Why?

I never had a problem with combo discs on my HD 1.

don't know why but whenever I had a problem with hd dvd playback it was always a combo...but surprisingly not the infamous "Children of men", lately Miami Vice glitches at begining of movie and towards very end of movie and the flip side of movie doesn't have the speedboat race which is on high def side.. remember when the studios or at leastt warner was going to reissue non combos..I stopped putting up with the combo lottery and waited for reissues that almost never came. Any way, .took back to best buy today to exchange Vice for same title...too late all gone...tough luck..they suggested picking a blu ray title.then an hour later changed their minds ...Best Buy keep screwing people over (how'd you like to have just bought a hd player at $129 get a $50 promised gift card sometime in the future and by the way the hd dvds go from being $25-30%off to off the shelves completely..) and you will be as deserted as circuit city

I never had a problem with combo discs on my HD 1.

Or with my A1 and XA2s. ;)

...Angelo

Or with my XA2.

Or my A1

No problems with my A2 (haven't hooked up my A3 yet, so I can't say for that one). Only problems I've had have been with rental HD DVDs--got some strange error 40?bc?6 (don't remember exactly) that went away after I wiped one disc clean--the other, after cleaning, would hang up at a couple points (scratched) so I just skipped to next chapter (bad movie anyway, so I didn't mind missing 30 secs. here and there). Neither of them was a combo. Even the rental combos I've played have been glitch-free.

Only combo I had issue with was happy feet - known problem at the same spot as everyone else.

I have to agree, I've never had an issue as well with my A1 or XA2, but I always updated the firmware, except on the XA2 ( stayed at 2.7).

never had a problem w/ any discs on my a2

Had combo issues w/ a couple of discs (BOURNE ULT., CHILDREN OF MEN) that FW 2.8 seemed to clear up on my A2. No problems with anything I've thrown at it since.

Other than Borne Ult. I never had a problem. And I believe Bourne was defective according to all the posts at the time.

Don't know why some people seem to have a problem with combos while most do not. I have many combos and have never had a problem. A2, A20, A30 & 360 add on all work fine for me! Just lucky I guess.

I had a problem with almost all Netflix combos. Bourne, Children of Men, 300 etc on my A3.

My A3 with latest firmware plays any and all flippers, Netflix rentals and 6-8 of them that I own. Occasionally have a freeze on rentals, but I always can get past it.

Microsoft's analysis on HD DVD combo discs:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12653216#post12653216
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?p=12630507#post12630507

Combo discs were a new idea but they should be (in principle) about as easy as making a double sided DVD but until the twilight of HD-DVD they had serious QC problems in replication ranging from incorrect amounts of bonding substance used to glue the two sides together to physical contamination in the disc plastic that couldn't be removed. I haven't tried any of my unreadable combos on my new HD-DVD add-on (which appears to be a different drive all together) but I'll dig them up and see how they work.

I have several combos but no issues with any of them....my XA2 does choke a bit with layer changes on certain disks but it's no big deal.

I've watched a lot of combos, and only had one problem with a combo playing in either my A2 or LG PC drive - it was CoM, and it was from Netflix and was pretty banged up. After I cleaned it up a bit, it played fine.

Only one problem......until now. I've been getting the Star Trek TOS HD DVDs over the last few weeks from Netflix. Of the 10 discs in the series, 5 have been defective. And not an unknown defect either, the damn discs are splitting in half. The glue holding the two layers of polycarbonate together is failing. I can only assume this is a manufacturing problem exclusive to the Star Trek series, I've never seen it on any others and don't recall seeing anything like it reported here on AVS. 50% failure rate on one particular series seems more than a coincidence or bad luck.

Take a look.
http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s68/B_Leisle/DSC_0005.jpg

I've watched a lot of combos, and only had one problem with a combo playing in either my A2 or LG PC drive - it was CoM, and it was from Netflix and was pretty banged up. After I cleaned it up a bit, it played fine.

Only one problem......until now. I've been getting the Star Trek TOS HD DVDs over the last few weeks from Netflix. Of the 10 discs in the series, 5 have been defective. And not an unknown defect either, the damn discs are splitting in half. The glue holding the two layers of polycarbonate together is failing. I can only assume this is a manufacturing problem exclusive to the Star Trek series, I've never seen it on any others and don't recall seeing anything like it reported here on AVS. 50% failure rate on one particular series seems more than a coincidence or bad luck.


All DVD's and HD-DVDs are made with a sandwich of 2 polycarbonate discs, with the important stuff in between. Flippers, including 2-sided DVDs, have additional layers of stuff inside, but are still just 2 discs glued together.

Separation is an issue with any of the above discs, possibly more so with some than others. But the forces needed to produce separation are bending, pulling the disc off a case latch, heat, etc. The discs are really only glued at the center and the outer edge. Sloppy manufacturing can create separation issues with any disc, and I doubt that flippers are any more likely to separate if the quality control is adequate in the factory.

With Netflix discs, obviously bending is common given the way they are packaged. This might explain separation problems if a particular series is more prone to do so.

Take a look at some of your combos.

If they are like mine, you will notice what looks like somekind of oil, or somekind of residue on the HD DVD side.

If you use scalding hot water and a little dish soap like Dawn, and rub in the Dawn with your fingers under the sink, you can get it off.

I know this was just a rumor.

But I can attest that this was indeed the problem on a few of my combos, and the hot water and dish soap trick, works like a charm every time.

The Invasion combo I had was unbelievably loaded with this residue, it took a while and I almost burnt my hand under the sink getting it clean.

Some people have even boiled a disc, but that just seems a little over the top, even for me.

As for the sepearation of the layers, as seen in the photo, I've had that happen with a dual sided DVD, but I've never had that problem with a HD DVD combo disc.

My issue with combo's was with the high price, not the reliability.

Only combo I had issue with was happy feet - known problem at the same spot as everyone else.

Yea, I got rid of mine. Traded it in I think, long ago.

Fairly recently purchased a used single-sided Happy Feet HD DVD for $10. It plays fine all the way thru.

I had some issues with combo disks but the latest firmware (at least from a few months ago) solved that on my A2 and A30. I haven't had a glitch from combo or any disks since.

Q. Why are (were) combo-discs so glitchey?

A. They aren't (weren't), but the players are (were) or can be.

I have never experienced a glitch of any kind with a combo disc on my XA2. My only caveat: I've never tried to play the SD DVD side...

I can indeed confirm combo disc are a hit and miss, my brand new Fast Furious Tokyo Drift disc will not play in my 360 add-on but plays fine on my HD-A35, but what is funny when I rented it, it played fine uh go figure

No fuss, no muss, ever - for my HD-A20. It has played every combo I've ever thrown at it.

So when it came time to buy a backup player, guess which model I chose again? The second HD-A20 (which is now my primary player) reports back with the same unqualified success.

(However the photo of the separated disk was about the scariest thing I've seen in a long while - yucko. Thanks for posting that, as an advisory. Sorry to see that.)

i think this was always an issue of clear residue on the discs, and certain players not being able to read through it. must have been part of the combo disc process, or maybe on the same line combos came off.

i've never had one problem with any combo, the only disc that ever didnt play was casino in my A1, i got an error code after the universal logo, but it plays fine in my A35.

We have more than enough past analysis on combo discs within existing threads.