What's with the DVDs?
- Thread starter Nakita Akita
- Start date
This comes up from time to time here. And I, too, have one of those apparently "rare lemons." A couple of the discs were unreadable. I think the best explanation I heard is the difference between the people who bought these sets when they first came out and kept them safely in their homes - vs. - distributors/retail stores passing them around and having them move around in warehouses over the years, and given the fragility of the packaging (which we all can agree on), by the time I purchased my set a few years ago, those discs had seen better days.
Just want to inform you about the latest events when it comes to watching Deep Space Nine on DVD.
Yesterday I was going to watch "In Purgatory's Shadow" and "By Inferno's Light", two episodes which I haven't watched before.
Halfway into "In Purgatory's Shadow", the episode became almost impossible to watch due to constant stuttering and that continues to the end of the episode. "By Inferno's Light" was impossible to watch for the same reason.
And those DVD discs are new. I bought them in February this year!
It's not that funny when I have to go to Memory Alpha and read about what happened in those obviously very good and exciting episodes.
This has been going on for years now. Firts that lousy station I have which only aired the first season, then when I decided to buy the series on DVD, then all those problems with the DVD:s start.
Will I ever get the chance to watch the whole series?
Anyway, I've written to my local dealer about this and I'm actually toying with the idea of suing Paramount for selling crap!
Yesterday I was going to watch "In Purgatory's Shadow" and "By Inferno's Light", two episodes which I haven't watched before.
Halfway into "In Purgatory's Shadow", the episode became almost impossible to watch due to constant stuttering and that continues to the end of the episode. "By Inferno's Light" was impossible to watch for the same reason.
And those DVD discs are new. I bought them in February this year!
It's not that funny when I have to go to Memory Alpha and read about what happened in those obviously very good and exciting episodes.
This has been going on for years now. Firts that lousy station I have which only aired the first season, then when I decided to buy the series on DVD, then all those problems with the DVD:s start.
Will I ever get the chance to watch the whole series?
Anyway, I've written to my local dealer about this and I'm actually toying with the idea of suing Paramount for selling crap!
Okay, last night I was looking at my Season 7 disc to see which one I wanted to watch as I am watching the entire series in order.
There is an episode called " Take Me Out to the Ballgame"
I didn't want to watch that episode do I looked carefully at the disc and read the title printed in that sort of paint that is used on DVDs.
It read, "Take Me Our to the Ballgame"
Maybe I do have a ripoff bootleg set
There is an episode called " Take Me Out to the Ballgame"
I didn't want to watch that episode do I looked carefully at the disc and read the title printed in that sort of paint that is used on DVDs.
It read, "Take Me Our to the Ballgame"
Maybe I do have a ripoff bootleg set
^ Especially since the episode was actually called "Take Me Out To The Holosuite". 
Oops.^ Especially since the episode was actually called "Take Me Out To The Holosuite".
I don't usually bring my DVDs to work with me!!
I'll have to start carrying them with me!
So you're saying the "menu" page is very simple with just text of the episode title and maybe a small thumbnail? No nice CBS intro video, no "Do not copy!!!!" warning page, no clever background design?
If so, without doubt bootlegs. Those were recorded on a stand-alone DVD recorder (probably from another DVD player running through a copyguard stripper) and could have been authored on DVD+R or DVD-R blank discs (Which could explain why they play fine on some players but not others). Is the printing on the disc on a clear surface or a white surface, very nicely and professional appearing? Either way, printing text and graphics on the disc is not difficult at all.
As I recall the DS9 discs I rented from Netflix some years ago had the episode titles and means of selection incorporated into a graphic representing one of the station's Cardassian styled computer consoles, very professionally done worthy of any blockbuster film DVD you might rent/own ... not so with yours?
Maybe I'm misunderstanding your "blue and yellow screen like an old excel ... " sentence
No, it has the fancy Cardassian screen with the episodes listed around the picture of the space station, with the music, the little ship flying in the whole deal.
But if the Excel screen came up first, the above episode selection screen doesn't function.
I can get them to play in an older DVD player though.
But they still jump and skip.
I still have never seen the last third of the episode where Sisko brings the pillar back from the planet.
If there was a major reason I want to see DS9 remastered, it would be to get new packaging. The old packaging should embarrass Paramount because it was horrible.
An official, non-bootleg release would never have this screen come up at all. This is only common on home-made DVD's as a perfunctory menu. You've got a bootleg, and got ripped off.
Probably.
I've had them a few years though.
There have been s few episodes that never played without skipping. But still I paid like almost $200.00 for the whole series.
I'm bummed out.
I think the typo on the disc, "Take me Our to the Holosuite"
It does say Holosuite and not Ballgame at least.
But still
No I've had official DVD's do this before when there's some sort of rot on the disc right at the start. Instead of booting to the menu, the DVD player will act like a computer (which it essentially is) and take you to the Video and Audio folders so that you can try to boot that way (just like you can do through Windows Explorer, except in this case it is a much simpler interface).
But it seems that Paramount must've used a bad batch of DVD's in 2003/2004, as the very last disc of my Voyager Season 7 collection has DVD rot on it, and it causes Endgame to stutter, pause and stop all throughout. I haven't replaced the set yet, because of got a couple of other copies of Endgame on those "Fan Collective" discs.
Which titles have done this? I've got thousands of DVDs in my collection, and I've never once experienced this phenomena with an officially-pressed title.
Yeah I have never seen this.
I've got a DVD from a Lecture series featuring L.A. Marzulli (Ancient Aliens, Watchers), noted Nephilim researcher, that I bought right from the manufacturer and it is pressed (not a DVD-R). It'll play on a cheap $25 DVD player from Wal-Mart, but not on a PS3 (it gives some error code). And on some players it'll go right to the menu, others will take me to the folders. Not to mention but the aspect ratio is screwed up if watching on a 4:3 TV, as the video is in 16:9 but zoomed into the center to fill the 4:3 screen. (Of course I've also seen this screwed up aspect ratio on a Michael Bolton DVD from Liberty, and in both cases switching the DVD player between 4:3 PS & LB does nothing and the 16:9 option just squishes everything.)
Lecture series aren't typically marketed by major studios or put together by the main disc manufacturing facilities. It still sounds like it was a disc made by an amateur that doesn't completely know what they're doing, especially if it has a history of playing faulty.
DVD's have two copies of the table of contents. These would both have to be damaged in such a way that the player would not recognize the disc as DVD-video and simply as a data disc. Only then would the player (possibly) present the folder structure of the disc as an alternative. I've never once seen a normal player do this with a correctly-authored disc.
The bootlegs I've seen are correctly authored because they're simply full copies of original, non-bootleg discs. The reason they have so many problems is that they're copied onto inferior media that is hard to read or becomes so after a short amount of time. Even so, the player will just get stuck trying to read the data and not advance to any menu, or, more often, get stuck part-way through playing back a particular video chapter.
The bootlegs I've seen are correctly authored because they're simply full copies of original, non-bootleg discs. The reason they have so many problems is that they're copied onto inferior media that is hard to read or becomes so after a short amount of time. Even so, the player will just get stuck trying to read the data and not advance to any menu, or, more often, get stuck part-way through playing back a particular video chapter.
Sounds like you have some bootleg DVDs. I would report it to eBay and get your money back.
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