Alan Smithee

I wrote to Sheri Bogard. A LOT of discs in seasons 3-5 were bad. I think the complete set came out later so that should be OK. I got the same sets back but the discs were made by Technicolor.

slybone

Thanks for that, maybe I’ll get lucky!

rbrown498

Add these to the list of WB discs that crap out at the layer change:

Friends: Season 3, Disc 1
Friends: Season 6, Discs 1, 3, and 4

I'm sure that I'll find more; this is the first WB TV show that I've checked, and I've only checked it through Season 7. My copies of those seasons were issued in 2004, so they're in keeping with the general time frame of 2004-2007. I'll keep adding to this post as I find more.

Also, for the record, Alfred Hitchcock Presents: Season 1, Disc 1, Side 1 wouldn't play at all (but it's a Universal flipper disc, so I wasn't entirely surprised).

And, also for the record, my copy of The Host from Magnolia wouldn't play past the layer change. That one seems to be quite widespread.

Josh-da-man

Going through my Warners DVDs now. So far I haven't had as may problems as others here.

So far I've playback issues with the following films:

Stanley Kubrick Boxed Set (Black one from 2007/8):
Eyes Wide Shut DVD won't play between chapters 22 and 30. Naturally, that's the one film from that box that I don't have on blu-ray. (Always heard the transfer was lousy and never bothered upgrading.)

Veronica Mars Season 3:
One of the episodes on either the third or fourth DVD freezes partyway through one of the episodes (don't remember the exact episode or disc).

Bleh. Going through these is tedious as fuck.

.

PhantomStranger

I dreaded issues like this would pop up in huge television sets. I can't imagine how many non-working DVDs I must own, waiting to be discovered.

Josh-da-man

All of the individual movies I've checked (Personal Best, Twilight Zone, etc.) have been okay.

All six discs on The Exorcist Anthology seem to be working okay, too, despite being a problematic set and being stored in clear slim cases.

Should probably check all seven season of Tales From the Crypt, but I might wait on those until I do a re-watch of the whole series and go from there.

I'll probably just upgrade Eyes Wide Shut to blu-ray, and replace the movie disc in my Kubrick box with my old fullscreen theatrical cut DVD. I want to keep it anyway just to have a copy of the studio censored cut.

Josh-da-man

Going through more DVDs, and I found the following:

VERONICA MARS SEASON THREE - Only issue is that one episode craps out partway through, on the third or fourth disc, and about ten-fifteen minutes of it are unplayable.

OUTER LIMITS SEASON TWO - Original releases from MGM. All of the episodes on these Outer Limits sets are on double-sided DVD-14 and DVD-18 discs. All 32 episodes on season one seem to play (8 eps/per double sided disc, presumably DVD-18s). The first and third DVDs of season two seem to play okay, but neither side of the second disc would load on my Sony blu-ray player. The player made a lot of noise and finally started playing the first episode on one of the sides. Tried it on my Toshiba DVD-Recorder, and the menus would come up after a while, and one episode played, but it didn't want to reload the menu. This has always been a problematic set; I had to exchange the second season about eight times before I got one that worked, but it looks like one of the discs finally shit the bed. Considering these are DVD-14s and DVD-18s, I'm surprised that only one of the seven discs is bad.

Might be time to upgrade to the new blu-ray sets, or the new DVD sets for Outer Limits.

I swear, DVD-14s and DVD-18s were the worst fucking things they ever came up with. The discs are hard to manufacture, and they have a ridiculously high failure rate. I stopped getting the Farscape Starbust sets after the first season because I had to go through so many returns, it was a pain in the ass to get a set where both discs actually worked.

PhantomStranger

The Outer Limits DVD sets always had reported problems. Quality control was not MGM's strong suit. I bought the Blu-rays to replace them.

Josh-da-man

I don't want to get The Outer Limits on blu-ray because I have The Twilight Zone on DVD, and don't feel the need to upgrade it. Wouldn't seem right to have TOL on blu-ray and TTZ on DVD.

