DVD player won't play Mill Creek DVDs (1 Viewer)

[Film]

Sorry if this isn't the correct area to post this, but I recently purchased a season of the 3rd Rock from the Sun from B&N and for some reason my dvd player can't read either disc. The player is 11 years old, but it still plays other discs just fine. I put the discs in my blu ray player and they worked fine. Has anyone else had a similar issue? Not sure if it's the player, the discs, or both. I was initially cautious because I've never seen a complete season on sale before, brand new for under $5.

 

[RBailey]

I have a friend who cannot play any Timeless Media Group DVD's on his machine. TMG discs are the only ones he has a problem with...They play fine on all of my machines.

 

[Regulus]

I have a DVD Player that will have those cursed :f"Freeze-Ups":f when playing certain disks, but when that happens I have a Backup DVD Player! It's a Portable Player which I use on my Travels, and it has an AV Feature that lets me View programming on the bigger screen. I just switch that player on and continue watching! I cannot fathom why some machines do that and not others!

 

[cajunhillbilly]

I have a dvd player that does the same thing, but when I put the disk into my computer dvd player, the exact same disk plays just fine. Oh well.

 

[Mr. Papagiorgio]

I've had some issues with some Mill Creek discs. I have to reload the discs to get them to play on my players, meaning I can't just leave them in my player after my initial viewing and just turn it back on again to watch some more. I have to open the player and reshut it so they reload, but that tends to do the trick and they play.

 

[Brett*H]

I think it depends on the kind of player you use. We have had the same issues ourselves with some Mill Creek, Timeless and Infinity releases and even, occasionally, a Warner or A&E release! Our problem seems to be our main player which is a newer Panasonic BD player. Some of the above studio releases will not even load or the player will not recognize the discs. Some of the shows that come to mind are some discs from the Timeless release of "The Texan", Mill Creek's "Classic Sci-Fi TV" and even some of discs won't display the menus on the Warner release of "The Man From Uncle" without re-opening and closing the disc tray repeatedly. The Panasonic is very "touchy" when it comes to certain discs. Now, we can put any of those same discs in our el cheapo Phillips DVD player which we bought years ago in order to play region 2 releases and they will play fine. That little player can play anything we put in it with no problems. I don' know what it is about the discs from those companies that make it so hard for some players to read. I always thought that a DVD was just a DVD no matter who the company is but like I said, I think sometimes a few players are manufactured to be just a little too touchy.

 

[Jeff Willis]

^ I've wondered the same thing about the DVD-player/disc compatibility questions over the years. I've had good luck with my Pioneer Sd player but I would think that "a laser is a laser" regarding DVD players in general. We know there's something that's not completely standardized with all of these players / discs but I wonder why there's so much incompatibility in players' ability to play all studio discs all the time without any problems. Is is the player's optics, decoding from optical to video sig circuitry, or just that some of these pressed discs aren't all the same as they're suspposed to be in the industry.


I also wonder if the playback-glitch rate is higher with BR players (playing primarily SD DVD's) vs STD players. I don't own a BR player yet so I haven't compared BR to STD players track records with STD DVD's.


One would think that after ~14 years time with the format, there wouldn't be any compatibility problems between players and studio pressed DVD's.

 

[Brett*H]

^ I've wondered the same thing about the DVD-player/disc compatibility questions over the years...

Same here. I don't know if it's the various chipsets they use in the players which affect playback or if it's the coating they use on DVDs. Maybe the coating varies in quality from studio to studio. But that still wouldn't explain why some players can handle the cheaper discs and others can't.

 

[Gary OS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff Willis

One would think that after ~14 years time with the format, there wouldn't be any compatibility problems between players and studio pressed DVD's.

This is so true! At this point one would really think the format would be plenty compatible with all manner of pressed DVDs.


Gary "fortunately I've never had compatibility issues with certain pressed discs and certain dvd players - now, when it comes to burned DVD-Rs... that's a different ballgame completely" O.

 

[Film]

There's a squiggly line on the inner part of the dvd as if something was applied to the back of the disc and it dried. It's never been that noticeable on other discs I've looked at so maybe that's the cause. The discs play fine on the other players. As mentioned earlier, I thought it may have been the player because it's 11 years old, but it works fine. The worst player I've had was a vcr/dvd combo. On it the the picture, especially opening credits, would visibly shake unless you pause it and then hit the play button. The vcr ate two or three vhs tapes. One of the tapes was only watched about two or three times.