The thing that sucks about this kind of issue is that it really takes you out of the movie while you are watching it. Too bad, considering that one cool thing about HD is it can provide a more immersive experience, so these problems work against that. It sucks to have to stop the damn film (well I guess one good thing is at least you can flip it over and watch the SD side, but it's still very disruptive). And having to return discs, and then watch the replacement disc, just waiting to see if the problems will creep up again. Kinda hard to enjoy watching a film that way.

My system locked up on the second movie I ever put in... I tried holding the power button and ended up having to unplug. I felt terrible.

I'm not sure I held it for 8 seconds but I held it quite a while (hoping it would shut down similar to a PC, as you describe). Next time I'll try holding it 12 seconds just to see.

Damnit. I just opened up my brand new copy of The Good Shepherd, put it in the 360, and get a Cant read disc.

*update: Dropped it in hot water and it loads fine

stinger, I just got my replacement disc of Good Shepherd, and this one won't load at all either. How long did you boil it? And did you hold it with something to keep it off the bottom of the pot? And will Amazon/Universal be able to tell that I did it?

Why is everyone saying that Universal will send replacements. The letter says to please return the HD DVD for evaluation. It says nothing about replacements. They could potentially send it back and say wait for a firmware update since they put that little square notice inside their HD DVDs.

I just ran some hot water from the tap, into a plastic bowel, let the disc sit for about 15 seconds, fished it out with a pencil, spun it around my finger, and wiped off the excess with a soft cloth. Did the same thing for Smokin Aces and got it playing again.

So Smoking Aces does the same thing? Fantastic. I'm watching The Jerk right now. 25 minutes left & no problems. I wonder if this problem is why The Jerk was downgraded from a combo to HD only. I still have The Game to watch, which should be okay since it was downgraded to HD only as well. I just hope Eternal Sunshine isn't a combo next week.

Ok this is for El Kabong.....I had to return my second copy of The Good Shepherd to Amazon, well I got an email and it seems that they are now aware of the issue and how large it is. Instead of sending e a replacement they refunded me for the disc and said to check back in about 2 weeks to see if the issue has been resolved.
Also, on the CoM issue it seems that Universal is quitely replceing defective disc shipents with companies.
There is no official word of this and I am only bringing what was relayed to me via email.
Looks like there was QC error possibly at one or a few of the Plants maybe the universal uses and this may be why some people can and some people cant play these discs, its just luck of the draw where your disc was pressed.

There is nothing worng with complaining, but for one we really dont know what happened and who really is at fault (Universal for pressing errors or the Manufactures for not putting out proper firmware to keep up with the discs) As some have reported that previous problems with Relentless enemies have gone away after the recent updates tht have happened.
Happy Feet (Warner) was another combo disc that would not play along with the Atlas series and Relentless enemies, among others so its not just Universal having issues, its jsut in this case the OP has had the problems with Universal discs.

Spoke too soon. Good Shepherd repeatedly locks up on the last 4 chapters now.

Does anyone know if 12 monkeys has issues? I was thinking about ordering it but given it's a Universal title I thought I would ask.

Is this only an issue with the dual format discs?

There are no reported problems with 12 Monkeys. I believe the only reported problems are for a few of the combo discs.

The problem is only with Universal combo discs released recently: Hollywoodland (my copy plays fine in an XA2), Children of Men (does not play), The Good Shepherd (does not play), Smokin' Aces (don't have this one). Future combo releases may or may not be affected.

FWIW, my combo of Happy Feet, even though it's a Warner release and not Universal (maybe there were runs from the same replicator?), has playback problems as well.

My HD version of CoM doesn't work. Will try the hot water thing. Can anyone explain why the hot water thing works?
Also to teach the CoM disc a lesson I watched the SD side on my Sammy Blu-ray player.

Couldn't that possibly be an issue with the A1's general glitchiness, rather than the disc? A bunch of discs that gave my old A1 fits play smoothly in the XA2.

The theory is that the factory didn't properly rinse a residue off the surface of the disc, which is blocking the player's laser from reading the data. So some people think that washing or boiling the discs can clean that off and get it to play properly.

I did not have sucess with either of these methods, and remain skeptical about the theory.

This is why I dumped my A1 as well. I have yet to have a playback issue on the A2 including Happy Feet. I have not tried any of these Universal titles though.

Possibly, but it's happening at a very specific moment, it's repeatable (most of my A1 problems aren't), and there have been an awful lot of people on AVS who are having the same problem at the same spot. Some people with the 2.0/2.1 A1 firmware run into this (I've tried it with both versions); others with the same player and same firmware claim they're not. I saw at least one person with the A2 that's having this happen too. That makes me think it's a bad run of discs, especially since some of these same people got replacement discs that work fine. (Others didn't have better luck with their replacements, though, making this seem fairly widespread.)

First time with 2.0 firmware, the disc locked up at the 28:48 mark, but the counter ticked forward even though the image was frozen. I was using the TrueHD track.

Second time with 2.0 firmware, the player completely froze at 28:48, forcing me to do a hard reboot. I was still using the TrueHD track.

I upgraded the firmware to 2.1 and gave it another spin, this time with the DD+ audio. (I read on AVS that some people were only having this happen while listening to the TrueHD track.) Still froze up at the same part.

I never had it work with the Universal DVD-18s, but it worked every time on Xbox discs so there is something to the theory. I don't think it applies to every kind of error though.

With my CoM disc, my Toshiba XE-1 player will do one of the following:
1) read the disc and then say on the screen "Not a DVD format".
2) read the disc and have a different message.
3) read the disc and start playing but will freeze and all the displays on the front of the player will be full of "0"s.

Funny, my A1 has been more solid with these problem discs than my A20. Children of Men is the main reason I'm keeping it around.

My rented copy of Smokin' Aces failed at the chapter 10 mark on my A20. Took it out, put it in my A1, played fine.

Just washed the CoM disc under hot water and it now works!
Don't understand it, but it works!

Smokin' Aces played flawlessly on my A1.

Oh man, now I know why so many people returned Children of Men, and Smokin' Aces to the Best Buy I work at...

My copy of CoM started skipping a little bit, but I turned off the player, and than it worked fine. I'm was considering getting Smokin' Aces, but now I'm having second thoughts...

I was reading through this thread about 30 minutes ago, and I went through the online return process at Amazon to return Children of Men. I got this reply just a minute ago:

Thank you for writing to us at Amazon.com. I'm sorry if there has been any misunderstanding and for any resulting disappointment it may have caused. Please allow me a moment of your time to address your concern. Normally, we'd create a replacement order to be shipped as soon as possible at no additional charge. In this case, unfortunately, we cannot replace the item "Children of Men (Combo HD DVD and Standard DVD)" because it's no longer available. However, I can understand how much inconvenience and disappointment this situation can cause and I feel even more horrible as I am helpless. Instead, I've requested a refund of $27.95 to cover the cost of the item and associated shipping costs. This refund should go through within the next few days and will appear as a credit of $27.95 on your next credit card billing statement. Please return the defective item at our expense. As a representative of Amazon.com, I want to assure you that we value our customers' trust above all else--it's the foundation on which our company was built. Please know that we'll continue working hard to ensure that you receive accurate service, and to minimize the chances of anything like this occurring again. To print a postage-paid return mailing label, visit our web site at http://www.amazon.com/returns/ In addition to a wide selection of items, one of our aims at Amazon.com is to provide a convenient and efficient service; in this case, we have not met that standard. I am truly sorry that we were not able to fulfill your expectations for this level of service. I hope that you will give us another opportunity to prove the quality of our service to you. Thank you for shopping at Amazon.com.