all the way through just fine. That’s REALLY odd.

Thanks for responding.

Remember when it was as 'simple' as a player needing a fw upgrade?

[Dunemoon]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

FYI, my replacement copy arrived yesterday and I tried it last night.

It also broke up multiple times in the first five minutes, but at slightly different spots from the first disc.

One time the picture just sort of jumped digitally, the second time it broke up into rainbow-colored pixels.

I have over 100 UHDs and over 1000 BDs, and this has only ever happened with another recent Disney title, The Last Duel, and one other title. Everything else plays perfectly. I don't think it's my player.

The image defects look identical to what happened on The Last Duel. It took me two copies there to get a good one.

I think something is going wrong with how Disney presses these discs.

I'm on to try a third copy. Sigh.

Perhaps the player is trying to tell you something?

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Dunemoon

Perhaps the player is trying to tell you something?

I'm not sure what it would be telling me by playing hundreds of discs fine, and only having trouble with three separate copies of one movie.

I still lean towards thinking the discs have some sort of flaw, like the Bond UHDs did.

At worst, I think my player is more sensitive to the flaw, but three copies all failing to play properly suggests the discs are at least partly to blame.

[lgans316]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

I'm not sure what it would be telling me by playing hundreds of discs fine, and only having trouble with three separate copies of one movie.

I still lean towards thinking the discs have some sort of flaw, like the Bond UHDs did.

At worst, I think my player is more sensitive to the flaw, but three copies all failing to play properly suggests the discs are at least partly to blame.

You could try ripping the disc if you have the tools for it. If ripping doesn't complete then there is a strong possibility that the disc is not good. Nowadays I seldom watch the discs as I rip and watch them as it is so much convenient especially when you have a massive collection.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by lgans316

You could try ripping the disc if you have the tools for it. If ripping doesn't complete then there is a strong possibility that the disc is not good. Nowadays I seldom watch the discs as I rip and watch them as it is so much convenient especially when you have a massive collection.

Unfortunately I don't have the ability to rip the disc, or to play a ripped 4K file.

Since it's three separate copies that don't play properly, I'm leaning toward thinking something went wrong with the manufacturing for a whole bunch of the US discs.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

So I tried out my third copy tonight.

After about ten minutes, the picture broke up again, just like the first two copies.

The only other title I've ever had this bad a problem with was the Warner reissue UHD of Casino Royale in the 4-film set.

I similarly went through three copies there, until I gave up and bought a standalone old Fox UHD of that film.

In that case, lots of other people reported problems with those discs and I saw visible scratches on a couple of the discs.

In this case, there's no visible damage, the discs have looked pristine to the naked eye

I find it hard to believe that the problem is solely with my Panasonic UB820, it has played over 100 other UD discs fine, and hundreds of BDs fine too, some this week.

Has anyone else had problems with this disc breaking up/digital noise/rainbow-colored pixels appearing suddenly?

I'm worried that it's something in how Disney produced these particular discs at the plant in Mexico, and that I may need to order a UK UHD, which will have been pressed at a different plant in Europe.

The only other title I have ever had any trouble with was The Last Duel. My first copy did the exact same thing.

Since that was a Disney title only three months ago, I lean towards thinking there's something wrong with how they're creating the polymer layer over the data layer inside. Maybe microscopic bubbles or something that the laser has trouble reading through?

I recognize I'm really stretching here, but this is profoundly weird.

This was my favorite film of last year, and I need a watchable disc.

Have you tried the washing the disc trick (doesn't matter if it looks perfectly clean)? Take it to the kitchen sink, wet it, put some hand dishwashing detergent on it, soap it all up, wash it off, dry it without getting fingerprints on it. Doing that has turned a number of my discs from problematic to perfect.

There are good copies out there. I tested three (BB Steel, Walmart Exclusive, Target Exclusive) on my computer and none had sector errors.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW

Have you tried the washing the disc trick (doesn't matter if it looks perfectly clean)? Take it to the kitchen sink, wet it, put some hand dishwashing detergent on it, soap it all up, wash it off, dry it without getting fingerprints on it. Doing that has turned a number of my discs from problematic to perfect.

There are good copies out there. I tested three (BB Steel, Walmart Exclusive, Target Exclusive) on my computer and none had sector errors.

Interesting! I've never tried that.

That really works and won't damage it?

This is April 1st and I'm always wary of practical jokes.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Interesting! I've never tried that.

