Or are there more HD-DVD player owners that experience virtually NO problems with HD-DVDs?

I watched my latest Combo disc, HOT FUZZ last night and had no issues. This is a couple days after watching 300 with no issues as well.

I own about 65 HD-DVDs now. I've watched them all at least once. I have had NO major problems with any of them. This includes many combos:

300
Accepted
An American Werewolf in London
Ant Bully
Army Of Darkness
Children Of Men
Happy Feet
Hot Fuzz
Lady In The Water
Letters from Iwo Jima
Miami Vice
Rumor Has It
Slither
Smokin' Aces
Superman Returns
The Breakfast Club
The Break-Up
The Departed
The Fountain
The Lake House
The Scorpion King

There has been only ONE time that I've had a playback issue - and that turned out to be a faulty copy of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". Once replaced, it was fine.

So what I am wondering is:

All these problems I am reading about - is it a case of the people with problems are complaining, and the ones (like myself) with no problems are just not saying anything, making the perception seem like there are lots of issues? Or is it really true that the majority are having issues, and I'm just abnormally lucky?

No issues with hot fuzz either. But their more pepole with good players then bad. Its just everytime some one has a bad player they "have" to report it here making it seem as though their a much worse problom.

The only problem I ever had was with the Bourne Identity HD DVD. Turns out the disc was scratched. I always clean rental DVD's before I put them in my machine. I got a replacement and it worked fine. So, I am on the same boat as you. *keeps fingers crossed*

I've never had any problems. I don't doubt there are issues, but I also don't think they are as widespread as it would seem from the AVS polls.

I have never had any issues either. I have played regular dvds, cds and hd dvds in my player with no problem at all. I agree that those witht problems are more vocal about it and that is why it seems so widespread.

I don't own as many movies as you buy all my combo's have had multiple viewings, most of them on the DVD and HD DVD sides and no problems, ever. I've lent out Happy Feet, Hot Fuzz, 300 and Tokoyo Drift no complaints from anyone... now where did I put that piece of wood to knock on? :)

I have unfortunately had a number of problems with my movies :(

Hot Fuzz played perfectly but almost every Combo disc prior has given me constant freezing issues (usually resolved with pausing/playing again). I've had 2 movies get to a point where they just wouldn't go any further (without skipping to the next chapter) and a lot of my earlier titles had the same free freezing issues -- Something has definitely changed since I first started using my HDDVD player, so I'm not sure if its the firmware upgrades that have improved performance or if the player just needed to be "broken in", but most movies do seem to play much better for me now (including ones that used to always give me trouble).

Or are there more HD-DVD player owners that experience virtually NO problems with HD-DVDs?

I watched my latest Combo disc, HOT FUZZ last night and had no issues. This is a couple days after watching 300 with no issues as well.

I own about 65 HD-DVDs now. I've watched them all at least once. I have had NO major problems with any of them. This includes many combos:

300
Accepted
An American Werewolf in London
Ant Bully
Army Of Darkness
Children Of Men
Happy Feet
Hot Fuzz
Lady In The Water
Letters from Iwo Jima
Miami Vice
Rumor Has It
Slither
Smokin' Aces
Superman Returns
The Breakfast Club
The Break-Up
The Departed
The Fountain
The Lake House
The Scorpion King

There has been only ONE time that I've had a playback issue - and that turned out to be a faulty copy of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". Once replaced, it was fine.

So what I am wondering is:

All these problems I am reading about - is it a case of the people with problems are complaining, and the ones (like myself) with no problems are just not saying anything, making the perception seem like there are lots of issues? Or is it really true that the majority are having issues, and I'm just abnormally lucky?


I own about 30 HD-DVDs now and my HD DVD A2 with 2.1 upgrade. I've watched them all at least twice. I have had only problem with Superman Return in chapter 21 . This includes many combos and no combos such as:

Happy Feet.
The fountain.
Miami Vice.
Fast and the Furious 3.
300.
Shooter.
Ant Bully.
Matrix Trilogy.
etc.


Regards.

Add me to the list of "no issues".

