Having VERY bad luck with Warner HD-DVDs! - Page 3

Your post worries me most of all. It worked 2 months ago, and now doesn't. These discs were made 3 years ago at the very least. They stopped support on June 1 2008, but I highly doubt they'd continued pressing discs up until then when they already had plans month prior to drop the format. I'm left wondering how long until we will know if these discs will be in the clear, or if I should expect all of them to fail with time...if they work fine 3-5 years later and then just go bad. I own quite a few, and this could really suck.

I am truly sorry that this is happening to some of you, but I do not see the cause to panic just yet. I am in the process of going through my Warner titles in my usual rotation, and all have played without a hitch (Onkyo HD805). I am still of the opinion that if this were a widespread problem people would be coming out of the woodwork (which they are not). It is much more likely localized to a specific plant, production run, or both.

This same pattern came about with LDs (which proved to be a manufacturing problem, and not inherent to the format), CDs (which can be traced to the bone-headed storage techniques employed by J6P), and, yes, Blu-ray (at one point, early pressings of "The Prestige" were causing problems, which led to a similar panic: BD-Rot!).

This (avsforum) is one of the foremost HT forums on the web (at least for the western world), and if I would expect to find evidence for a widespread panic, it would be here. So far, the numbers seeing this phenomenon (please don't think I am questioning the legitimacy of the complaints... I'm not) don't support that conclusion, IMO.

I just ripped the oft-mentioned "Purple Rain" (last viewed in its entirety maybe a year ago) to PC hard disk with zero read errors (a most straightforward way to find any defects) and it's still perfect. In fact I have several hundred HD-DVDs and AFAICT there's not a problem in the bunch, so I for one don't believe that this can possibly be a widespread condition?

If the OP's problem is real i.e. not a player issue, then I'd want to know how the discs are being stored. I've lived through the entire Laserdisc era start-to-finish (I ain't Laserfan for nothin' ) and apart from the inevitable manufacturing defects, the rest of the "laser-rot" issues people were having typically involved high humidity environments, especially those in saltwater/ocean locales. You don't live on the coast do you 8trax?

If it's interesting for You: I live in Vienna (no problematic humidity, besides before thunderstorms in summer), in my flat I have always about 22 degree Celsius, and my discs are stored carefully - never "attacked" by sun...

And - as mentioned - I have discovered 10 "faulty" out of 35 WARNER discs.

My Players are in perfect condition (I work in an High End Shop for 20 years now...)

I'm collecting movies since 35 years (also US LD's), but what happens here
is defenitely something "special"...

Do you know where they were manufactured?

Different countries, because I own German as well as US Discs.
At the moment my "misbehaving" discs are on the way to a German pressing plant for evaluation...

I also wanted to find a "pattern" at the beginning, but without success.
Same title, same inner ring Nummer - 3 times at hand, one works two not, or vice versa.
Almost every WARNER title is named in the meantime, somewhere in a forum.

Good idea/plan there. I understand the problem (again, having experienced "laser rot" and having thousands of those) namely that even if you are able to get the 10 bad ones replaced, you have no confidence that the other 25 are going to last long-term.

Maybe you and 8traxrule can get Warner to replace your entire collections with Blu-ray (though I doubt they'd want that to become widely known! ). Regardless, from my (limited-but-memorable) experiences with German engineers, I'd say you have a good chance of getting some decent response from them.

Thanks for Your "positive vibes" in my case

In fact, I was really surprised about the response from WARNER within 24 hours. Let's see, what happens...

On the other side, I really do not expect, that the rest of my HD's survives the next few years - and so I will have to consider, buying the equivalent BD's once again - sigh!

And what, if that misery happens with the "blue ones" again?

Would be a "Kafkaesque" situation: the main character collects for 40 years his favorite movies again and again and again - and at the end he ends up, with a room filled with shelves, full of discs, which "lost their memories" - as the main character himself, who suffers from Alzheimer's....

I disagree with you on a number of points. Problems have been cropping up on both North American and German discs -read this thread again. Most people are probably not aware of the problem, they don't watch the same movie too frequently. So how would they know they have a problem? I didn't know till i read this thread. The fact that a number of people in this forum are having problems is proof there is a problem.

