Some Twilight Time Discs No Longer Playing (1 Viewer)

[moviebuff75]

Shipping

 

[Daniel Melius]

That’s strange, as unlike the other TT discs discussed here, that is not a layer change issue. Have you tried gently cleaning it? I know it always sounds silly when that is recommended, but some lasers are really sensitive to the slightest smudge or scuff no matter how miniscule. At any rate, I hope it continues to play in some player. At least that’s better than not at all.

I picked up another copy of Garden of Evil for 15 dollars when twilight time had a sale. That one plays perfectly on my Panasonic 4k player. I also picked up Beat the Devil with no playing problems.

 

[JohnMor]

Well, crap. Sadly, Bell, Book and Candle has now died. It froze like the others at the layer change (presumably) but unlike the others, I can’t even play it up to the point of freezing anymore. It’s a complete coaster. When I put it in, my Oppo recognizes it’s a BD, but I only get a black screen with no functioning choices except for the stop button. Weird.

Damn! I love this movie.

 

[bugsy-pal]

Shit - I'd better watch my copy of Bell, Book and Candle before it evaporates!

 

[willyTass]

I have 5 twilight time titles and all of them played good until the last one I got Garden of Evil. It freezes when they are at the club watching the girl sing and then shuffles forward until the Mexican is being kicked out of the bar. Then it plays perfectly the rest of the way through. I have a kind of expensive up to date firmware 4k Panasonic DP U820 that has always played all my 4k and blu ray discs very good. I contacted twilight time and they said to try it on another player so I put it my 10 year old cheap Sony 50 dollar blu ray player and it ran smoothly through the entire scene. So I guess I won't be able to get it replaced. I don't like that player because it does not do 4k upscale, My TV does it ok as I have an LG OLED 65". I just hope the disc does not get any worse where it locks up and wont finish the disc.

Twilight Time has very expensive titles that don't offer many extras, but I like what Twilight Time offers in movies. Criterion would never touch the titles I have because while masterpieces they were not popular when they came out and are still not popular with the artsy crowd. Movies like Emperor of the North, Ten North Fredrick The Fortune cookie and The last Hurrah,. Masters of cinema is a good company as well to cover titles that criterion wont release.

That’s been my experience too

blu rays shitttingg themselves on my panny UHD player but play fine on all my blu Ray players

 

[JohnMor]

Shit - I'd better watch my copy of Bell, Book and Candle before it evaporates!

Well, hopefully it won’t ever fail you.

 

[Alan Tully]

This thread makes me feel uneasy. I'm sure that Twilight Time discs are no more prone to failure than any other company, it's just that we disc buyers like to think we own the film, unlike streamers, & now we find out that we don't necessarily have it after all.

I have a lot more confidence in CDs, an older & simpler technology, with no layer change & a highway holding the pits a mile wide compared to DVDs & Blu-ray.

 

[Worth]

Are single-layer discs more reliable than dual-layer?

 

[Malcolm R]

I'm not sure if they're more reliable in general, but if your player becomes glitchy with layer changes for some reason, that's a critical issue.

 

[jcroy]

Are single-layer discs more reliable than dual-layer?

In practice, I doubt it.

I have encounter enough single-layer dvd and bluray discs which were skittish, to dispel any prior prejudices I had about single vs. two-layer (dual) discs.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I’ve been ripping my collection to a home theater PC over the past few months - Blu-rays, DVDs, CDs - and there seems to be no obvious reasoning between which ones played fine and which ones developed defects. It wasn’t an astronomically high number of failures but it’s always painful when it hits an out of print title, or just one disc out of a larger set. I ended up prioritizing TT titles when I first started since they’re more rare and costly than most of my other discs. From now on I’m backing up all new purchases immediately.

 

[Will Krupp]

Well, crap. Sadly, Bell, Book and Candle has now died. It froze like the others at the layer change (presumably) but unlike the others, I can’t even play it up to the point of freezing anymore. It’s a complete coaster. When I put it in, my Oppo recognizes it’s a BD, but I only get a black screen with no functioning choices except for the stop button. Weird.

You've had a FOURTH title fail?

That sucks. I'm so sorry to hear it.

John, I hope this doesn't cause offense but seeing as your having a much higher rate of TT failures that most anybody else, I really think you need to start looking in to your Oppo as a possible cause. Is it an aging machine, by chance? I just watched BB&C and it played flawlessly. I as, yet, haven't any issues with NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA either (though I don't have the other two you originally mentioned) It just seems so odd to me that other people aren't having issues with ANY titles, yet you've had FOUR go bad in the past 6 or 7 months? There has to be a common denominator here.

