Problem with Criterion blu rays? (1 Viewer)

[Mark Cappelletty]

My HOWARD'S END freezes up at 1:52 and I sent it in. I head rumors on the other thread that someone on Criterionforum (or Cast, I don't remember which) said that Criterion doesn't have any additional replacement copies of the title. But I'm hoping that's just a rumor. I can't imagine that Jon Mulvaney would send out requests to send back OOP titles and then renege on replacing them.

 

[alter filmnarr]

My "Walkabout" skips after the layer break (50') 4 minutes further and is heavily "bronzed".

"Days Of Heaven" is starting to change colour from the outer edge, but plays fine at the moment...

I live in Vienna/Austria and I think, that I will have to order new discs. Sigh!

 

[Derrick King]

My HOWARD'S END freezes up at 1:52 and I sent it in. I head rumors on the other thread that someone on Criterionforum (or Cast, I don't remember which) said that Criterion doesn't have any additional replacement copies of the title. But I'm hoping that's just a rumor. I can't imagine that Jon Mulvaney would send out requests to send back OOP titles and then renege on replacing them.

They may offer a title of your choice for any OOP title that they can't replace.

My "Walkabout" skips after the layer break (50') 4 minutes further and is heavily "bronzed".

"Days Of Heaven" is starting to change colour from the outer edge, but plays fine at the moment...

I live in Vienna/Austria and I think, that I will have to order new discs. Sigh!

In other cases of exchanging a problematic disc (most recently ERASERHEAD), Criterion has sent replacement discs to those outside the US. Email them and ask before you spend the money buying new discs. It doesn't hurt to ask.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

I've shipped my Walkabout to 'Mr Mulvaney' from Australia and am confident of getting a replacement ... and the disc itself looks particularly bad .. you can actually see and feel the outer-edge breaking up! And I did email disclosing my full overseas address and still got the advice about mailing in the old disc. So Mark, follow Derrick's advice and give it a go! You have nothing to lose but your bronze trophy...

 

[AnthonyClarke]

Has anyone received their replacement discs yet?
I'm just wondering about timing .. since I'm in Australia, I'll add a fortnight to anyone else's arrival date and expect it from there.
But of course, if no-one's received anything yet, there could be a long long wait...

 

[WilliamMcK]

Shipped "M" back to them on October 10... haven't heard anything yet!

 

[atfree]

Shipped "M" back to them on October 10... haven't heard anything yet!

Shipped mine on October 8th, tracking shows it was deliver to CC on the 14th. So far, nothing....

I figure they have been swamped with discs coming back....

 

[lark144]

Hi, everyone. I just went to the Criterion site & checked on the most recent posts about this issue. As of Oct 20th, Jon Mulvaney apparently emailed a poster to say that the replacement discs have not yet been mailed out. J

 

[Derrick King]

According to a post on another forum, as of last Friday, Criterion was still waiting on the replacement discs and they said it would be at least a week before they started shipping them out. Assuming they finally got the discs, I'd expect them to start sending them out on Monday.

 

[atfree]

Received my replacement copy of "M" today!

 

[AnthonyClarke]

fantastic news. All going well, I should get my new 'Walkabout' here in Australia by the end of the month.

 

[Mark Cappelletty]

I reveived my replacement ERASERHEAD disc on Saturday.

 

[WilliamMcK]

Got my corrected ERASERHEAD earlier this week... Hoping my copy of M will arrive soon! I now need to send back BIGGER THAN LIFE... :/

 

[ScottGros117]

Got my corrected ERASERHEAD earlier this week... Hoping my copy of M will arrive soon! I now need to send back BIGGER THAN LIFE... :/

Bigger than Life is affected too? Damnit! Anyone had their copy of Seven Samurai bronze? Neither of these have posed problems for me as of yet, and I bought them both from Barnes and Noble in late 2012. Are these from the first pressing?

 

[WilliamMcK]

I watched SEVEN SAMURAI last August and it was fine... still three months is three months! BIGGER THAN LIFE freezes on my Samsung at the 19:02 mark... and there is very noticeable bronze discoloration. Oddly though, it still plays on my LG.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

I'll have to check out my Seven Samurai .. I didn't know it was in the 'suspect' list or else I would have shipped it in along with my 'Walkabout'.
Is 'Seven Samurai' officially suspect?

 

[Robert Crawford]

I played Howards End, M and Walkabout in their entirety on my Panny BD player without them freezing up.

 

[Brandon Conway]

Even if a disc is on the list or suspected of having some bad pressings those would still be the minority of copies. My Stagecoach is perfectly fine, for example. The best course of action is to do a physical inspection and a couple attempts to load and play through the content on the disc, spot checking every 10 mins of runtime for all video content. I checked around 20 titles when this was all being figured out a few weeks back and had 3 with both the physical "browning" look and the playback problems. The rest I've happily kept on my shelf, and I've even watched a couple since that time with no problem. Sending in perfectly fine copies just because it's one that is on the list seems a bit beyond the mark for what Criterion is responsible for, IMO. And if a disc that is currently fine eventually goes bad in a year or two, I'll send it in at that time.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Even if a disc is on the list or suspected of having some bad pressings those would still be the minority of copies. My Stagecoach is perfectly fine, for example. The best course of action is to do a physical inspection and a couple attempts to load and play through the content on the disc, spot checking every 10 mins of runtime for all video content. I checked around 20 titles when this was all being figured out a few weeks back and had 3 with both the physical "browning" look and the playback problems. The rest I've happily kept on my shelf, and I've even watched a couple since that time with no problem. Sending in perfectly fine copies just because it's one that is on the list seems a bit beyond the mark for what Criterion is responsible for, IMO. And if a disc that is currently fine eventually goes bad in a year or two, I'll send it in at that time.

My problem with that is the responsibility is being placed on the consumer, when it isn't their fault to have to deal with a PQ problem that is Criterion's responsibility. Going through these discs is time consuming and who knows what happens in the future with these discs? Do they turn bad and then what?

 

[TravisR]

...who knows what happens in the future with these discs? Do they turn bad and then what?

If I owned any of these discs and they didn't currently have a problem, I'd still get an exchange. I don't want to abuse their exchange program (especially since it's way more than most companies do) but I also don't want to go to watch a movie in 2017 and find out that it took a little longer for my disc to crap out.