Manufacturing problems are the cause of a vast majority of defects, not J6P. I'm anal about storage and have had problems with CD-r, DVD-r and DVD+r discs. They fail for no reason other than crap manufacturing. Check out the DVD recorder forum here. There are almost no good recordable DVD blanks anymore. The premium Verbatim 8x, maybe. Taiyo Yuden 8x discs used to be good, but since they've been rebranded JVC, there are a lot of problems. ALL 16x media is trash. This is all due to crap manufacturing.

I'm glad you haven't had problems yet. My Integra is a rebranded Onkyo 805 (and Tosh XA2) and I'm having problems. I'm not panicking, I'm just pissed that the same old crap is happening all over again.

I am not denying that there is a problem (as clearly there is), I just don't see the available data as supporting the conclusion that the problem is as widespread as "All Warner HD DVDs will rot". Similarly, I would not accept the statement "All LaserDiscs rot" (I still have my 15 year-old library in my regular rotation, and they all play fine, including several known "rotters"). Statistically speaking, a lot more people are gonna have to chime in with the problem, which has not happened yet (the number of people reporting problems here can be counted on one hand).


I was referring to pressed CDs, not burned ones. A couple of years back there was a big scare in the media, brought on by J6P reporting that their CD collections had suddenly become unplayable. Then it became known that those who were most vocal were complete morons, that should not be licensed to handle optical media. For example, one guy stored his 400 CD collection in his mountain cabin that was kept at 40 degrees during the winter. When he would use it, the temperature was raised to 70 degrees in about an hour... and he was complaining that it ruined his CDs (thermal expansion/contraction, anyone?). For other examples, just look at the number of those "CD-caddy things" people keep on their car visors (storing a CD in direct sunlight couldn't hurt... could it?). J6P thinks these things are indestructible... they are not.

Everyone on this board knows very well how to care for their media, and so I tend to give a great deal more weight to problems reported here. As I said, I am in no way discounting the problems that have been reported (I would be lying if I said that I am not concerned), and I am following this thread as well to learn more about what is happening. I have moved all of my Warner titles to the top of my queue, and am slowly moving through my collection. So far all have played without a hitch.

We all share the same sickness: we are card-carrying members of OCD-anonymous..., and if I find a problem, I will definitely post it here. If there is a widespread rot problem, I want to get it sorted as much as anyone. I have just been through this "rot" thing too many times (Laser-rot, CD-rot, BD-rot, etc - all of which were relatively isolated) to jump to conclusions just yet...

I think that nobody of us has an climate monitored room at home. In every room are temperature fluctuations.

Here in our forum someone postet his defected discs today and 21 of them are rubbish now:
Blade Runner Final Cut US - crashes at the layerbreake
Blood Diamond - read error at 0:01:36
The Cowboys - read in error
The Assasination of Jesse James... - read in error
The Island - read error at chapter 6 / 0:20:19
Unforgiven - crashes at the layerbreake
Getaway - crashes at the layerbreake
GoodFellas - read in error
Last Samurai - crashes at the layerbreake
Letters from Iwo Jima - read error at 00:00:22 - and 1:07:46 and 1:09:25
Matrix - read error at chapter 17 / 0:58:00
Oceans 13 - read error at chapter 19 / 1:01:28
Password: Swordfish - read error at 0:11:45
Poseidon - read in error
Purple Rain - crashes at the layerbreake
Robin Hood - crashes at the layerbreake
Superman Returns - ?
The Reaping - read error at chapter 4 / 0:12:12
Troja DC - read in error
Viva Las Vegas US - read error at 0:01:00
Wild Bunch - crashes at the layerbreake

When you dont believe it you can check it here:
http://forum.cinefacts.de/220494-gro...ml#post7227631

That is definitely not normal. Nobody here lives in a icecave ore in the jungle of borneo.

... but not with swings of 30 degrees in an hour. People who subject their CDs to such conditions and think there will be no consequences have no room to complain about failing media...

Come on, that example is too extreme. We are talking from "normal" people.

Not too extreme at all. Next time you are out driving, count the number of people that have their CD collection on the sun visor. In direct sunlight, the CD can easily exceed that temperature swing on a hot summer day. In any case, we are veering off of the discussion at hand: the potential problem with Warner HD DVD discs. So.... back to our originally scheduled program.

