zipflint

Well,
Out of the four discs I ordered from DVDShelf, two (Universe's City on Fire and Mega Star's Magnificent Butcher) are defective. City on Fire won't read in any player I've tried, 'Butcher pixelates and locks up about 30 minutes into the film. Garrr!!!
It's probably not worth paying the shipping charges to exchange these discs, but I still want to see the films. I'm wondering if maybe I just got hold of a rotten batch of discs or something. Both look fine, no scratches or odd marks, and I cleaned them myself just to be sure. I'm thinking of just trashing the discs and keeping the cases, maybe ordering these films again some time. I guess I'm wondering if anyone else has had trouble with these discs.....It's not my player (Pioneer DV-434) because I've gotten the same results on a few other machines that I've tried these discs on.
I've sent an e-mail to DVDShelf, but I'm pretty sure they'll want me to pay the shipping charges (can't really blame them for that), as it says so on their website.

oh well, just needed to vent my frustrations I guess,
zipflint

Trencher

You can always rent them from Netflix. If they don't play you can always return 'em. I've rented both of those titles and they played unlike Mr. Vampire and Man called Hero.

drindustrial

Well, I just received my copy of the Universe version of Tai Chi Master. However, it will not play in my player. My player is a high end player...a JVC XV-D723...and I haven't had any problems with any discs thus far, including ones that have been problematic on lower end players. I have already emailed the place I bought it from (HKFlix.com), so hopefully exchanging it won't be too painful.

Has anyone had problems with Universe discs (or this one) in general?

Thanks,
David

axolotls return

Yes. I haven't bought a Universe disc in over three months because of this.

This year their quality has gone to $hitzz. I had one Universe DVD and only one out of three copies worked...

axolotls return

This is a disturbing trend with HK DVDs. Deltamac and Universe has pretty much put a bad taste in my mouth. I used to buy 30+ HK DVDs at a time. Now, recently... a bunch are going bad. Even after returning some and getting defects back.. oh yeah... one came back that worked...

I am a bit fortunate to have practically all the HK DVDs I want (excluding new releases).

Anyone see this as a trend.??

Hendrik

"...This year their quality has gone to $hitzz..."

...really?... that's strange - I have several DVDs on the UNIVERSE label
(e.g. Audition - Gohatto) and have had no problems playing those
(on my 1997 all-region DENON DVD-2000 player)...

. . . . . .

jtkv

axolotls,
you should quantify "this year"...

Are these defective discs new releases, or old DVDs that you are just now buying?? All my new Universe releases are fine.

From all my Universe DVDs, I have had 3 or 4 old releases that would not play in my older Panasoinc A110, but they all work fine in my new Malata N996.

This, to me, means that older DVD-ROM drives are less forgiving of minor DVD production errors, and maybe older DVDs were not properly mastered. The new DVD-ROM drives have greater error detection/correction capabilities.

City On Fire is the worst, as it seems the boot sector is messed up. My Malata reads it, but complains and gives choppy and pixelated "copyrght warning screen", and eventually does run normally after that.


J.T.

raithen

Universe discs aren't the only ones that seem to be suffering in quality of late. I just bought Last Hurrah For Chivalry (Megastar) and had the same problem. Starts to pixelate and locks up. Ugh.

That being said, the last Universe disc I picked up, God Of Cookery I had to have replaced as well. Same thing.

Definitely seems to be a trend with the QA, or lack thereof. Ugh.

-matt

zipflint

Well,
It's good to know that I'm not alone in this. It's quite the pisser. The prices for the discs themselves ain't that much, but after you factor in shipping, this stuff gets kinda expensive. I imagine that if R1 discs had this many QC issues, there'd be quite an uproar.
I'm new to this scene, and I take it from the above comments that the quality control issues are just *now* starting to get out of hand? I wonder what the heck is going on.....I'd like to add these films to my library, but now I'm leery of getting yet another sack o' lemons.

zipflint

Sinister Ash

I just watched the film, and I thought it was amazing! One of the best HK films I have seen in a long, long time. One of Chow's best if not THE best.

with that out of the way, this dvd has a problem. There is a special feature icon that appears everytime that there is a special effect.

The option "On the Air" is NOT suppose to show the icon. That is what the second option "Special Feature" is for. If you will notice when you choose "Special Feature" it explains that a icon will appear so you can check out how they made the special effects.

Since the user cannot turn OFF the icon, it can be disruptive if you don't intend to watch the film.

I just want to let Universe DVD know that they should fix the dvd problem, and allow people who dislike the inablity to turn off the icon, to be able to exchange for a fixed copy.

Hopefully many of you fans of the film feel the same way, and through this thread maybe our voice will be heard. We paid for the disc, and we expect the disc not to have such defects.

Furious

In the limited number of cases where Universe has remastered a title to correct a defect, they generally take at the very least 6-12 months to correct the fault. There are far more titles in their catalouge that have not been remastered to correct defects (Who Am I's Cantonese 5.1 track is still defective to this day for one blatant example). As for a disc exchange program? Forget about it, not going to happen in our wildest dreams. I agree that the constant icon displays are a bit annoying after an intial viewing. One of those inevitable quirks, as Universe typically never does anything perfectly...there is always one or two niggling factors isn't there?