I have a first-gen machine and have never had a problem with any HD DVD (I own about 45 and have rented a similar number). Combos or otherwise, they all play fine. Children of Men worked great right out of the wrapper.

I've had an XA1 since May 2006, own 100+ HD-DVDs and have encountered exactly two (2) problems in that time: End of Days stuttered on me while playing the TrueHD track and The Hitcher froze up on me. Both were one-time occurrences.

The only HD-DVD's that have given me trouble on my HD-DVD add-on for XBox 360 are from Weinstein, and we all know it's an authoring problem and not a hardware one. I can't fast-forward my copies of "Feast" or "Clerks 2" without freezing/crashing the disc, so I avoid doing that. Other than these two no HD-DVD has given me any trouble whatsoever: "Good Sheperd," "Children on Men," "Hot Fuzz," "300"... even freaking "Hollywoodland" play fine and without any trouble. I guess some of us are abnormally lucky in the HD-DVD playback sweepstakes!

no problems here

The first HD DVD I put in my machine when I bought it had problems. It was Ant Bully and was a rental. My wife just stared at me with disgust. I received another one that I bought and it played flawlessly. I have never had a problem since. I now own over 25 HD DVD's and rent many more. There are many of us who have no problems.

There are many of us who have no problems.
+1

The only combo disc I've had major issues with was Smoking Aces. It literally locked up my player and when I tried the boiling trick, it ended up just killing the disc overall and I had to return it. The only other combo I remember ever having issues with was Happy Feet, but that very minor as it was just a skip or two. 300 skipped once, I think, on like the third viewing, but it wasn't anything that ruined the experience. I've had issues with both formats, by the way. Pirates of the Caribbean locked up my PS3 just two nights ago.

I've had my A1 for ever a year now, not one issue. Lots of hard use both for SD and HD. I keep loading the new FW's as they come out.

Only slight problem I ever had was a disc from Netflix. After a little cleaning it played perfectly. Combos have never given me any trouble.

I definitely have problems with my HD-A1, generally just a little jitter/skip on every couple movies. Combos definitely cause more serious problems for me, most recently my viewing of Hot Fuzz hung, major skip in Happy Feet, and a complete crash of my machine during Children of Men. But I've watched several combos without a problem most recently Departed and Hollywoodland.

As far as the problem appearing more serious becuase of the squeaky wheels, several polls have been created, and the worse case was Children of Men, where (from memory) around 50% of the people had problems and the problems were spread evenly across all of the available players (Gen 1, Gen 2 and Xbox addon). That was one seriously f'd-up disc. Happy Feet combos were also notorious to crash around the 28 minute mark (where for me I "only" had a major skip).

I have high hopes that the Gen 3 players will be more stable with the combos, perhaps it is a tolerance issue with the thickness of the combos, I don't know. I knew than my HD-A1 was going to be a stop-gap player based on the 2 minute boot-up to play time, but I really was caught off guard by the glitchiness of the playback. Considering my investment of over 60 HD-DVD movies, replacing the player is a drop in the bucket to hopefully get rid of the problems I've had to deal with.

Ok, this is reassuring. I thought I was just in some bizarro world of HD-DVD with my flawless playback, given all the attention the problems get.

Or are there more HD-DVD player owners that experience virtually NO problems with HD-DVDs?

I watched my latest Combo disc, HOT FUZZ last night and had no issues. This is a couple days after watching 300 with no issues as well.

I own about 65 HD-DVDs now. I've watched them all at least once. I have had NO major problems with any of them. This includes many combos:

300
Accepted
An American Werewolf in London
Ant Bully
Army Of Darkness
Children Of Men
Happy Feet
Hot Fuzz
Lady In The Water
Letters from Iwo Jima
Miami Vice
Rumor Has It
Slither
Smokin' Aces
Superman Returns
The Breakfast Club
The Break-Up
The Departed
The Fountain
The Lake House
The Scorpion King

There has been only ONE time that I've had a playback issue - and that turned out to be a faulty copy of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation". Once replaced, it was fine.