That really works and won't damage it?

This is April 1st and I'm always wary of practical jokes.

haha, no, no not that at all

completely serious! no risk of damage (plus if the disc is breaking up it is already damaged so nothing to lose anyway). heck if you complain to studios about a bad disc, some even tell you to give this a try first

I have had a number of discs that seemed bum at first get fixed by that even when nothing at all was apparent on the disc surface. It's like some subtle coating from manufacturing is left behind and maybe alters the depth to some of the pits a touch too much or ever so slightly diffracts the laser or something. Now sure this will not fix all discs by any means, but I really have a had a few fixed. Just last week I was lucky that the 3 discs that were bum on first attempt got 100% fixed by that. Although unfortunately it did not do the trick for the bum one I tried yesterday, that is just riddled with a million errors, just a total bad pressing.

[James Luckard]

I tried the first ten minutes or so of the three discs tonight at a friend's house.

He has both an Oppo and a Sony UHD player.

All three discs skipped at least once on at least one player.

The first disc I got at Target, which has been giving me the most trouble, skipped multiple times on both players.

The second disc, from Amazon, skipped once on the Sony player.

The third disc skipped once on the Oppo player.

Interestingly, none of the skips were at the spots where the picture broke up on my player.

And these were all just skips, jumps of a couple of frames. This was not the picture breaking up into rainbow-colored pixels, as happened on my player. Still distracting and still enough to make the disc unwatchable to me, but not as hideously awful as on my player.

I plan to try the discs tomorrow at the house of a friend who has the exact same Panasonic player I have, but brand new.

After that, I plan to try the soap wash and then trying them again on my own player.

Since the discs have now had problems on three different players, it's clearly the discs that have a problem.

[Farerb]

This is why physical media is dying. Digital is more reliable since it doesn't depend on hardware that can go broke.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Farerb

This is why physical media is dying. Digital is more reliable since it doesn't depend on hardware that can go broke.

Once they can stream video at the level of what's on a physical disc, that'll be true.

That said, this was never an issue until recently, with UHDs.

I never had any problems like this with DVDs or BDs from 1998-2021. It was only when I adopted UHDs that I started having these issues. The technology seems inherently unstable - more fragile players and discs, for some reason.

I've had more problems with UHDs in a year than I've had with every other disc I've owned (and there have been thousands) in the previous two decades.

And unless you have one of those Kaleidoscope machines, where the digital file is stored in your house on the machine itself, you're at the mercy of how good your internet connection is.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by Farerb

This is why physical media is dying. Digital is more reliable since it doesn't depend on hardware that can go broke.

except with digital media they can lose rights or decide they don't want to show a title anymore and pull a title at any time. they can swap a title for a new cut or edition or only stream a specially edited version at any time. copy protection on downloads can go bad and not get refreshed, etc. (it has already happened that people have had entire DRM'ed music download collections get lost or video games with call home DRM lost). you have to use their software player (which often stinks compared to other alternatives) if you stream (or play a download left as is) and streaming in particular will use DRM that relies on specific hardware so you don't get around special HW playback issues at all actually as is.

[Acer2010]

Here's a quote from WEST SIDE STORY's IMDb Trivia section (updated by me a little bit):

"Ariana DeBose is the first actress and the third performer overall to win an Academy Award (leading or supporting) for a Steven Spielberg-directed performance after Daniel Day-Lewis and Mark Rylance. Day-Lewis won Best Actor for LINCOLN, and Rylance won Best Supporting Actor for BRIDGE OF SPIES."

For anyone who's a Spielberg fan like me, I thought you'd find this interesting.

[James Luckard]

Today, I tried the three copies I have that had the picture break up on my year-old Panasonic UB 820 on a friend's brand new UB 820.

The discs all played perfectly, without skips or the image breaking up.

Bizarrely, all three discs skipped on at least one of my other friend's Sony or Oppo players on Friday.

I'll try washing them with dish soap, as suggested, and see if that helps on my own player.

[Paul.R.S]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

Today, I tried the three copies I have that had the picture break up on my year-old Panasonic UB 820 on a friend's brand new UB 820.

The discs all played perfectly, without skips or the image breaking up.

Bizarrely, all three discs skipped on at least one of my other friend's Sony or Oppo players on Friday.

I'll try washing them with dish soap, as suggested, and see if that helps on my own player.

