Disney Glitches... Hunchback the next victim. (1 Viewer)

[Pete_Calderwood]

Man, Disney has had serious problems lately... Check out this list of glitchy releases in chronological order, most of which I have personally confirmed. I have also heard numerous complaints at the times listed from other owners of different players in forums.
Snow White PE
Will not play on XBOX and many PCDVD players (confirmed on XBOX, REPRESSED/FIXED VERSION AVAILABLE)
Atlantis (both CE and normal releases)
27:24 MPEG blocking (confirmed on Panasonic A120, REPRESSED/FIXED VERSION AVAILABLE)
Tron CE
38:16 MPEG blocking (confirmed on Panasonic A120,PS2,Toshiba SD-3109)
1:07:05 framing errors or discoloration (framing errors on Sony 300/500, Discoloration on Sony 360/560 - REPRESSED/FIXED VERSION AVAILABLE)
Peter Pan SE
42:53 MPEG blocking (confirmed on Panasonic A120, PowerDVD)
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
1:04:05 Severe Combing at layer change (confirmed on Panasonic A120, Toshiba SD-3750, Toshiba SD-4700, PCDVD)
and now...
Hunchback of Notre Dame
30:18 MPEG blocking (confirmed on Pioneer DV37, Sony S300, Panasonic A120)
To report errors to Disney, go to:
http://video.go.com/support/home.html

 

[Joshua Clinard]

Those are some pretty serious accusations for a first post. I haven't heard about any of those, and I think the Snow White disc had been noted as a flawless disc.

 

[Chad Gregory]

Looks like you should dump that crappy Panasonic A120...

I have all of those discs and have never had one problem on my Panasonic RP-91

-Chad

 

[LukeB]

The Snow White Windows XP/DVD-ROM problems were resolved with a download from the XP site.

 

[Patrick McCart]

Get a Toshiba DVD player.

Out of the 75 discs I own, only one has had problems (scratch on disc, later repaired via scratch buffer).

Most disc problems are player-releated anyways.

 

[Pete_Calderwood]

These aren't isolated incidents, and aren't limited to the A120... However they do require a sharp eye as they only last for one frame. I'm surprised no one here picked up on these... Check out the below forum postings:
Snow White Glitch
http://www.dvdfile.com/interactive/f...threadid=15055
http://www.dvdfile.com/interactive/f...threadid=10963
Atlantis Glitch
http://www.dvdfile.com/interactive/f...threadid=13381
Tron Glitch
http://www.dvdfile.com/interactive/f...threadid=12796
http://www.dvdfile.com/interactive/f...threadid=12891
Peter Pan Glitch
http://www.dvdfile.com/interactive/f...threadid=13977
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back Glitch
http://www.dvdfile.com/interactive/f...threadid=14634
Hunchback Glitch
http://www.dvdfile.com/interactive/f...threadid=15596
FYI, out of this lot the only repressings I know of are Snow White and Atlantis.

 

[Chad Gregory]

So let me get this right. You are calling for Roy Disney's head because of one frame of MPEG blocking?!?

-Chad

 

[Pete_Calderwood]

No, like I said it seems they have had problems lately, and if people reported these problems we could get glitch-free releases (at least for the major player manufs), which would be nice. Plus, some probably didn't even realize that their disc had a problem due to not watching it right away(which is often the case with big DVD collections), or simply not paying attention. For instance, it would be quite annoying to sell your Peter Pan LE which had no video problems, pick up the SE and find out it has a video glitch. If multiple people check out their copies and report the glitch if it occurs on their player, there is a better chance Disney will repress the titles in question (like they did with Snow White and Atlantis recently, or Bug's Life CE in the past). I never called for the harming of any Disney staff .

 

[Chad Gregory]

OK,
I have been around this forum for all of those releases, have confidence in the keen eyes of the people around here, and haven't heard a word about these "glitches" until now.
Maybe it's just me, but I'm skeptical. I would presume that the majority of the problems are hardware related to older players.
I'm sure the Roy will rest easier tonight now that the lynch mob has dispersed.
-Chad

 

[Pete_Calderwood]

That brings up another point... Should DVD collectors be forced to buy a new DVD player every year since those will be the primary players manufacturers will be testing on? In the case of The Matrix where a ground-breaking feature was introduced, I could see where this would be a good idea. However, when there is MPEG blocking, blocking which appears differently (or does not appear at all) depending on which player it is played on, I cannot say that buying a new player would be the best solution. I don't feel that new players offer features that, for instance, my Panasonic A120 does not in the realm of simple MPEG2 video decoding. If I had to guess, I'd say there is an error or irregualarity in the MPEG video stream, and some players handle the error better than others. In addition, when a DVD fails to be compatible with all of the major manufacturers' players in the simplest categories (uncorrupted video and sound), it's hard to not blame the software.

 

[Vegas 1]

I have Tron SE & Atlantis CE, and have not seen any problems using a Panasonic RV80.