So what I am wondering is:

All these problems I am reading about - is it a case of the people with problems are complaining, and the ones (like myself) with no problems are just not saying anything, making the perception seem like there are lots of issues? Or is it really true that the majority are having issues, and I'm just abnormally lucky?

I have an XA2 and I got off to a rocky start, with freezes even on regular DVD. However, since firmware 1.6 and later, I've had zero issues. I think the majority have no problems, and the minority that do are probably many of the same just complaining repeatedly.

The first question that pops to mind when someone has a problem is, are you a smoker?

In the old days, DVD players had glass lenses, so they could be cleaned well. Then they switched to plastic. A study was once done that if 3-5 cigarettes per day were smoked near a DVD player, the smoke would contaminate the lense of the DVD player to the point read errors were caused, within six months. Turns out this smoke contamination can't be cleaned from plastic either.

HD DVD players also use plastic lenses I believe, and are probably even more sensitive to damage from smoke than regular DVD. So whenever comeone complains about a non-functioning player, I wonder if they smoke, and if so, how much. They could be destroying their player in a matter of months.

I've never had a single problem with my current XA2.

Previously I had a A1 and I had TONS of lip sync and skip issues.

So far, the move to the XA2 was well worth it.
Evan though I LOVE my Pioneer Elite equipment, I actually think my XA2 may be *slightly* better than my Pio Elite BDP-94HD BD player!

-Evangelo2

No problems with playback from my A1

No problems on my A2

I have had no problems with any discs on my xbox 360 add-on :p (Knock on wood).

This is my first post after reading hundreds and hundreds of posts here and in the BD area of the site. I went with the A2 because my plasma can only got 1080i, and there are more tier 0 titles out for HD and more titles in general for HD now that I am interested in anyway. OR in the case of 300, HD had features that BD didn't. I am not joining these forums to flame or bash either side. I really like Pirates 1-3 and if they haven't gone neutral by december I will be buying a BD player for At Worlds End.

That said I have had my A2 for about 3 weeks now (never managed to get my dumb firmware to update :confused: 1.3 I think) and have not had a SINGLE issue. I was really worried about all the combo disc problems I have read about and they work fine for me. So far I have watched

300 (whole movie no issues,all features no trouble)
Hotfuzz (movie only, no trouble)
King Kong (about the last half with me leaving the room and coming back, looked stunning. No issues that I noticed, it could have had some hiccups while I was out but it definitely did not freeze).
Plant Earth (about an hour of first disc, no issues looks sweet!!)
Batman Begins (skipped around chapters 20 minutes total, no trouble)
Chronicles of Riddick (15 minutes, awesome fine detail, no issues)
Meet Joe Black (for the miss's ;) grainy, but with nice color and detail no trouble)
Corpse Bride (detail is sick, color(in a few scenes amazing) no issues)

So as an HD noob I have to say that thus far I am a believer and very satisfied with my purchase. Sad to say that i don't feel either format will reach the widespread acceptance of SD-DVD, but I couldn't care a less. I'll enjoy 'em and hope to get to know you fellas some here on the forums as we watch movies the way they were supposed to be seen and heard! :D

No problems on my XA2. I keep the firmware up to date. I have 60+ HD-DVD's

Combos I have:
300
the fountain
superman returns
matrix trilogy (watched all)
batman begins (i think is a combo)
hott fuzz
shooter
probably a bunch more that I can't recall at the moment.

All in all, almost no issues thanks to the firmware updates. I've had issues, but as an early adopter, to me they're understandable.

I had playback issues with some titles (combo and non-combo) early on, but they were fixed with MS's firmware update for the 360 add-on back in May.

I had a copy of Music and Lyrics that was defective (skipped) and returned it to Amazon for a new one.

One of my add-ons had a problem with the Fountain and Matrix Reloaded, but the discs worked perfectly fine on my other add-on, so I knew it was the hardware. I returned it for a new one and haven't had any issues since.

My issues have been resolved by one of the following:
1. Firmware update
2. Defective disc exchanged
3. Defective hardware exchanged

I feel for those people who have had problems with combos. For me, though, other than a defective copy of Music and Lyrics, I haven't had any problems with my 25 combos.

