Recent Disney / Miramax DVD glitches (1 Viewer)

[Jon Martin]

I don't know if anyone else has had this problem.

I went to watch THE HOAX last night, from Miramax. I hit PLAY MOVIE and the film got hung up. It was whirring around, and wouldn't go to the opening logos. It also completely locked out the remote. I eventually had to unplug the player to turn it off and eject the DVD.

I then put in (is it) THE INVISIBLES, another new release from Hollywood Pictures / Disney. Same thing. Hit PLAY MOVIE, it whirred around and wouldn't open.

Thinking back, I had the same problem with Miramax's THE LOOKOUT a few months ago.

In all three cases, I could go to the scene selection, and chapter 2, and it would play fine from there. But not from Chapter 1.

I know going back to the early days of DVD, Disney DVDs have been glitchy, not playing on certain machines, or playing with issues. But, after I got a new (rather high end) DVD player, I wasn't having the problem.

But, is it starting back up again? Is it time for a new player? Of the countless other DVDs I watch in a week, these are the only that have this issue.

I put these DVDs on my portable DVD player, and they played fine.

Is anyone else having these problems?

 

[Yumbo]

Nope. What player?

 

[RobertGr]

I bought the Disney dvd's THE HARDY BOYS and TRUE LIFE COLLECTION 2 and both will not play on my DVL 919 which is the laserdisc/dvd combi player which has been a great player since day one. Yet the discs play on my PC! Instead of Disney making ggod on these discs which evidently have been a problem they suggested I take my player for a updated firmware offer,


They could not be sure it would work and could not say if it would cause other problems!

So I refuse to buy anyother discs from Disney!

 

[Jesse Skeen]

Sounds like Macrovision's RipGuard at work here! For a while they've been using this to confuse illegal DVD copying programs. It works by putting some intentionally bad sectors right before the movie starts, and telling the player to skip over them during playback. You can tell discs that have this by watching the counter at the beginning- Pioneer players will display "Search" about 4 times before starting to count normally.

Sony Pictures has their own system that works about the same way, also hidden right before the beginning of the movie. There was mention that their releases from a few months ago wouldn't play on a lot of machines because of it.

 

[Matt Hough]

I haven't had a problem with any of the Disney/Miramax films I've reviewed since the start of the year nor any of their other releases that I've purchased (True-Life Adventures, Disney tins from 2006).

 

[Jon Martin]

That could be. It is a Panasonic DVD Player / Recorder that it has issues with. Maybe because it also acts as a recorder it is having issues with reading it.