garolo

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OK now I understand. When paused or slo mo is on I see what folks are reporting. BUT I don't notice anything while the movie is running in normal speed nor in ludicrous speed. Maybe I need glasses.

FranksAndBeans

Universal. The mark of quality.

jamieoni

Another vote for a problem on a Daewoo, but no problem on my ancient Philips-Magnavox.

darkside

I noticed it a little bit on my Magnavox 630R. You can really notice it when text is up like the end credits or if you pause.

Universal has really stopped trying when it comes to DVDs. They use to be one of the best in the early days of DVD now their quailty is crap.

landosystem

Wrote them today, we'll see if there is any response...

very annoying having to watch a forced preview for Meaning Of Life in crystal clarity in front of my High School Reunion collection while not being able to watch my DVD of MOL at all.

Randy Miller III

Since I wrote the review here for DVDtalk, I hope I don't end up misleading anyone...my copy works fine (it's not even a screener or anything, I bought it at Circuit City). I'm using a Toshiba SD-2900 DVD player, and I'm having no problems at all, save for the slight "jumpy still frame" mentioned in the review.

SpinnerX

Well, the "jumpy still frame" is a tell-tale sign of an improperly flagged disc. It's not that your copy is any different from anyone else's. It's still defective, but your player is just able to handle the defect better than others. But just like the Panasonic, even though your player is able to ignore the flags, the picture quality is still affected and you will still see artifacts that wouldn't be there if the transfer was done properly.

Apocrypha

All of my players exhibit this black line pixelation so
I changed my DVD settings to WS from LB just to see if it would change it. It does fix it unfortunately I don't have a WS tv yet. So this has something to do with the anamorphic transfer. Either way the second disc exhibits no signs of this at all. They were so close to a perfect release. I think we will get replacement discs eventually. Here is the email address I wrote to,

http://www.universalstudios.com/home...ml/contact_us/

darkside

I emailed them. Hopefully enough people are so they will hurry up and fix the bad discs.

purplechoe

Same here. I sent them a very polite yet disgruntled email. These morons better get this fixed.

darmok

thanks for everyone's input on this....you guys just saved me a return/exchange. i'll hang on to the first version until this is resolved.

cloggedmind

I'm having problems with disc 2!

Some shots in the interviews and new material are playing in the wrong aspect ratio. For instance, during the "Remastering" featurette, the Terry Gilliam bits are stretched horizontally. This same phenomenon occurs sporadically throughout the special features.

I've tried disc 2 in both my RCA 5210p settop player, as well as my Compaq DVD-115 DVD-Rom and the same thing happens on both.

Anyone else notice this problem? Better still, has anyone who has contacted Universal actually gotten a response? I sure haven't!

-robbie

KTIK

I'm probably going to keep my copy sealed for a few weeks, and if there is nothing spoken about it by the company in that time, I'll return it/Exchange it for another movie.

Roberteb

And to think I was just about to order this one.

Thanks Universal for another hack job.

onewierdo

same problem...returned the disc 3 times and each one exhibits the static lines on all 3 of my dvd players, toshiba, apex, and compaq. I hope they do a recall!

GeoffK

The DVD Talk Review has been updated with the problems people are having with the disc: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=7480

We'll be putting up a blurb on the front cover of the site this week so people know that there's an issue with the disc, and we'll encourage people who have the disc to contact Universal to let them know there's a problem that needs to be fixed.

RockyMtnBri

Haven't seen the problem on my Panny RP-82. Any one have any specific scenes or timestamps so that we can check?

SpinnerX

Did you read the thread? Panasonics read the cadence, not the flag, so the defect isn't as apparent. Freeze frame any scene with motion and you'll still see blurred frames. This is what it looks like in full motion on other players.

RockyMtnBri

SpinnerX...

I DID read the thread. I thought that someone might have noticed a relevant scene where the defect is prevalent. I knew the Panny's had the flag feature - that's why I bought it, not to mention the red-shift issue.

SpinnerX

The defect is prevalent througout the entire feature. Again, just hit pause and you'll see what people are talking about.

porieux

Damn, I didn't hear about this problem until after buying it.

Anyway, for people who think their disc is fine, it may be that you just aren't noticing. If you step through the frames you'll see that 2 of every 5 frames has nasty comb filtering and is horribly unstable. When you watch the movie at normal speed you are still seeing that stuff 40% of the time, it manifests itself as edge noise and motion artifacts. i don't think it's possible for a player to 'fix' this problem as it's simply encoded wrong.

Universal need to fix this, no doubt!

RockyMtnBri

I tell ya, first Jurassic Park (DTS issue), then Back To The Future (misframing of parts 2 and 3), the E.T. packaging debacle (no side spine info), and now this. Hopefully NBC (Westinghouse) will clean house a little bit.

slop101

I have no problems w/ my Meaning of Life. It doesn't look great - but it's certainly not unwatchable.

I'm playing it on my Panny prog-scan player through component cables, on a 36" HD-tube monitor.

garolo

I finally got around to trying the movie on my Toshiba SD-K710.

I don't see any of the problems that I did with my Panny A112 except for the occassional flicker when fast forwarding during Part III Fighting Each Other.

EricBill

You would think that a megacorp like Universal could afford to spend a few lousy bucks on "quality control". Hey, I'd be willing to do the job for cheap pay (as long as free dvds are part of the benefits package)!

Seriously though, these kinds of blunders are pretty inexcusable with this frequency among product already on the market. Who's in charge over there, Helen Keller? ;-P