I have not had any issues so far with combo DVDs or singles. I have an A2 without any firmware upgrades (just have not taken the time to do it). Hopefully I will do it this weekend.

you must be.. I've bought 2,541 combo discs and everyone of them has not worked. Many times I've returned it 18 times and still it won't work. I've tried Boiling them, sawing them in half and even put them in the microwave. DAMN YOU TOSHIBA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well, on a more serious note :D. if your abnormally lucky then so am I. No problems so far on any of my combos.

you must be.. I've bought 2,541 combo discs and everyone of them has not worked. Many times I've returned it 18 times and still it won't work. I've tried Boiling them, sawing them in half and even put them in the microwave. DAMN YOU TOSHIBA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

well, on a more serious note :D. if your abnormally lucky then so am I. No problems so far on any of my combos.

Wait. Didn't I read in another post somewhere that you have 2,542 combos? I don't think you're being completely honest with us. :p

Wait. Didn't I read in another post somewhere that you have 2,542 combos? I don't think you're being completely honest with us. :p

damn, you caught me. Ok where's my ban?????

I have the Xbox 360 HD-DVD add on.. no problems at all.. just one time it couldnt find disc, so i opened and close and it started right up

I have around 30 bought HD-DVD and rented about 20 Netflix HD-DVDs no problems at all.

I have 3 2nd gen players and a 360AO connected to a pc.

Zero issues of any kind since 1.6 firmware well I take that back. I had an SD of Superman Returns that would not be recognized until 2.0. Its all good.

i've watched dozens of titles on my A2 without a single problem.

Well my dad has a first shipment A1, I Purchased an add-on last November, and A2 thats 3 months old.

I had skips on a badly scratched Superman Returns only on the A1, and the Pause on the Happy Feet only on the A1. Honestly half an issue and only on a third of the machines I have access to. This is out of 85 Movies between the two of us, and includes both types of Matrix sets (ult for him, complete for me), COM, 300, Hot Fuzz, and many other "problematic" discs.

So no I don't really consider myself to have any problems. If a pause on a disc or or playback issues on a horribly scratched discs where considered issues then I wouldn't have purchased any DVDs.

I've got an A1, A2 and XA2 and have had no issues except COM and it was due to me running old firmware on my XA2. I've got over 100 HD-DVDs now and probably that many or more that I've self-authored :) Only had two bad Netflix HD-DVDs and it was due to badly cracked discs. All others have played perfect!

The only discs I have had problems with were the HD DVD combo of "Miami Vice" (shootout in the car park) with pre 2.0 versions of A1 firmware and my rotted Blu-ray of "Stranger than Fiction" (and the replacement plays fine).

I was waiting for the HD DVD of Happy Feet to glitch, but it played perfectly (!?)

I was just about to start a thread dedicated to this very topic. I own an HD-A1 and currently own 22 movies, 3 of which are combos. Despite all the threads that are started about problems with this combo here and that disc there...so far I have experienced no problems at all. I too have aften wondered am I just lucky?

Your not abnormally lucky at all.

Only a handful of Combo Discs have shown to have problems like 300, where it appears 1 in 10 will lock up your player.

So out of that handful of problematic discs, it is not strange at all for you, and most people to grab one of the 9 out of every 10 that play perfectly.

Don't let all the bad talk fool you. I would say 99% of all the movies on HD-DVD have no problems at all.

And the 1% of titles that do have problems, only seem to have about a 1 in 10 chance of buying a bum disc.

I was waiting for the HD DVD of Happy Feet to glitch, but it played perfectly (!?)

Yeah, I was waiting for the hammer to drop on that one as well.

Now that it's been played probably 25 times (my daughter loves it), I kinda think it's all good...

Those with disc problems are most certainly the exception and not the rule. The only problem I've ever had was the ClerksII macroblocking issue. Far and away not as widespread an issue as its made out to be.

Same here, I have 7 combos and 32 other HD DVDs and the only issue I had was that I had to clean my Happy Feet combo before it would read sucessfully. I have a XA2.

No issues with any of my combos either. Not a single one. 300, Happy Feet, Hot Fuzz, rented the Departed...no issues.