A couple weeks ago, I bought the newly released 2-DVD set of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at Best Buy. The movie won’t play properly – every few minutes the screen becomes completely pixelated and distorted (especially during fast action sequences), and it gets worse as the movie progresses. Same with the bonus interview disc. I returned the DVD for another copy, same problem. I rented a copy from Netflix, same problem.
Of course, Best Buy says they won’t give me a refund or even store credit for an opened DVD, despite the problem. :smack:
Here’s the twist, though – while the DVD won’t play on my standalone player (Toshiba SD-3950) it seems to play fine on my computer. (Obviously, I didn’t tell Best Buy that!) I don’t understand why it would only have troubles on my regular player, which is just over a year old and has played over 800 DVDs with NO problems at all. What’s going on here? Has anyone else had trouble with this DVD?
I thought Best Buy would at least swap it with a working one if the one you have is broken.
From Best Buy:
If the original is defective, you may be able to exchange these items by returning the item to a Best Buy store within the United States.
I bought a copy of ‘Silence of the Lambs’, Criterion version. It had all sorts of trouble playing on my DVD player. I took it to my parents house and it played fine on their player. I gave them that copy and bought a new one for myself and it played fine on my player.
I would WAG that if the movie pixilates at certain points (is it always the same point?) that is indicitive of a problem with the disk and not your player.
I had a DVD, can’t remember the name, that wouldn’t work on my DVD player. I took back to Best Buy and they exchanged it. The new one didn’t work either and they gave me a refund. That was probably more than four years ago, though so DVD burners were non-existant so they probably were not that worried about copying.
It could possibly be the DVD player, my first Grundig one (bought in 98) did that with certain discs when the Lens was dying and sometimes they just get tempermental.
Its also possible that there is some sort of gunk left over from the manufacturing process on the disc, have you tried giving it a good going over with tissues and some detergent (thats what I use on the ones I get that are like that).
I got the R&G Are Dead DVD and I haven’t had any problems with it and my player can be pretty finicky sometimes. Doesn’t rule out the possibility that there’s something wrong with your copy though.
Runs great for me too, though I would’ve loved an audio commentary. “There has to be some purpose for this other than the redistribution of wealth!”
Sorry I can’t help with the problem, other than one friend of mine had problems with the EE of The Lord of the Rings, FOTR movies, and it was actually a problem with the DVD player, even though all other movies would play. I don’t recall the model of her player, unfortunately.
Well, today I rented a second DVD with the exact same problem: Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Live at the Royal Albert Hall. Plays fine on the computer, total crap on the Toshiba (not nearly as bad, but still annoying beyond words). The concert even fell out of sync at a couple points, which was fixed by skipping ahead to the next track.
However, here’s the twist. Both DVDs are made by the same company, Image Entertainment.