Fucking rental DVDs that never work

The BBQ Pit
1

It seems like every time I rent a fucking DVD, it doesn’t work. This NEVER happens with VHS tapes - sometimes there’ll be a sound glitch or a tracking problem for a few seconds, and then it’s over. But unlike VHS, DVDs FREEZE when something’s wrong, so more often than not, I have to take the fucking disc out of the player, try to clean off the bottom, put it back in, and then usually it STILL won’t work. I’ll be at a crucial scene in the movie, and suddenly that psychedelic color distortion, little black squares, and the like will appear, the audio will cut out, and then - YAY! NO MORE MOVIE!

This just happened to me 15 minutes ago. I rented Wonderland, the movie about John Holmes, and 10 minutes in, it froze and stopped working. I skipped ahead to another chapter, and it worked, but I missed a crucial plot point in the movie. The video store is closed now, so I can’t return it or exchange it for one that works. Basically, I have to wait until tomorrow to get one that works. Great.

This happens to me so much, it’s ridiculous. I’m sure it happens to everyone else too. DVDs are not a durable enough medium for rental movies. They are just not. No way, no how. Absolutely, positively, 100% fucking worthless for any kind of prolonged usage that entails many people taking them out and handling them. VHS tapes at least had solid plastic casings around them, protecting them from all the different things that could happen to them. DVDs have no such thing. The slightest scratch can fuck everything up permanently.

What’s the solution? Are we going to have to keep renting movies that never work? Is Netflix any better about having DVDs that work, or do they also send scratched DVDs that freeze and skip? Should I use them instead of going to the video store?

Is there some kind of protective layer that video stores could be putting over their DVDs that would allow them to withstand more abuse? If there isn’t, why aren’t they doing it?

2

Maybe your DVD player is busted. If Netflix can send me DVDs through the rigors of the US Postal Service for years with nary a problem, I imagine a brick-and-mortar video store ought to be able to do it as well.

3

We have 3 DVD players, all in good condition, and sometimes we actually go through the hassle of hooking up all three and trying the disc on all of them. And usually it still doesn’t work.

4

If you’re having the problem with almost every disc, your player might be a contributing factor. Have you ever cleaned it? Lint gets trapped, the laser goes out of alignment, a million different possibilities. These things might make it more sensitive to used discs: if it’s not reading JUST RIGHT, it’s not reading. I’ve had to replace my DVD players every couple years or so. And the sign that they’re on their last legs is that they start behaving inconsistently: randomly choosing which disc they’ll play or won’t play.

Unless the disc is deeply scratched, you can usually clean any surface smudges, which are usually the culprit. I use dish liquid and just my finger, then dry with an old Tshirt or something equally soft. Paper towel will usually scratch a disc.

At any rate, it is wise to keep in mind that you are making a choice: buy a new disc for ~$20, or rent a *used *one for ~$5. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

5

Argent Towers, I have the same problem that you do, only it’s through the library rather than the video store. A cursory examination of the disc often reveals scratches that makes one wonder if the disc was last used as a target for training ninjas. It’s ridiculous. I have developed a taste for the more indie movies because they seem to be treated more respectfully.

6

There have been a couple of attempts at more rental friendly DVD formats. People hated them, and they died a quick death.

There was one wherein the case of the dvd was sealed, and breaking that seal exposed the disc to the air… so after you rented it (really, bought it, but it was the price of a rental), the special dye in the disc itself would react with the air, and after 2-3 days, it would become unplayable. I am not sure this even saw production.

That was regarded as a very big waste of materials.

Then there was DIVX, lacking an ironic emoticon, that was supported by companies such as Disney, that actually had the disc in a little protective case, like a current UMD, or old school single speed CDROM that had the caddy. But that required special hardware, and had only a couple of studios supporting it.

I believe that they do make little stickers that can go on the bottom of a disc, that protect it from scratches and stuff. Why they are not in more constant use I do not know. But if it’s anything like the video stores here, that have their disc sized labels that go on TOP (that have barcodes, and branding etc), then getting the monkeys to put them on correctly would be a struggle.

They could, potentially, create stronger plastic discs, that are more scratch resistant, but they would still need to conform to the size of the DVD standard. Rental video tapes historically had much thicker plastic, and much thicker tape than the bought in store versions, but they also had a great deal more room to play with, most rental videos were nowhere near full, as far as tape goes.

The double tier structure would also result in rental windows again, a spectre of the past that is best left there. I like buying my movies that I want on DVD when they come out, not 6 months or more after I could have rented them.

So in conclusion… I think you’re stuck.

ETA: I actually stopped renting movies at all about two years ago for this very reason. Here, there’s not really even a decent service like netflix. There are a couple, but the prices are a bit stupid.

I’ve found that by waiting no more than a couple of months from release, I can effectively test drive a DVD by buying it for $10-12, rather than the $30-35 it’s normally released at. Compared to $7 for a rental, that’s not a bad buy-in.

7

Although it doesn’t happen often when it does this is the problem. Ninja training or use as a beermat. Even the most cursory of glances at the thing would tell the disc was unplayable. Not a problem if it’s the shop at the end of the street but majorly uncool if its postal.

Retailers - check the friggin’ discs. Amazon - I’m looking at you here.

8

You might want to check out your machine at:

Go down left column and click “DVD players” and then enter your DVD player’s model number on the page that comes up.

If there is a page on it you can read reviews by other owners. If they have the same problem you should start looking for another machine.

And what is it with library patrons, anyways? I got a movie that had these weird, deep, parallel scratches that looked like someone played tug-o-war with his dog?

