Columbo Season 4
 

Once again, Columbo gets shoddy treatment. Double sided discs again and even smaller pacakaging this time. :(

But do they play okay?

You guys should invest in a Panasonic player. Despite all the rampant playback problems with Universal dual-sided discs, they play just fine on all my Panny's. In fact I've never had any compatibility problems whatsoever. Of course it would be really nice if Universal could manufacture their products in a less shoddy manner.

I have a Panasonic player, and it had problems with three different copies of the Columbo Season 3 set.

I have both a Panny player and recorder and they had problems with Disc 1 of last week's Magnum P.I. Season Three.

I just purchased Columbo Season Four, but haven't had an opportunity to start viewing it. It's sad to hear that Universal is utilizing DVD-18's for Season Four since the season is comprised of just six two-hour Columbo movies. You would think that those six movies would fit comfortably on three DVD-9's. *Sigh*

I'm not investing in a new player. Universal needs to invest in decent disc replication plants. I gave up on season three after several exchanges so there is really no reason to continue with the series anyway for me. I'll spend my money on discs that actually work.

I recently got my copy and they are DVD9's.

I was looking at this in store and considering it is only 6 episodes on a 3 disc set I thought it had to be single sided discs. Even those long episodes fit 2 to a side with no problem. However, the packaging does state double sided discs so I wasn't sure.

I my pick up season 4 after all and will probably go back and grab Season 3 again for another try. My new Denon player seems to have no problem at all with Universal DVD-18s. Discs that choke on my Sony players like Orgazmo and Bela Lugosi play back perfectly on the Denon. I also tried out Quincy Season 1 and Abbott and Costello Volume 4 since I picked them up fairly cheap at the Sam Goody closeout sale and they also playback flawlessly on the Denon.

I would love to know the technical reason why certain players can deal with these discs and other players freeze up.

How misleading. I didn't realize the packaging said that.

Just to confirm: the Columbo season 4 discs ARE single-sided, despite what it says on the back of the box. Each of the three discs has two Columbo episodes on it, and disc 3 also has an episode of Mrs. Columbo.