Okay this just got more bizarre. (But I think we need to distinguish between the nearly imperceptible hiccups which the player keeps on playing through that we experienced on the Sony and OPPO versus total lockups you experienced on your Panny 820.)

Something else is going on if the same physical (pristine-to-the-eye, new) disc is behaving differently on not just different players (each of which is on its respective latest fw), but between two different decks of the same make and model (on the same fw).

It seems to me that we have to now look at the players' temporary memory as an issue. Was temp memory only for BD-Live?

James, do you have Secondary Audio off and internet connectivity off? Did your friend who also has the 820 have the same settings in these regards?

On the Sony X800M2, there's a setting under "Resetting" called "Initialize Personal Information." But does that only contemplate wiping, say, your log in credentials for any player-based apps that you've used? It's a different wipe than "Restore to Factory Default Settings." And the former may not be the same as . . .

. . . what on the OPPO 203 is called "Persistent Storage," which one can erase under "Device Setup." Regarding the 820, I have the same questions in these regards as another member had in the last paragraph of his post here:

Also: What is the deal with the BD-Video Data Clear feature on this thing? You HAVE to use a USB drive to dump the data? On previous Oppos and even the Cambridge CXUHD, the Persistent Storage allowed you to dump the data internally by just clearing it out -- the Panasonic doesn't do this? How are you to know when the data has built up and needs to be removed...will the unit get slow in responding?

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by Paul.R.S

Something else is going on if the same physical (pristine-to-the-eye, new) disc is behaving differently on not just different players (each of which is on its respective latest fw), but between two different decks of the same make and model (on the same fw).

I actually wonder if the firmware may be an element. I've updated my 820, but my friend has never updated his 820, so his player still has the original factory firmware.

Of course the reason I updated my firmware in December was that the player was having the identical problem of the image occasionally breaking up into rainbow-colored pixels with my first copy of The Last Duel, also a Disney UHD disc.

Originally Posted by Paul.R.S

It seems to me that we have to now look at the players' temporary memory as an issue. Was temp memory only for BD-Live?

James, do you have Secondary Audio off and internet connectivity off? Did your friend who also has the 820 have the same settings in these regards?

On the Sony X800M2, there's a setting under "Resetting" called "Initialize Personal Information." But does that only contemplate wiping, say, your log in credentials for any player-based apps that you've used? It's a different wipe than "Restore to Factory Default Settings." And the former may not be the same as . . .

. . . what on the OPPO 203 is called "Persistent Storage," which one can erase under "Device Setup." Regarding the 820, I have the same questions in these regards as another member had in the last paragraph of his post here:

My UHD player isn't connected to the internet in any way. I only use it as a physical disc player. I don't have any other programs on it or anything. But I'll look into those tomorrow.

What I find striking in all this is that this isn't just one copy of WSS, it's three copies, from two different retailers, and all of them had problems on 3 out of 4 players tried, but none of them had problems on the fourth player.

[WBMakeVMarsMovieNOW]

Originally Posted by James Luckard

I actually wonder if the firmware may be an element. I've updated my 820, but my friend has never updated his 820, so his player still has the original factory firmware.

Of course the reason I updated my firmware in December was that the player was having the identical problem of the image occasionally breaking up into rainbow-colored pixels with my first copy of The Last Duel, also a Disney UHD disc.



My UHD player isn't connected to the internet in any way. I only use it as a physical disc player. I don't have any other programs on it or anything. But I'll look into those tomorrow.

What I find striking in all this is that this isn't just one copy of WSS, it's three copies, from two different retailers, and all of them had problems on 3 out of 4 players tried, but none of them had problems on the fourth player.

Maybe slightly bad pressings and the one player maybe had it's depth and alignment of laser set just enough to not get enough errors to really make the defects noticeable on playback? Sometimes even just sitting the disc centered vs. trying to shove it toward one edge can make it play better (sometimes away from center is better on some players for some discs, all depends).

Anyway, maybe the washing them will be enough to get at least one of them going on all players.

[50strat54]

Based on what I’ve read in this 4K thread is that there are a lot of issues with 4K discs.

[Leonidas King]

No issues on the X700.

[James Luckard]

Originally Posted by 50strat54

Based on what I’ve read in this 4K thread is that there are a lot of issues with 4K discs.

I own over 100 and have only had issues with three titles.

That said, two of them (WSS and Casino Royale) required me to go through numerous bad copies of that title.