Having VERY bad luck with Warner HD-DVDs! - Page 6

^HAHAHA

In a world....that's how i usually start these things....but i'm not here to talk about a world before time, or uh uh a world gone mad! Instead, i'm here to talk about a perfect world!

LOL

Man I worked at Best Buy through the whole Format war, I stood by that Toshiba End cap listening to that nonsense for 2 years getting all the Jibber Jabber drilled into my membrain!


Eviler Evil, A world where Super Heroes...are more Super!

Or when he used the word "Explosiony"

I just started reading this thread. I removed the shrink wrap form 2 warners.
willy wonka and also polar express and both are doa. Will not read at all on xa3, a30, xbox 360 or pc drives.
I am going to try and backup all my warners I will post back with the doa list.

Hard to believe shrink wrapped means nothing. Better off buying used known good.

#3 bad one oceans 12
#4 bad one Forbidden Planet
#5 Bad one Wyatt EARP
#6 NOT WARNER Showgirls

I am in that handful, still owning plenty of Discovision movies. The last one I watched was "Lonely Are The Brave".

I've not had a problem playing those HD DVD's. Willy Wonka, Polar Express and Forbidden Planet all play just fine on both my A35 and A3. We watch Polar Express every Christmas, and it looks and sounds better everytime.
The end point for HD DVD was when Warner Bros. started to support Blu-Ray along with HD DVD. I believe that was sometime in late 2007. If they had stuck with HD DVD, things may have been different. It would have been Universal & Warner backing HD DVD with Paramount/Dreamworks being in the middle and Sony & Fox backing Blu-Ray. Micro$oft had a chance to release a 2nd Gen XBOX 360 with an HD DVD drive that would have given them a lot more memory for games, but they pulled the plug. Anyway history is very interesting, with all the what if's.................................

Wow, if you have a good copy of that one, you are one of the very few!

Sorry 8trax to go OT--we do love our laserdiscs though, despite that these days they look bloody awful!

look at the bright side, you have extra replacement jewel cases

Hdnet released something involving Vegas showgirls...

Yeah I quess you are right the movies are cheaper than buying replacement cases.

I recently bought about 50 HD-DVDs at lowish prices, mostly factory sealed. I'm about 10 watched and about 50/50 for bad disks at this point.

I've tested on 2 players (A35(f4), A3(f1.3)) and the errors occur at the same place on both players. Apparently factory sealed means nothing. These aren't just WB disks either, having problems with Universal disks too.

Try resetting your players. I've heard people clearing up all their issues after doing a factory data reset on the player.

I've only had one HD-DVD become and HD-DUD...and it was a Universal Combo Disc.(THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS TOKYO DRIFT)The HD Side some how became oxidized like paint that was in the sun too long with no waxing for years. But it all seemed under the clear coating. Regardless, Universal replaced it after a ton of emails and what not. They tried giving me a DVD as a replacement, I complained and they sent me the Blu-ray edition (took a little over a month to get)

They tried giving me a DVD in place of the HD-DVD. I wouldn't accept SD in place of HD and lobbied them to give me the blu-ray which they eventually did.

The DVD side of the combo disc did appear fine.

I tried to watch Top Gun a week weekends ago. It froze up 3 or 4 times- the counter kept going, but the picture froze. I thought my player was dying. I've got over 100 HD-DVD's. I thought the problem was with my player, but it looks like that may not be the case. Time to rip these suckers before they all go bad.

I figure since practically every HD-DVD is now on Blu-ray (or at least what matters) and at prices of $5-$9 each. I'll just replace them as needed. So far all my HD-DVD's are still working (only had the 1 combo disc that Universal swapped for the Blu) But if mine start turning into HD-DUD's then I'll just slowly swap them for the blu equivalent.

That is certainly an option these days. But I get some kind of vaguely revengeful thrill out of creating my own (and blank BD's can be gotten for only about $1-$2). I just plop them into the red case behind the HD DVD.

I have > 100 HD-DVD's that are no longer playable or have bad sectors that stop playback giving an error signal.

All these discs that I bought when they first were on sale played perfectly when I played them. Few of them play now.