 

[RMajidi]

I’ve been ripping my collection to a home theater PC over the past few months - Blu-rays, DVDs, CDs - and there seems to be no obvious reasoning between which ones played fine and which ones developed defects. It wasn’t an astronomically high number of failures but it’s always painful when it hits an out of print title, or just one disc out of a larger set. I ended up prioritizing TT titles when I first started since they’re more rare and costly than most of my other discs. From now on I’m backing up all new purchases immediately.

Good idea, Josh. I think I’d better follow suit. Any particular ripping software you’d recommend?

 

[Bryan^H]

If "Conrack" fails on me, I will be heartbroken. Will check later.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Good idea, Josh. I think I’d better follow suit. Any particular ripping software you’d recommend?

MakeMKV seems to be the standard for HTPC usage - works well enough for me that I haven’t tried anything else.

 

[jcroy]

Good idea, Josh. I think I’d better follow suit. Any particular ripping software you’d recommend?

If you need more flexibility and/or are well versed in the intricacies of the dvd format, there's always the old dvdDecrypter. That's been my workhorse ripper for almost a decade, even for discs with extra basketcase drm.

 

[JohnMor]

You've had a FOURTH title fail?

That sucks. I'm so sorry to hear it.

John, I hope this doesn't cause offense but seeing as your having a much higher rate of TT failures that most anybody else, I really think you need to start looking in to your Oppo as a possible cause. Is it an aging machine, by chance? I just watched BB&C and it played flawlessly. I as, yet, haven't any issues with NICHOLAS AND ALEXANDRA either (though I don't have the other two you originally mentioned) It just seems so odd to me that other people aren't having issues with ANY titles, yet you've had FOUR go bad in the past 6 or 7 months? There has to be a common denominator here.

I’ve wondered about that as well. Both Oppos I’ve owned have been a bit “buggy” at times. But I’ve still never heard of a player causing disc/layer damage. Although I guess it could. I’m certainly no expert.

But even if that were the cause, there still has to be something about the manufacture of the TT discs (at least the earlier ones) that make them more prone to it, as no other label I own has had the same problem. No Criterion or Warner Bros., both of which I own a great many of and play as often as the TT discs.

I honestly think there was something in the pressing plant that created buggy discs every so often and given the sheer number of TT discs I own and play frequently, it makes sense that I would find a few of them. I don’t think it’s a per title thing, but a random disc thing. And it seems to be more on the older titles.

 

[willyTass]

Only if said discs froze on multiple different brand players ,could u blame the disc as being the culprit

and it doesn’t take much of a fingerprint or a hairline scratch to cause reading errors

 

[Alan Tully]

I've only encountered one so far, the Australian release of Woody Allen's Midnight In Paris (the Blu wasn't released in the UK & the US is region locked). It's released by a company called Hopscotch, & it loads & starts playing, you get the Hopscotch logo, which plays for ten seconds or so, & that fades out, the timecode zeros itself ready to start playing the main feature...but that's it, it sticks there, it seems like no power on earth can get it to move. I played it once, & all fine, I put it back in the case (I come from the LP days, so I know how to handle a disc carefully) so what's changed? I haven't tried it in a different machine yet.

 

[David Norman]

I’ve wondered about that as well. Both Oppos I’ve owned have been a bit “buggy” at times. But I’ve still never heard of a player causing disc/layer damage. Although I guess it could. I’m certainly no expert.

But even if that were the cause, there still has to be something about the manufacture of the TT discs (at least the earlier ones) that make them more prone to it, as no other label I own has had the same problem. No Criterion or Warner Bros., both of which I own a great many of and play as often as the TT discs.

I honestly think there was something in the pressing plant that created buggy discs every so often and given the sheer number of TT discs I own and play frequently, it makes sense that I would find a few of them. I don’t think it’s a per title thing, but a random disc thing. And it seems to be more on the older titles.

I got lost somewhere earlier in the conversation, but have you tried to the discs on other players or did TT ask for the discs so they could test them. I think I remember you saying you had no access to a PCBD player?

Would you be willing to send a couple of the discs to someone here with several different players as well as a PC-BDROM so they could run one of the disc scan/check programs