 

[David Lambert]

Actually, guys, I have one of those "crappy" A120's.
Panasonic put out some DVD players that were considered crappy enough to be the target of a class action lawsuit against them. Although the similarly-numbers A110's and A130's were both named, the A120 was not included. By investigation, I found that it was omitted on purpose; it's guts weren't of the same type that were the makeup of the affected models.
I've never had a day's problem with my unit. It's acted perfectly from day 1, bought 2½ years ago.
Having said that, I checked out these claims. I was all set to prove him wrong, upstartity newcomer that he was.
He's right.
Tron, I can confirm the MPEG blocking. It's small, it's not too noticable, it only lasts for a fraction of a second. But it's there, and I caught a digital camera picture of it. At the exact time index the man says it is.
Hunchback, same thing. Same time index, everything. I also caught a digipic of this problem. Yes, that's also on a Panasonic A120, which his note DOES NOT MENTION. Add this model to that list.
J&SBSB, yes. SEVERE, long-feeling (I know it wasn't really long, but it SEEMS like a long time) pause and shimmering effect. If this is what he calls "combing", then okay. I didn't bother to digipic it, but I can.
Each of the above I duplicated several times. Huh. Tron I never noticed it on when I watched it. The other two I haven't watched yet; they're among my huge backlog of unwatched discs (of course I just got Hunchback tonight). But I played them enough to confirm that these issues exist.
Atlantis CE - Um, nope. I tried and tried, but no dice. Could NOT duplicate any MPEG blocking. Maybe I got a repressed disc? Seems hard to belive...I bought mine at Best Buy the day after street date! Pete, tell me where on that scene I should spot the blocking and I'll try again.
Peter Pan SE, I don't have. Snow White, I don't think is an issue for me (until I get an XBox or upgrade to WinXP). So I can't help you on those two.
EDIT: Now that I see all the messages added to this thread while I was testing, I'll say these things:
1) I am definately one of the victims of that thing where guys with huge collections don't watch all their discs right away!
2) I am NOT gonna worry about the 1-frame of blocking on either Tron or Hunchback. Roy's safe by me, too.
3) I WILL worry about J&SBSB, since there seems to be, according to the threads on DVDFile's boards, more issues after the layer change. I won't watch the film right now, I have a 4x3 TV at the moment anyway so can't test for anamorphic consistancy without going through hoops, but better safe than sorry. I'll report THAT problem and ask for a replacement disc, methinks.

 

[Chad Gregory]

David,

Thanks for the correction. I was thinking about the A110 when I called it crappy, but I don't have great feelings about the A120 either.

I'm on player number three (four if you count the PS2). I had the original Sony 3000, a five disc Sony 650D I think, and now the RP-91. I have never noticed any problems on any of these discs. I do recall the J&SBSB problems in a thread a couple weeks ago, but I seem to missed these problems completely. Lucky me I guess.

Maybe it's not an option on the A120, but you may want to look into a firmware upgrade. Check over in the hardware forum for that sort of info.

-Chad

 

[Pete_Calderwood]

In Atlantis, at 27:24, look on the left side of the screen where the convoy is shining its lights towards the stalagtites on the top of the cave. On the third row of stalagtites at this time index you should see two MPEG blocks for one frame. A repressing is available from Disney that corrects this issue.
As for Tron, it is a strange disc. At 38:16 there is the aforementioned MPEG block you saw. But this block does not appear on Sony players (except the PS2). However, at 1:07:05 on older Sony players (ie Sony S300) the middle of the entire frame appears misaligned vertically for one frame. On newer Sony players (ie Sony S360) at 1:07:05, there is a dark horizontal band that goes across the entire screen, perhaps taking up 10% of the screen near the upper 1/3 of the picture again for one frame. Neither of these glitches are apparent on the Panasonic A120. Last time I talked to Disney, they told me "We're still deciding what to do with Tron", which isn't very consoling.
Either way as I stated earlier, something seems amiss at Disney. Though the A110 was a shoddy player, the A120 is an excellent player, and it is rare that you see a glitch on it. I hope some of the HTFers start reporting these bugs to Disney if they occur on your player, because every complaint helps. I, for one, would like to have corrected versions of these DVDs. Especially the Peter Pan SE, the MPEG glitch on that disc is horrendous.
P.S. -- Here is a screencap from Tron on a Sony S300
http://www.forte-intl.com/~ronald/tron.jpg

 

[LukeB]

In Atlantis, at 27:24, look on the left side of the screen where the convoy is shining its lights towards the stalagtites on the top of the cave. On the third row of stalagtites at this time index you should see two MPEG blocks for one frame.

And this is a "serious problem"?

 

[Pete_Calderwood]

And this is a "serious problem"?

Well, it's certainly not something I think DVD or Home Theater enthusiasts should accept or encourage. If smaller companies like Anchor Bay and Criterion can for the most part deliver glitch-free products (or fix problems when they occur), I don't see why Disney shouldn't be able to. What worries me the most is the time period between flawed releases here. I mean, this is quite a number of titles with MPEG errors in a short period of time. In fact, I can't think of any other major studio which delivered a string of titles in such as short period of time with errors such as these. In other words, it's not a serious problem, but it's one that should be fixed, and shouldn't have happened in the first place.

 

[Ryan L B]

please tell me there is no problem with Jay and Silent Bob on a samsung dvd/vcr combo.

 

[David Lambert]

I don't think that Pete's claiming that any ONE of these problems is too serious, especially the MPEG blocking ones.
I think what he's claiming as "serious problems" is the entire group of them taken together, and the track record it's producing.
He's calling attention to a situation that worries him. I personally wasn't aware of it. I'm glad he brought it up. I'm not gonna lose much sleep over it, but at least now I know. And you know what G.I. Joe says: "knowing is half the battle!"
For what it's worth, I just sent Panasonic a note asking for a firmware upgrade for the A120, mentioning this thread and the problems with the films that I myself saw, and telling them that I'll pursue it with Disney only after I've heard back from them at Panasonic. S'cool.

 

[MaxY]

There was a class action lawsuit against Panasonic for the A-110/310? How do I get in on some of the class action lawsuit money I had a POS A 310 that used to drive me nuts and is now driving a friend nuts after supposedly being repaired.

Max

 

[David Lambert]

Max,do a search at the Hardware section...all the details are there.

I don't have them handy; sorry.