Calmuser

I've had a number of dvd-18's fail on me. But both times I got them replaced by Universal. They send you a return mailer you send it back, a few weeks or sometimes it will take a month or so. you should get a good one back.

flyboy

Magnum P.I. Season 4

Yes, I sent them an email and told me to send them my receipt, a description of the problem and my DVD player models to the address they provided me in email. I sent the disc in and I received a new one about 3-4 weeks later. I did mention that there were several of these bad dics that they are producing down in Mexico and that their quality control flat out sucks. I have found fingerprints all over the discs right out of a brand new set. Amazing....

Darknite39

I also need to rewatch my Magnum S4 set to find the blips. I didn't write them down the first time through.

Oddly, the discs froze momentarily on my player, but played OK on my laptop.

zintar007

Whoa! I'm pretty amazed at the list of DVD's affected by this problem! So far I have only had problems with two discs.

The first is Disc One of The Best of Abbott & Costello, Volume One. It froze during Buck Privates, right in the middle of the "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B" number, one of the best numbers in all the A&C movies! Then, it froze in the middle of Hold That Ghost. Oddly, though, this was during the second playing of the movie, the first time it played fine.

The second problem I had was during the first play of The Shakiest Gun In The West, which is on Disc 2 of the Don Knotts The Reluctant Hero set. It froze about a third through the movie.

Until I read this thread, I thought it was my player. I have a Zenith DVB412, and I have had similar problems with some DVD-R's. All the discs play fine, however, on my Nexxtech portable DVD player. I suppose more recently manufactured players are able to handle DVD-18 and DVD-R with less trouble than earlier models, even those made just two years ago.

I never bothered to return the discs, since as I mention I thought the problem was with my player, also I had bought the Don Knotts set over a year ago and never got to watch it until recently, and I don't even think I got to watch the A&C disc until after the return date.

Actually what bothers me more is the rather long list of titles affected by this. Many of them are titles I would like to purchase eventually, such as Columbo, The Munsters, Kolchak and the Hammer Horror Classics, and I hope I do not have problems with them. One would think that with so many problems occuring with this format the studios would drop the format and repackage the programs on other discs.

Anyway, I suppose you may want to put Don Knotts The Reluctant Hero on your list.

Thanks for the info.

D'ohboy

What e-mail address or telephone number have any of you successfully used to contact Universal?

Their website is...not great...


I'm having problems with Northern Exposure Season 3 - Disc 1

BuckNaked2k

Try this thread:

Universal

JerryKILL

I exchanged some emails with an NBC/Universal employee, and took the opportunity to tell them about the DVD-18 problems. The reply was:

"I know that brand is aware of the compatibility problems with the
DVD-18's, but I will mention your complaint to them."

I guess 'brand' is the department within Universal that deals with this kind of thing.

powruser

Been to DVD Talk many times in the past, but the first time I've came across this forum topic. I'm a little behind the other posts, but thought I would give my personal experience.

I've had the same universal problems. It has not only been with the dvd-18's, but also others. I buy multiple sets when in the U.S. to bring abroad, since I work here in Europe. The strange thing is that typically I will always have problems with the 2nd & 3rd out of 4 episodes on a particular side of a disc. Never the first or last episodes. It is almost always the middle disc in a particular season and the middle episodes on a side. Listed in Bold are the MAJORLY defective discs that I've had to replace multiple times! Listed in Normal font are the discs needed to be replaced only once. (All Universal Studios Discs-Region 1)

Northern Exposure - Seasons 1-3
Magnum PI - Seasons 1-5 so far!
Monk - Season 2 (dvd-9)
Knight Rider - all Seasons
A-Team - all Seasons so far!

It is absurd the amount of money these movie studios invest in "Security" protocols (which are not really effective) for their discs then create unplayable media on such a mass scale. Class Action seems appropriate!

nateman

true,
its more to do with cheap manufactering than security problems. that said alot of new copy protected discs people are having problems playing on their dvd player.
Universal is legendary for their defective dvd-18 discs. i have only had problems with Kolchak, kojak & the monster legacy gift set.
uni isn't as bad anymore due to the fact they pretty much changed most of their season set discs in single/dual layer disc now.
it really is sad that so many great titles got released with those shitty dvd-18 discs.
its funny that other studios double sided discs i have never had a problem with?-odd.

Pizza

If this is true, can someone tell me if the "Kolchak" TV series is DVD-9 in the UK? If it is, I'll import that sucker. I've been too afraid to pick this set up here in the States because of all the bad remarks I've read on the QC.

Mosskeeto

My copy of The Rockford Files Season One had to be sent back because most of the discs froze up near the end of the layer. Replacement set was fine.

tylergfoster

This may have been mentioned already but there is a new version of Casino in stores (the "Special Edition" and not the "Anniversary Edition") that only contains one side of the DVD. I picked it up and made a 2-disc set so I only have to worry about one side of my original Casino DVD.

Trevor

Didn't the Ultraman sets have these issues?

nateman

yea i hated that they decided to put the first season on DVD-18's because this was one of my favorite shows as a kid. thankfully when i got the set nothing went wrong unlike the other titles i mentioned beforehand in this thread.
thankfully uni decided to switch the format of the discs and i don't worry anymore, and i have been enjoying my rockford worry free!

Nebiroth

Yes, it is! I waited until it was released here for that very reason.

Our UK Kolchak set is on five SINGLE SIDED discs.

Ed Gauthier

Uni and others must use inferior DVD-18s because they're much cheaper. Had no problem with Kettle or Francis, but Abbott was
a nightmare, forcing me to go through three buy and tries before
finally finding a decent copy.

But why sweat such stuff at this point? Better to wait until the bulk of your future collection comes out in high def!

darkside

I was pretty happy when Casino finally came out on HD DVD so I could skip the awful DVD-18 version. Mallrats is coming on HD DVD as well. I had skipped the current release to avoid the DVD-18.

ultimaton

I know I'm bumping an old thread, but the wife and I are making our way through Farscape, and the Starbust edition of 2.1 started locking up and freezing on the second episode.

Really looking forward to the hassle of trying to get a non-defective copy. [/sarcasm] And I'm really curious as to why out of the twelve Starbust Farscapes, they decided to make two of them damn flippers.

sb5

Have there been any new DVD releases with DVD-18, or have movie companies gotten the message? I haven't heard of any for awhile...

ShinMusashi44

Doesn't FOX still make about every movie on those things?

sb5

If they do, it's not for any of the ones I've bought.

Upper pylon 3

Fox uses Dvd-9's not Dvd 18's.

djskyler

After building up some guests about the thrills of "Son of Frankenstein," I found out that my Frankenstein Legacy Collection disc will no longer play in any of my DVD players.

So in addition to faulty pressings amongst the DVD18 discs when they are new, these treasures also deteriorate over time. Some of you might want to check out the DVD18s in your collection to see if they are still playable.

Is anybody aware if Universal is still exchanging discs? The one link I found is now dead.

PhantomStranger

The horrible DVD-18 format is just more evidence that Universal has idiots running their home video department. Universal seems to have more failed ideas on home video than all the other studios combined. I was hoping the colossal loss they took on HD-DVD would correct the error of their ways, but they foist the DVD/Blu-ray flipper on the market.

How many bad DVD-18's must be floating around in the collections of America?