I think the latest TOL DVDs have the same special features as the blu-rays, so I'll probably grab those.

SterlingBen

Top Ten release of Elvira Mistress Of The Dark

Gobear

I've been going through my Warner DVDs, and the majority of them are unplayable. I'm pissed. The Warner Gangster sets are mostly shot, the Maltese Falcon won't play, none of the discs in the Judy Garland/ Mickey Rooney set will load. I haven't gone through all the Warner discs I own, but so far the results are depressing. What a waste of money!

cornbughead

I went to watch True Romance on Blu-ray last night and it started to pixelate from the very beginning. Tested on another player and same thing.
A Warner disc of course so probably rot. Lucky I had the DVD to watch instead which I kept for the cool packaging.

kd5

Add Jeepers Creepers 2 (UA/MGM Home Entertainment) to my list. Tried to watch it after JC1 and my BD player wouldn't even recognize the disc.

SterlingBen

Bender's Big Score hanging at the layer change at 1:08ish . I can skip past it and back it ups to like 1:08:50 and it plays fine though.

cornbughead

Add The Beatles 2 disc dvd version of Help!
The movie disc froze at around the 45 minute mark. I can see 2 strange small spots on the disc.

Surfinhank

... and another one: Tell Me You Love Me - the HBO series. Discs 1 and 4 are fine, but 2 and 3 freeze around the middle point, probably at the layer change.

andicus

Do the discs look bad, visually? Mine look flawless.

Surfinhank

Same here, they look perfect. That's been the case with pretty much all of the ones I've reported on in this thread.

andicus

Thanks. I was trying to avoid having to play through them to check, but it sounds like there's no option. I'll just leave them playing, unattended.

Surfinhank

Found another WB title: There Was A Crooked Man. Same story: freezes around the hour mark, probably at the layer change.

I continue to report whenever I encounter a defect, just in case anyone wants the check their copies.

Ash Ketchum

Another Warner Bros. disc, RIO BRAVO (1959), which I was watching for a piece I did on Dean Martin's centennial four years ago, froze up at the layer change. Wouldn't play past that point on any player. (I'd bought the disc ten years earlier.) I wanted to finish watching the movie, but couldn't find it streaming anywhere. Then I remembered--I had it on VHS! So I dug out that copy and finished watching it. (Since then I've acquired it on Blu-ray also.)

Alan Smithee

I use DVDShrink on my computer to scan DVDs for playability. So ironic that Warner discs have such a high failure rate when they were once the main studio promoting the format.

Surfinhank

Add another Warner Brothers disc: Prince of the City. Disc 1 is the same old story: freezes around the 1 hour mark. Disc 2 played all the way through, but it did freeze about 3 times.

kd5

Currently watching Supernatural (Season 2), just found episodes on discs 4 & 5 that won't play: Houses of the Holy and Tall Tales on disc 4, and Hollywood Babylon on disc 5. Disc 4 won't go to the menu when you start the disc, when you select menu and choose either episode mentioned, then play, it freezes. Disc 5 will go to the menu but freezes when you try the play HB. They played fine the last time we watched this in 2016.

Surfinhank

Another one with issues: She Spies Season 1. Disc 1 and 4 play fine, but 2 and 3 have the same "freeze in the middle" problem that makes several of the episodes unplayable.

Also Straight Time, same issue, gets stuck around 1 hour 8 minutes.

Also The Naked Spur, same issue, gets stuck around the 1 hour mark.


EDIT: More to report:

Lucky Louie Season 1, a 2 disc set and both discs are bad. Same issue, freezes about half way through.

Young Riders season 1. It's a 5 disc set and every disc is bad(!)

Larry King Live: The Greatest Interviews - all 3 discs are bad

Cagney & Lacey - First Season (The True Beginning) : 4 disc set, all of the discs have varying degrees of rot.

Knots Landing Season 1. disc 1 is ok, but the rest are bad

F Troop Season 2. discs 2 and 6 are completely unreadable. The rest start freezing periodically on the 2nd layer.

Riptide Season 1. discs 3 freezes at the layer change.