Crappy disc quality control of VEI / Millennium tv season set releases. (1 Viewer)

(Disclaimer: I don't like being harsh on small boutique dvd/bluray companies).

At this point, I've had it with the borderline abysmal manufacturing quality of the discs in various VEI / Millennium tv season set dvd releases I've purchased over the last few years. (I don't have any major complaints about the actual video program content of these tv season sets. So far it is decent).

I have the Hardcastle & McCormick, Bizarre, Riptide, and Mod Squad dvd releases from VEI. In each of these sets, there's at least one or two discs which wouldn't play properly (ie. freezing, skippng, pixelation, etc ...) and/or required a lot of "elbow grease" to extract the disc's iso to watch on the computer.

The final straw was when several discs in my copy of The Invisible Man wouldn't play properly on any of my dvd players, and none of my computer dvd-rom drives was able to extract the iso on one of discs. (I have 4 different standalone dvd players, and 5 different computer dvd-rom drives). So I ended up returning it for a refund.


Compared to other well documented cases of "bottom of the barrel" manufactured discs (ie. Universal flipper discs, Mill Creek, etc ...), the manufacturing quality of these discs from my VEI dvd season sets, was just as bad or worse than Universal's crappy double-sided flipper dvd discs. To top it off, all these VEI dvd discs are single-sided! I find Mill Creek even has better quality control on their discs too !!!

On amazon, there's several bad reviews of various VEI / Millennium dvd season sets complaining about the same (or similar) disc problems.

http://www.amazon.com/ss/customer-reviews/B00ESL6GMI#reviews-container?&sortBy=helpful&reviewerType=all_reviews&formatType=null&filterByStar=one_star
http://www.amazon.com/ss/customer-reviews/B005GYXN2M/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one?_encoding=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&ref_=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one&showViewpoints=0
http://www.amazon.com/ss/customer-reviews/B0093QK2QE/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_two?_encoding=UTF8&filterBy=addTwoStar&ref_=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_two&showViewpoints=0
http://www.amazon.com/ss/customer-reviews/B00ET6LPRI/ref=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one?_encoding=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&ref_=cm_cr_dp_qt_hist_one&showViewpoints=0#reviews-container?&sortBy=helpful&reviewerType=all_reviews&formatType=null&filterByStar=two_star


Originally I was looking to buy other VEI / Millennium released shows like: Cagney & Lacey, The Equalizer, In Search Of, McMillan and Wife, Diagnosis Murder, etc ...

But now with a track record of poor disc quality control, I largely don't care anymore and won't bother buying any of these sets.


Who else has encountered playback problems on VEI / Millennium released dvd sets?

I only have Gimme A Break The Complete Series and In Search Of The Complete series from them. I have not had any problems at all with those sets.

I have Kate & Allie, Gimme a Break, Cagney & Lacey and The Mod Squad and haven't had any issues either.

I have Hardcastle, McMillan, Mod Squad, Diagnosis Murder and now Equalizer from VEI. I've had no problems with any discs.

My worst case was The Mod Squad.

In general for every dvd/bluray I buy, as soon as I get home I immediately check every single disc on the computer to check for bad sectors due to manufacturing defects. As long as one of my dvd-rom drives can read every sector on every disc in the set, then I won't bother exchanging/returning the set to the store.

In every VEI released season set of The Mod Squad that I own, there was at least one disc that would choke on my standalone dvd/bluray players and/or on my main computer dvd-rom drive. I swapped in another dvd-rom drive to see whether it can read the problematic disc. After some elbow grease, I was eventually able to find a different dvd-rom drive + extraction method combination which could entirely read a particular problematic disc.


For the record, my main computer dvd-rom drive was able to check/extract almost all of the Universal, Warner, and 20th Century Fox double-sided flipper discs I have, except for three particular flipper discs which turned out to be extractable on another different dvd-rom drive.

Normally I don't encounter such extreme problems with single-sided dvd discs manufactured by "reputable" movie companies.

Sadly, I have run into the same problem as described above with Season 3 of The Mod Squad. I returned one set already to Amazon and then bought Seasons 3-5 directly from VEI, but have encountered the same problems, at least with Season 3. I better check all the discs on every season now before initiating a return/replacement request from them.

I'm pretty much "resigned" to watching my VEI Mod Squad dvd discs on the computer, via shuffling between several different dvd-rom drives. This is the only way I can watch them without any freezing, skipping, pixelation, etc ...

(On my standalone dvd and bluray players, these Mod Squad discs are a complete total nightmare).

I've had one very cranky Mod Squad disc, and one of my discs from the Cagney & Lacey 30th anniversary set is a dud. If I analyze it with software it states "invalid disc structure".

I had no problems with my Cagney & Lacey but have had one disk that didn't play, another that froze and a case with two episodes (a two-parter) out of order on The Equalizer. They have been responsive in one case, and still waiting to hear on the other. They say replacement disks will be coming on the out-of-order question (part two is at the end of one disk, while part one is at the beginning of the next).

Interestingly, one disk wouldn't play on a blu-ray player, but the old HD-DVD player had no problem with it. Go figure.

I have a copy of In Search Of... full series that I've yet to open, *but* the other two series I have from this publisher have given me no problems. For the record they are: On the Buses and Only When I Laugh - all were purchased directly from VEI.

I have a few other Season 1 releases of some of their series but don't know if they're VEI versions or from other studios. Those are Diagnosis Murder, Kate & Allie, The Mod Squad, and McMillan & Wife. The only one of those I've watched is Kate & Allie and it was OK.