I know all the cool kids these days watch things online nowadays.
But I’m an old fart who still has a DVD player. Hell, I don’t even know how to record TV shows since my VCR stopped working a few years back…
I bought the first two series of “Game of Thrones” brand-new on DVD around six months ago. I still haven’t managed to get past the first couple of episodes of season two, because the discs take around 50 tries to load.
I get a “disc not found” error message at least 98% of the time. So no matter how keen I am to watch the next episode, I usually just give up.
I bought a (brand-new) disc of “LA Confidential” that hasn’t loaded even once, despite the fact that I must have put it into my DVD player around 180 times. It also doesn’t work on my housemates 7yo DVD player.
And yet my old battered DVDs of “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Collateral” play first time, every time on both machines.
The funny thing is, I’d never had any problem until the day I bought the “Game of Thrones” discs at a local store.
While I was there I thought I’d buy one of those $5 laser lens cleaning discs. What could be the harm, right? It’s like putting in fresh motor oil, I thought.
But ever since I put that accursed disc in, I can only play my old dilapidated DVDs, some of which are ex-rentals, FFS.
I just tested this again a few seconds ago. The ex-rental bargain-bin disc that I bought for $3 dollars yesterday worked first time after I’d tried putting my “new” GoT disc into the player 20 times without success.
Do they put an extra level of plastic on them these days that my 2-3 year old DVD player can’t hope to penetrate with its puny laser?