MattC

With HK discs I normally pay for the disc and pray not to find any defects. No expectations.

joelgee

I've got a panasonic rv30 and most of the DVDs mentioned as defective. I've only had one Universe that didn't play and I can't think of any that have committed suicide through pixelation. The only DVD I've played that did that was a rental copy of "Independence Day." I have to believe that DVD players have a wide range of tolerance for programming. Maybe it's not the DVD as much as it's DVD + DVD player=oops!

ipkevin

If you watch on a software DVD player, you can "turn off" the icon by turning off the subtitles. I've tested this with PowerDVD 2.5 & Cinemaster 2000. No idea if this will work on a standalone DVD player at the moment.

It's not a great solution, but after you watch it once, I suppose you could leave the subs on for most of the film and then turn them off during the fx-heavy scenes (which don't have much dialogue anyway).

gabegarwick

I just got my copy of Shaolin Soccer last night. I'll try to get some testing done to see if I can provide any additional info.

cheers,
Gabe

Peep

Maybe I'll stick with my VCD after all.

foxdvd

yeah, but the dvd quality is good though!

gabegarwick

I tested it on my standalone unit (aiwa 370), the icon will show up if any subtitles are on. (No subtitles= No icon) I can test it with WinDVD if someone would like, but I would expect the same results...

cheers,
Gabe

Trigger

Unmatchable Match & And I Hate You So... both are Universe manufactured recently and both are defective. Unmatchable won't even be recognized in any dvd player and the other one wouldn't play in my new Sony 5 disc but it would play in my older Toshiba. Something with the manufacture is causing the occasional dimple in the plastic which will refract the light in the wrong place... take a look at your defectives to see if you can find a dimple on the surface. The closer to the center of the disc - the earlier on in the film you will see the f-up.

Singapore Slim

I've had pretty good luck until my last two orders arrived. The first from Poker was "Lady in Black" (Universe emblem on box) and the disc itself looked weather beaten. The top of the disc had oil stains and the playing side had what seemed to be wood shavings imbedded in the disc. I wasn't able to clean the disc, so I got a replacement. Same thing, except the playing side wasn't nearly as bad. I cleaned it up and was able to enjoy the movie.

Then, last night I watched "Murder" (Mega Star) and it was that. About an hour into the movie it locked up. Up to this time it had been pixelating off and on. I took it out of the player and cleaned the disc. It played out another 10 minutes without a problem before locking up again. Went through this several times until there was 6 minutes left in the movie. That was it.

I hate that a Mega Star disc was bad. Makes me nervous as that's two bad ones out of five, with a dozen more to watch, plus a couple other orders on the way. Usually order a bunch every 6-12 months. Before this I'd only had one bad HK disc. Not sure if I was just lucky then or unlucky now.

Lokimok

I know how this is. I usually like to wait & get 15-20 at a time to get a good shipping rate. & instead of enjoying them at my leisure, as it should be, I always feel the need to plow right through them to make sure there are no duds.

Some of you seem to think that this is a new problem or one that is getting worse. I don't know. There have been people with Universe problems for as long as I've read about HK DVDs. I don't recall so many Mega Star problems being reported though.

axolotls return

For me, it's a new problem, after running through hundreds of HK DVDS I started getting duds only recently (ones that won't play, ones that pixelate and freeze, ones that won't let me access certain menu features, and of course the bizarre DVD advertised as R0 on the disc and sleeve and finding out it's R3). Never had a problem with a MegaStar and I have quite a bunch (old and newer releases)

Yellow Hammer

Usually you would never get a problem with Megastar DVDs, because they are pressed in Japan (at least this was the case the last time I checked 6 months ago) for the most part where the QC is much higher than anywhere (including the US). If there was a defect, I would say it was caused during the shipping.

I guess I've been relatively lucky - out of almost 400 HK DVDs or so, I've only had two that either quit playing or stopped halfway - Jiang Hu: The Triad Zone and King of Comedy. About 5 or 6 others have pixellated but my main DVD player (Sony7000) has played through the problems.

So yes, pressings are at fault for sure, but the quality and tolerance of your DVD player sure plays a factor as well. My Shinco DVD player sure has a lot more problems for example, as does my Toshiba DVD-Rom drive.

Yellow Hammer

Shipping should be pretty cheap from the US to HK for shipping an unwrapped disc only. Costs like 80 cents for one DVD in a plain envelope to send first class mail to HK, which would take about a week to get there. 4 DVDs would probably not cost much more. The real cost is the damn long wait in line at the post office....

Edit: I just looked at DVDShelf's policy and it looks like you'll have to return the case as well. Well, that would cost much more. With DDDHouse, you just need to return the disc itself only.

dleedlee

I got my disc Saturday. It WAS shipped 9/4. That's the woo-hoo.

The boo hoo, Disc 2 doesn't play $#!! My Sampo does not recognize the disc.
It tries to load but eventually gives up and says 'No Disc'. I tried both
the region 2 and bypass settings but no luck. Pum, what did you
end I doing with yours (what player you using)? I don't want to even try and get this replaced from amazon.fr. I'm hoping it's my Sampo and when I eventually get my Malata
(now sooner than latter) , it will play it. Any ideas?