9

Me and some friends shared a Netflix account. I’d routinely get the disc 2nd or 3rd. When a disc froze up or wouldn’t play for me, I’d call my friend only to find it had (usually) played fine for him. I once had a disc that wouldn’t play at all, but it played on my PC. Seems some players have better ‘error correction’ (or whatever you want to call it) than others.

I now have a different player (for unrelated reasons) and my own Netflix account and hardly have any problems at all. My old player was a Sony (don’t remeber the model number, but it was a DVD/VCR combo), which I would usually assume to be little better than some of the off-brand name stuff.

10

We are having the same problem, too. The last disc we rented that wouldn’t play, it looked like someone had cleaned it with a brillo pad! We have a cleaning kit that we use, and that helps a lot, but I’ve started visually checking the disks right at the store before I take them home. Not exactly sure why THE STORE can’t do that, but life is what it is.

11

What world do you live in where DVDs are less reliable than VCR tapes? Do you remember what renting tapes used to be like? Yeah, I get the occasional bad DVD, but nothing like old VCR tapes. Those things sucked.

12

If it’s not your player, it might be your renter. They should be checking the DVDs when they get them back for excessive scratches or stains, and resurfacing or replacing them if they aren’t playable. I’ve been renting DVDs for years now, from both brick-and-mortar stores and, more recently, Netflix, and I can only recall two instances in which a DVD was damaged enough that I had to skip chapters to see the whole thing. One of them (rented from The Wherehouse) was Rush Hour, right in the middle of the climactic fight scene. The other, from Netflix, was An Evening with Kevin Smith, when that one really stupid guy in the audience asks Kevin a dopey question and he goes off for twenty minutes talking about how dumb Hollywood is.

13

I’m just going to have to disagree with you hardcore here. I used to rent VHS tapes all the time. My video store had all kinds of special deals and I’d frequently rent 5 tapes a week, or so. Sometimes - not often - there was sound or visual distortion on the tapes. Never was the whole tape unplayable.

See, the thing is, if there’s a problem on a VHS tape, you can ride it out. If there’s temporary distortion or tracking, you can wait for it to be over, or fast forward through it. On a DVD, it will FREEZE. At least tapes didn’t freeze. When the freeze happens, you can’t fast forward, and you can’t wait it out. You have to take the disc out and put it back in, and then go to the scene selection and try to skip to a point on the DVD after the distortion/freeze. And you might miss crucial plot scenes or dialog. On a tape, even if it’s kind of fucked up, at least you can usually tell what’s going on.

I have videotapes from my childhood dated back to 1989 or 1990, and they’re still watchable. The quality is degraded, but they’re watchable, for sure.

On the other hand, I’ve got tons of DVDs that are no longer playable due to scratches (even a minor scratch can ruin the DVD forever.) Sure, you can tell me that I should be taking better care of them - and I’ll tell you that DVDs ought to be more durable.

14

:dubious: I own almost two hundred DVD titles, and that’s counting TV collections and multi-disc sets as one “title.” Plus maybe another hundred or so video games. Out of all of them, precisely one disc (Tron) has a persistent problem with playing, and that was a manufacturer’s error that I only found out about after I’d missed the window to return it to the store. And I’m incredibly sloppy about taking care of them. I’ve got a stack of naked DVDs sitting on my computer desk right now that I haven’t gotten around to putting away properly. They all play fine, and they’ll all play fine again the next time I put them in the player. What the hell do you do to your DVDs, that you’ve got “tons” of them that don’t play anymore?

Also, like Athena, I’ve found DVD rentals to be, on the whole, much more trouble free than VHS. I’ve had a couple that wouldn’t play from scratches, like I mentioned above, but I’ve never got a DVD that was partially erased, because it got left too close to a magnet. Or that had been taped over by whatever asshole had it before I did. Or had to be respooled because the tape was so wrinkled it got stuck in my tape heads. Or that had worn out strictly from being used properly. Or that exploded into plastic shards if I dropped it accidentally.

Man, give me DVDs over VHS any day. I don’t care what you’re using to compare the two formats. DVDs win hands down, no matter what.

15

And I’ve never gotten a single VHS that suffered from any of these problems. But that’s just my experience.

From what I’m hearing here, though, maybe the problem is with my player and not the discs. I’ll have to get one of those cleaning kits and see if it works better.

16

I don’t know. According to Netflix I have rented over 500 movies from them, and I can recall about half a dozen which have been scratched or cracked enough to be unplayable. That’s a paltry 1%. I can live with that.

17

Live the clean life. Clean the players, clean the disks in dish soap. If none of that works, get rid of the long-haired cats and get a new player.

My ex had a real problem with getting scratched disks. It got to the point where Netflix was sending her nothing but bad disks, and no amount of cleaning would make them play any better. When I finally bought her a new player, it was amazing how Netflix cleaned up their act.

18

I was having a lot of trouble with DVDs freezing. I went out and bought a cheap replacement DVD player at walmart (just this past wednesday) and now the rental DVDs all play right through.

19

This is exactly what we do when renting a DVD, check the disk right in the store and swap it out if it’s too badly damaged. Never had a problem swapping a scratched disk, unless there weren’t any left in the store. I also don’t see why the store couldn’t take a couple of seconds to check the condition of the disk, they certainly had no problem checking to see if I rewound the VCR tapes I used to rent.

About players, I have a couple of cheapies that can be very picky and an ancient Sony that will play damn near everything without a hitch. Although I will occasionally run into a disk that refuses to play in the Sony, but runs fine in the $30 Walmart special.

20

Tangent: when the format was switching from VHS to DVD, did anyone else have a rental place that put “Be Kind, Rewind” stickers on the DVD cases? I loved that.