First, let me say Hello. I found my way here via Google, but the reason I got here isn't too good.

Since Tuesday, I've had two copies of The Final Countdown LE DVD, and both have had video distortions in the form of brief pixelations. On both discs, they've happened during the scene with the Japanese pilot on the Nimitz.

The first one I got on release day had a brief, full-image distortion around 1:08:22, and it happened right after Martin Sheen's character stood up. I returned it today and exchanged it for another.

The second one has problems during the same scene, but it happens more than once, they're smaller and later, about three times between 1:09:15 and 1:10:00.

My player is a Panasonic S35. I've watched other movies on it recently and haven't seen this type of distortion.

Anyone else had problems? I don't know what to do. I e-mailed Blue Underground, but haven't gotten a reply. I'm not sure how many exchanges Best Buy will do, or if it's even worth trying.

Any help for a newbie would be appreciated!

Can you try it out on a different player to completely rule out your own player?

Not really. I was thinking of going back to the store tomorrow and seeing if it would be possible to check it out in the store, if they've got a player hooked up to a TV.

But in just the last few days, I've watched four brand new DVDs on my player - the High School reunion set (Breakfast Club, Weird Science, Sixteen Candles) and Pump Up the Volume - without problems of any kind. I watched my older copy of Spawn last weekend also without problems.

I watched it on both of my players just now and it was fine. I watched from 1:05 to 1:15 and no problems... could be player related. I have a sony and panasonic and no issues.

What about the player could cause something like this, and with only a particular DVD? It does seem odd that the problem happens around the same scene, although it's not identical.

The only other time my player has given me problems was with the first season of South Park. There's a periodic audio pop sometimes. I exchanged that one, too, and it didn't make any difference.

I had audio pops on South Park S1 as did many others. It didn't seem to be a problem on all players though. As for The Final Countdown, I didn't notice any problems.

Just watched it Wednesday on my Toshiba and had no problems.

Looks like the third time may be the charm. And I got it thanks to a group of boobs at a Best Buy store.

I took it in to check it out there. During the visit, I got to watch three to four Best Buy employees spend about a half hour trying to figure out how to get a DVD player to work - which they never could.

The DVD looked fine on a PC DVD-ROM, and on a player back in the TV department. So I probably would've kept it, except a few of the store employees mishandled the DVD so badly - popping it out of the case with a fingernail, dropping it play surface down on the counter, and generally handling it improperly - that it got scratched, fingerprinted, and smudged.

They didn't have any in stock. So I got a gift card, went to another store and brought home another. Watched the whole Japanese pilot scene and it's A-OK.

An odd note - this one has an insert in it. My first two didn't. The insert is a listing of Blue Underground's other DVDs - stuff I've generally never heard of. My first two were numbered in the 20,000s, this one is in the 30,000s.

And another interesting note - I actually saw a numbered copy with a 99,000 number. The number's probably don't mean much, as someone else said, but it's interesting - and there's that desire to want a low number.

I posted in this in a previous dawn of the dead thread. If you keep returning discs to the same store, you are just getting the same copies from a bad batch. Take it to another store and you have a better chance. This has happened to me with dawn of the dead and the enforcer as well. You proved my theory.

Sounds like a good theory, but... my third copy came from the same store as the first one.

Only the second copy came from a different store.

But the first and second were close in number - in the 20,000s - while the third is in the 30,000s. Now, who knows if the numbers printed on the cases have anything to do with the production sequence of the disc inside?