Of those that I have bought recently perhaps 50% play without fault either on my Toshiba HD XA2, XBox 360 or Of those that have bad sectors, the 3 methods correlate in terms of their timing.

I do not wish to form any conclusions since I am not qualified to do so, however, I will add my observations.

There appears to be 3 different appearances to the discs that will play fully.

Either the reading side of the disc shows amorphous dull areas, blemishes which look like thumbprints or multiplied areas of tiny bubbles.

When viewed under the microscope these anomalies are between the front and back of the disc.

Lastly, and most strangely, in most instances the changes in the disc are accompanied by changes on both inner sides of the Jewel Case in terms that there appears to be a greasy film in which a miniature impression of the disc appears.

Go Figure ...... Problem is, in my experience, that replacements you buy from eBay or Amazon will probably be of the same vintage and will have the same pathology.

Any thoughts, Anybody?

Stuart
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The suction cup theory sounds good but they are only present on the discs that malfunction.

They are also visible on more of my Blu rays that I have examined since I wrote my last post.

I've been "backing up" my HD DVD discs to a server for use with XBMC. I'm disappointed to find that my purchases of:

Ocean's 12
Happy Feet
Tomb Raider

appear to be bad. Happy Feet was opened and played fine a few years ago, the other two have been sealed until recently.

I have about 120 HD DVDs. This morning, I went through about half of those to examine the discs for hazing or cloudiness. Of the roughly 60 discs I looked at, I found only two that displayed EXACTLY the type of cloudiness that sheryll links in her first photo in message #175 above, '12 Monkeys' and disc #3 in my 5-disc 'Blade Runner' set. I attempted to clean away the cloudiness by fogging the disc surface with my breath and wiping with a microfiber cloth. No help. Next I tried a couple of drops of water on the microfiber. Also no help, the cloudiness remained and I was beginning to believe the defect was IN the disc rather than on the surface of the disc. Still, I decided to try a stronger method...

I went to my garage and grabbed my bottle of Meguiar's #10 Plastic Polish (designed to clean the plastic rear window in convertible cars). I put a couple of drops on the microfiber cloth and gently applied it to the surface of '12 Monkeys'. I let the Meguiar's dry to a haze and then wiped away the residue with a clean part of the microfiber cloth. VOILA! The cloudiness was gone! The 'Blade Runner' disc cleaned up just as easily using the Plastic Polish.

It's really interesting that my breath and water had ZERO impact on the cloudiness. But the cloudiness was absolutely a SURFACE defect, otherwise the plastic polish wouldn't have helped.

I didn't try to play either of the discs before I cleaned them but, afterward, the '12 Monkeys' disc played fine. I spent about 20 minutes jumping around and watching various parts of the movie and had no problems (XA2 player). I didn't try the 'Blade Runner' disc yet but I'm not concerned.

In examining the discs, I did notice that most of the HD DVD cases had a layer of dull film over the inside surface, mostly directly under the discs. When I attempted to wipe that case's inside surface it mostly just smeared the film around and didn't really clean it off. Some kind of vapor/chemical reaction is definitely going on in there and that's probably what caused the cloudiness on the two discs. But in my two cases, it's absolutely a surface thing.

FWIW, I also saw several cases with the little "suction cup" circles that sheryll links in her second photo. I'm choosing to ignore them for now. Probably just where the machines handled the cases and the residue from the suction cups caused the film to form around the residue, the same way you can write a message on a window and fogging of your breath will reveal the message. No biggie.

From this point, I'll examine any HD DVDs before I play them. If I see any cloudiness I'll simply clean the disc with Meguiar's #10 and give the disc a try. I'm pretty confident they will all play fine after cleaning (if I even find anymore with the cloudiness). If I have any playability issues I can't resolve I'll simply purchase replacements on Blu-ray as needed.

Mark

It would be interesting and helpful if you tried to play the discs before you apply the polish. Then see if the polish helps any problem discs.

Otherwise, all you're doing is polishing your dirty discs!

It seemed redundant to try to play them with the cloudy splotches because the spots were quite opaque. I'm pretty darn confident there would have been playback errors. But if I run across any more discs with cloudiness, I'll be sure to try playing them before cleaning them.

Mark