Having VERY bad luck with Warner HD-DVDs! - Page 2

I've had a few regular DVDs go bad and either not play at all or stutter and glitch periodically (titles were: Boogie Nights original 1998 DVD manufactured by Panasonic won't play at all, Halloween 4 made by Crest National stopped playing, and Training Day made in Canada by an unknown manufacturer (possibly Warner?) now glitches on the 2nd layer.) Of course a number of laserdiscs have developed video noise after a few years too- my copy of "Heavy Metal" made by Sony DADC played perfectly when I got it, but now has lots of analog noise. I've gotten several other discs second-hand from that manufacturer with laser rot also. I don't know if these HD-DVDs ever would have played properly had I gotten to them sooner.

Alterfilmnarr- who at Warner did you contact (and was it in the US or elsewhere?) I just got an email back from Warner in Burbank saying they would only take back my bad discs if I had the receipts, and ONLY the ones bought from traditional stores, not any from Amazon Marketplace or Ebay sellers even if they were still sealed. This is making me VERY angry- dead format or not, there's no excuse for this many discs not playing properly, and they should remedy any bad discs out there regardless of where I bought them (as long as they weren't stolen and aren't bootleg copies)!

I think the US Warner discs were made in Olyphant, PA. I don't know if they had a separate plant in Canada or not, but I assume they did outside the continent. (I have the BBC Robin Hood series from the UK and the text stamped on the discs looks different than the US Warner discs.)

Got a few replacements in the mail today- Viva Las Vegas STILL won't load at all, and Superman and The Fugitive still freeze up (I let them play from the beginning uninterrupted until they freeze before declaring them defective.) Swordfish was fine though, and Training Day had a slight glitch where the picture broke up for a second, but since it didn't skip or freeze I'm letting that slide. The bad ones here I can return to Amazon and I'll keep ordering replacements til I get good ones or they're all gone!

If anyone wants to make an organized complaint against Warner for this, count me in!

Which ones are they? I'm wondering if there's any pattern to the affected titles (seems like there must be as I've gotten multiple defective copies of some.)

That's not good if a lot of the German discs are going bad. I don't have any from there but I imagine they weren't made in the US.

Got a few more replacements yesterday- Blood Diamond STILL froze up at the beginning of the movie, but played all the intro stuff. Watched all of The Good Shepherd (LONG movie!) with no problems though, and skipped through all discs of Blade Runner, Alexander, The Wild Bunch and Purple Rain and those seem OK- will watch those all the way through as soon as I have time.

..And Purple Rain's defective again. Chapter-skipping let me get through the whole movie, but actually watching it, it glitched a bit then froze a couple minutes later. The Wild Bunch has a few glitches but doesn't skip or freeze, so under the circumstances I'll call that good enough.

The Amazon seller also sent me another Willy Wonka in just a white envelope (going against my obsessiveness) and it won't play at all- so that and Blood Diamond are in the 3-Strikes club now. (Since they opened the case and touched it, I'd hoped they checked the disc while they were at it but guess they didn't.)

AND... since I couldn't go to sleep without finding one more, Gods and Generals (2-sided with standard DVD special features on side 2.) Plays the opening crap, but then shows "System Error" message on screen and "NOT PLAY" on the display after that. Paid a premium for this one, and there's currently none on Ebay and $30 on Amazon. I'm just about to give up on this and send the lot to Warner with a note telling them to follow their conscience.