DVDGuy’s Blog @ Digital Digest

This is going to be very similar to my earlier “My Xbox 360 Just Died” series of blogs, as I attempt to find a solution to a problem. As I mentioned in the Xbox 360 article, having problems is like honey for a bear to blogs … if everything worked the way they should, then there would be nothing to complain about, and hence, no blogs.

Let me first explain what I mean when I say I have no luck with this movie. Several years ago, I purchased (from Canada, of all places) my copy of The Pianist on DVD (the Canadian version was superior to the US version). I seem to remember it played perfectly when I first got it, but much later on, I discovered that whole sections of the movie would not play, most likely due to one small scratch on the disc. I’m normally very careful with handling DVDs, and I had maintained a perfect record of not having a single DVD that wasn’ t fully playable out of a collection of about 300 movies back then. The collection is now 500, and The Pianist on DVD remains the only disc that is problematic.

So in the recent HD DVD sales, I decided to pick up a copy of The Pianist on HD DVD for the discount price of $USD 11.50, thinking this was a good buy to get a well working copy of the movie (in HD too, plus extra features that I don’t have on DVD). I purchased the disc from DVD Pacific, my first purchase from this store, but I had heard many good things about them. Anyway, a few weeks later I received my discs and as I normally do, I test the discs upon receiving them to make sure they’re all in working order. The Pianist HD DVD did not look different to any other HD DVD movies I had purchased – it was shrink wrapped, it has the sticker labels on top that wasn’t damaged, and the case itself was in perfect condition. But upon taking the disc out to look at the disc surface, I was horrified. This is what I saw:

Obviously this disc was not going to be playable.

So out of the 500 movies I own, only two discs have suffered damage and both of them happen to be The Pianist? What’s going on here?

I’ve read some forums posts that detailed similar problems that was solved easily by washing the disc, and I tried doing just that. The scratches appeared better, but it still wasn’t what you would call a disc in “good’ condition:

Anyway, a quick email to DVD Pacific and they replied very promptly, with instructions on how to send the damaged disc back and get a replacement (for which I will get reimbursed for the postage costs). I went to the post office and got one of those CD/DVD mailer boxes, and the required $4 stamp.

I will send out the disc tomorrow and then I’ll update the situation as it changes. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before I get back a copy of The Pianist that actually works perfectly (now that would be a first for me!)

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 at 4:50 pm and is filed under High Definition (Blu-ray/HD DVD/4K). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.