Problems with West Wing Season 3, Disc 1 (1 Viewer)

[Greg O' Connel]

On the episode Manchester Part II, there is heavy skipping and pixellization around the 18-22 minute mark, in a few places. I've played in in 3 DVD players, and the effects are all there, in varying degrees. I wonder if this is safe to return for a different disc, or if this is a widespread problem where they will have to reprint discs?

 

[James Lambert]

Got the set yesterday, and was watching it last night. I got to about half way through Manchester Part II, but not sure if I passed the 18-22 minute mark (I was tired). I noticed no problems whatsoever, so either it's not a widespread problem, or I turned it off just before I got to your problem. One thing I did forget was the lighting scheme to the show, which makes eveything look quite soft, but it's always been like that with the west wing.

 

[Gary Nash]

No problems with Disc 1, but I had major problems with Disc 2 side B. At ch3-4 transition (00:20:31), picture pixellates really badly, freezes, stutters etc. If you try skipping from ch3-4, it skips 4 and goes straight to 5.
Using the play-all option shows the error at the same point (but different refs ch15-16 01:47:19.

I'm asked my dealer if I can just replce the faulty disc as the others work fine and I don't want to exchange the whole set and find I get a dodgy Disc 1 !!

 

[Greg O' Connel]

After looking at the disc a little more closely, it seems to have the trademark signs of layer separation (at least I think that's what the technical term is), where there's odd bits of glue around the center of the disc beneath the outer plastic layer. I took it back and exchanged it, and the problem is solved.

 

[James Lambert]

Excellent to hear Greg! I did log on to say that I watched all of Manchester Part II last night and had no problems whatsoever. However Gary Nash's post has disconcerted me a little. Suppose I won't know till I finish the season. Still gotta say I hate the DVD-18 format anyway, thank goodness I had no floaters when I received it. Anyone know when Season 4 is released, as the R2 discs seem inferior, certainly season 1 was.

 

[JasonBrown]

The blooper reel, mentioned on the packaging and the inside booklet, are nowhere to be found on these discs, right?

 

[Rob T]

I've watched most of disc 1 and I've had no problems so far.

 

[Yee-Ming]

FWIW, I've gone through the whole of Disc 1 so far, no problems.

 

[Seth R]

I too ran into the same problem with disc 2 (although side A). Right around the 22:00 mark it starts to stutter and then finally locks up. Tried it on a few different players, all of which lock at exactly the same place (although the behavior up to the lock differed some from player to player). My disc 1 was problem free and so far disc 3 seems fine.

 

[James Lambert]

I'm halfway through Disc 2, and (touch wood) not had any problems whatsoever. It does sound though that this may be a problematic set.

On a side note, I'm really enjoying this season. When watching it on TV I felt let down after the superb 2nd series, but it seems to be playing much better the second time around.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Update: on side B of disc 2, I had some pixellation (a small nasty green square showed up, a bit of freeze-framing on video though audio was fine), but it wasn't serious and I was still able to watch the episode all the way through (either ep 15 or 16) without missing anything substantively.

 

[Gord Lacey]

I know there was a problem with one of the sets (season 1 I believe). Same thing people are describing here: pixelation and picture breakup, but it only occured on Sony players and Mac computers (both of which I have). When I got my Panasonic DVD-R the first thing I did was test the faulty disc and it played fine.

Gord