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

[libertyeagle20]

I don’t know if companies just didn’t know what they were doing early on or what but I’ve identified 3 different early Blu rays in my collection that have failed. They are in near mint condition but just skip all the way through now. The ones I’ve found are..

House of 1000 corpses
The pursuit of happyness
The Simpsons movie

It’s pretty frustrating as the oldest Blu ray is only about 15 years old, no reason for them to be failing already. Check your Blu rays made in 2008 or earlier as there’s a decent chance they may not work anymore.

[bigdaddyhorse]

Lots of old Lionsgate like House of 1K Corpses art known failures.
Haven't heard about the other ones.

[starsteam]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=249210

[HorrorBlu]

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread.php?t=249210

[libertyeagle20]

Thanks for the link, I guess the problem is a lot worse than I thought.

[MazeRunner]

Originally Posted by surfinhank

Found another bronzed disc today: The Life Before Her Eyes. It was put out by Magnolia (don't remember any reports of bronzing from this company). The entire disc is bronzed and it has a few of those milky white spots, but it played fine all the way through.

I just checked my disc for Life Before Her Eyes and it's definitely bronzed.

Wish I discovered this thread earlier lol. I blind-bought Stir Of Echoes used last year sometimes and have yet to watch it. I'll test it later.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by libertyeagle20

Thanks for the link, I guess the problem is a lot worse than I thought.

Better start your now. We're over ours.

[Phillip c. Niethe]

I've attempted to view Face Off on a couple Blurays from different stores but none of them seem to work. I can't recall the other titles but they all were 2007 with the silver holo swish on the bottom right.

[TripleHBK]

Check out the linked threads for more insight, but as a rule of thumb, expect most early Lionsgate discs to fail that were produced between 2006 and mid 2008. There was a specific pressing plant that had faulty manufacturing processes and pretty much every Lionsgate disc that has failed for folks has come from this one plant.

[Deromax]

It could also be your player failing. None of my players since the DVD era have had stellar longevity.

[Vilya]

I have not had very many discs go bad, something like 0.5% since laserdisc onward, but I have had no disc players fail except for a first generation CD player, the Yamaha CD-X1, and it was about 20 years old when it gave up the laser. An anecdotal account, sure, but as it is my experience I remain happy with both players and discs alike.

[MazeRunner]

Re-watched my Simpsons Movie blu-ray and there were no issues.

Now re-watching John Tucker Must Die. 25 minutes in and no errors yet.

[Rik1138]

Just seeing this thread for the first time...
Checked my 2006 Lionsgate release of Stargate, and it's not recognized by my computer or Blu-ray player at all (computer says 'no disc inserted). The whole disc is a uniform bronze color, with some odd circular patterns around the hub.
I have the newer release of this movie as well, so haven't touched this disc in years... No telling how long ago this happened to it.
IFPI 2F29

[jarrod_inf]

Since this thread was bumped earlier I decided to check op to compare against what I’ve purchased recently. I bought a ‘used’ sealed copy of the Ninth Gate and it was unreadable in 4 different players.

[CelestialAgent]

Originally Posted by jarrod_inf

Since this thread was bumped earlier I decided to check op to compare against what I’ve purchased recently. I bought a ‘used’ sealed copy of the Ninth Gate and it was unreadable in 4 different players.

Are any of the international releases comparable in quality or better than the US release? At least it isn’t the only option.

[Travis]

Just tried to play:


Nope. The Bronze got it.

[MassiveMovieBuff]

I just had to order a new Entourage series BD set. I was in the middle of watching my current one and a couple of the episodes froze and skipped. I've watched my current set 3 other times previously and had zero issues so not sure why I'm having problems now. I noticed some tiny scratches on the discs that gave me problems so that could be part of it or all of it. I guess they were the type of scratches that cause problems down the line unless they somehow happened sometime after the last time I watched my set.

[libertyeagle20]

Originally Posted by MassiveMovieBuff

I just had to order a new Entourage series BD set. I was in the middle of watching my current one and a couple of the episodes froze and skipped. I've watched my current set 3 other times previously and had zero issues so not sure why I'm having problems now. I noticed some tiny scratches on the discs that gave me problems so that could be part of it or all of it. I guess they were the type of scratches that cause problems down the line unless they somehow happened sometime after the last time I watched my set.

Sadly Blu Rays are super sensitive to scratches. I've had a single ding cause the disc to have issues before. I've also had them still work with a deep scratch. DVDs get scratched easier than Blu Rays but seem to be a lot more tolerant to scratches.

[libertyeagle20]

I picked up a used Blu Ray of Elf recently and it was dead. Disc was in great shape too. Noticed it came out in 2008 so maybe it is another victim of bad early blu ray disc quality

[WonkaBedknobs83]

My Criterion Blu-ray of 12 Angry Men stopped playing at around the 20 minute mark, so I had to go to B&N (the only store near me that isn't Best Buy, Target, or Walmart that has new releases beyond the most basic Hollywood new releases) to replace it, which I used as a pretext to justify a birthday Blu-ray binge.

And out of curiosity, I bought the Criterion laserdisc from the 1980s and it had no playback problems. It had less picture info on the sides and more on the top and bottom. At least the LD had a United Artists logo of 1980s vintage while the Blu-ray just had whatever MGM logo was in use.