Someone here was having trouble with their Forbidden Planet HD-DVD, and I took a look at it on my PC-with-HDDVD-drive, and it seems to me that it was very difficult (for me anyway) to ID the exact layer break position. Will look into that further...

I testet it so.
First i put the disc in the player and look if the movie starts.
Then i skip throug every chapter and watch about 5 or 10 seconds of the movie.
After that i watched the first 6 to 10 minutes of the movie and the middle chapters where the layerbrake could be.
So i found 7 discs with defects.
Now i try to copy all my Warner HDs to my HDD. Naturally i tested the defect discs first and the copy process crashes after a while. For example "The Reaping" crashes at 11% and "The Matrix 1" at 49%.
The other 10 movies i tested to copy are worked fine, there are no copy problems.
So i can say that my 360 HD-DVD drive workes fine and there must be definitely a problem with the discs.

I think the easyest way to test your movies is to skip throug every chapter and watch 10 seconds. After that watch the first 10 minutes and the middle chapters.
This method is definitly faster as to copy all the movies to an HDD. I checked it and one movie needs about 90 or 100 minutes to copy to an HDD.

But that's no way to assure a disc is defect-free! Have you never encountered a disc glitch where you "got past it" by skipping forward? Skipping forward, whether by chapter stop or FF, is no way to assure you're defect-free, and frankly is a waste of time IMO.

BTW Laborix what program do you use when you do copy to HDD (I use ImgBurn)? A program which will detect read errors (without copying to HDD) is Nero Disc Speed though I don't recall if it works with HD-DVDs (will try it though--OK yes, it does read HD-DVDs).

Also, have those of you with defects been able to see any "corrosion" or anomalies in the disc layer?

No. When there was a problem on the disc i cant skip anymore. For example i try it on "The Matrix" and skipping dont work and when i cant skip or play the movie after that because the movie stops with a freezed image the disc is defect for me and i need no other tests with this disc.


I try it with ImgBurn too but it wont work and i dont know why. I put a disc in my drive and after 1/2 hour the program was still in the read in process.
Now i use AnyDVD HD.

Since you can see a "freezed image" have you then tried to play the disc again, stopping it before the defect point, and does it also freeze when you attempt to play thru it?


Can't imagine why ImgBurn wouldn't work--I use it exclusively over AnyDVD because at least with ImgBurn you get a log, and retries on errors, etc.

I just tried Nero Disc Speed on one of my HD DVDs and it stopped reading at (apparently) the layerbreak position. I'm now trying ImgBurn to rip the disc to HDD. Dunno (yet) if Dsc Speed is broken, or my disc!

BTW my GGC-H20L drive reads HD-DVDs at something over 2x, and ripping a disc takes half the time yours does Laborix, about 45 to 50mins. The xbox drive must be limited to 1x speed...

In the ImgBurn status bar there ist the following message "Creating Graph Data Thread".
The time runs but nothing happens. I dont know whats wrong there.

I think i try IsoBuster now.

I said Nero Disc Speed wouldn't read my disc; neither would ImgBurn (started erroring somewhere near the layerbreak). So make room for me on the "Warner sucks" bandwagon! I had just pulled a random movie I had laying here (Bullitt) and it failed--I don't recall that I'd ever watched it so dunno if it was defective from Day 1 or degraded over time. I'll have to try it in a standalone player one of these days to see if it can play-thru the problem.

Now I have to consider whether I want to spend 6mos or so converting every one of my HD-DVDs to Bluray! OK, well maybe just Warner HD-DVDs! Still, a huge PIA!

My German copy of the "Island" played fine today with no lock ups. HD-A35 player. I hope I don't jinx myself. I'm going to give "Blood Diamond" a spin tonight.

Sorry but i made a little mistake. The 21 Discs i postet in post #74 are not only from one person. He list all diffrent titles in our forum. Sorry for this misunderstanding!

And another one: "Harry Potter And The Halfblood Prince" does not start after reading...

Alterfilm-"Half Blood Prince" was not released on HD DVD. Are you referring to a Blu-Ray that doesn't play, or are you talking about a different HP movie on HD DVD?

Sorry, my mistake (it's hot in Vienna ;-)) - "Order of the Phoenix" would be correct...