What the ******* is wrong with my DS9 DVD:s?

[Lynx]

Today I'm in a foul mood (as Al Bundy use to say).

It has nothing to do with family members or shoes, it has something to do with malfunctioning DS9 DVD:s.

Due to stupid policies of a certain station in my area, I was unable to watch more than season 1 of DS9 when it was aired where I live in 1997. After that I've watched only certain episodes, taped by friends.

In the spring of 2013 I finally decided to buy the whole series on DVD to watch it all. I started with the first three seasons and then bought the rest one by one.

When I reached season 3, I found out that two episodes, "Civil Defence" and "Fascination" were unwatchable due to certain stops in the episode. In "Civil Defence", the problems started immediately, it was impossible to start watching the episode because the picture froze in the first scene and it was impossible to move in any direction, except press "stop" and exit the episode.

In "Fascination" the same problem occurred at the end of the episode, when Quark is trying to hug Keiko and O'Brien is ready to fight him (funny scene actually).

I cleaned the DVD player, the same problem occurred again at exactly the same scenes in both episodes. Then I went to a neighbor and tested the DVD:s on their player. The same result.

OK, a bad copy, I thought. S*** happens. Unfortunately I didn't have the note from the shop (it was actually some months after I bought seasons 1-3 that I discovered this problem) so I couldn't ask for any reclamation.

So I used my hard-earned money and bought a new season 3 box and this time it was no problem.

Everything's OK! Well that's what I thought!

Today, waiting for a hockey game to start on TV, I decided to rewatch some season 1 DS9 for nostalgic reasons so I watched "The Passenger" and "Move Along Home".

Then it happened again! At the end of "Move Along Home" when Sisko, Dax and Kira is about to fall down in a cliff, the same problem as on the season 3 DVD:s occurred. The picture froze and the only option is to stop and re-start. Then it runs as it should up to the same scene and it stops again.

This happens on a DVD which functioned perfectly about a year ago! So what the * is wrong?

I have stored those DVD:s in the same cupboard where I have all my other DVD:s. And I have never encountered these problems on any other DVD than the DS9 DVD:s.

For example, I have season 1-3 of Voyager which I bought in 2006 and they are still watchable. I have all seasons of TNG and TOS which I bought before the DS9 DVD:s and no problem there either (at least not yet).

Not to mention other movies and such which are still working the way they should.

So I would like to know if there are anyone of you DS9 fans in Europe which have encountered the same problems with DS9 DVD:s.

 

[Praetorian]

Strangely, I'm having a very similar problem with my DS9 DVD.

I'm from Europe, too.

Episodes that worked fine just a couple of years ago have chapters than I cant watch or, in some cases, the whole episode is unwatchable.

Some sort of defect?

 

[JD5000]

Does this help?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/THE-DEFINITIVE-GUIDE-TO-DVD-COMPATIBILITY-/10000000002018972/g.html

 

[MacLeod]

If it was bought in a shop or online from a rebutable retailer, it would be a R2 disc. The only way it wouldn't be if it was from a retailer oustide of Europe or one of those cheap knock-offs that sometimes crop up on ebay.

If it's past the returns period for the retailer your could always try to get a replacment disc from the manufacturer, assuming the issue occurs on several DVD players as it would seem to indicate a manufacuring defect.

 

[Lynx]

All my DS9 DVD:s are R2 DVD:s with subtitles in some European languages.

I bought them via an online store in my country so they are absolutely legal. I've bought a lot of DVD:s from that shop so they are reliable. No problems with any DVD:s until those recent problems with the DS9 DVD:s.

The exception is the season 3 DVD:s which I bought new copies of when I discovered the problems the first time. My usual retailer were out of them so I tried another shop. I've only watched those new DVD:s once and they did work then. In fact, I had to pay more for them than I did the first time but they are the same., sleeve and everything.

I can add that I tested today's faulty season 1 DVD on my computer too. Same problem there.

Is there any idea to send a mail to Paramount? Anyone who have any experience how they handle a situation like this?

 

[MacLeod]

You lose nothing by sending an e-mail to Paramount home entertainment explaining your situation. For all you know they are aware of a possible defect on certain discs, as those discs could have sat in some warehouse for months or years.

 

[Praetorian]

I bought mine from Amazon.

The first three seasons, which have no issues as far as I know, I bought from the French store, the remaining ones from the UK store.

I haven't watched episodes from the 6th or 7th seasons recently, but both the 4th and 5th seasons have these issues.

These are the big black boxes that were first released.

I already rebought the 4th season, this time the slim version, seems to have no issues.

The odd thing is that this issue only appeared a decade after I bought them!

Could it be degradation?

 

[Guy Gardener]

In some countries you are legally allowed to back your dvds up at least once.

In any country you are illegally allowed to back up your dvds as many times as you want.

I'm wondering, if you sell your physical copies of the DVD which you bought with real money and owned for a time and you resold that media to a third party... Are you expected to erase the digital back up of the dvd that you made?

The honor system is for punks.

You might have to replace your physical media, in whatever form it takes, another five times before you die, even if you never ware anything out. It's just time plus erosion/rotting. God forbid you're the sort of idjit who loans out your collection to "friends" who are far less trustworthy than they claim to be.

DVDs are not coasters.

Hard drives fail. So backing up isn't really a permenant option either, but replacing hard drives before they fail is easier than replacing thousands of Bluray disks. Especially at USB7 speeds. Golly with postpostmodern compression they can probably store DVD quality rips of Lord of the Rings in full inside just 7 mbs of diskspace.

The future is a wonderful place.

 

[Tosk]

One of my R2 sets stopped playing reliably and then became very brittle. I don't know why. You know how hard it is to snap a CD with one hand usually? These became very easy to. A small crack would appear and then run immediately down the whole disc 'til it was halved. It only took a mild squeeze.

 

[Praetorian]

One of my R2 sets stopped playing reliably and then became very brittle. I don't know why. You know how hard it is to snap a CD with one hand usually? These became very easy to. A small crack would appear and then run immediately down the whole disc 'til it was halved. It only took a mild squeeze.

Yes, the holding system used in the big black boxes is quite craptastic, I ruined the disc with Emissary on it because of that.

Though the discs with the issues being discussed in this thread have no external damage signs.

I guess they simply reached the end of their shelf life...

 

[Lynx]

There are no cracks in my DVD:s, at least I don't see any. Not even with a magnifying glass.

Unfortunately, what I can see of the replies here, this seems to be a serious problem.

OK, I can write to Paramount and with some luck make some deal. I can also swallow my pride and buy a new copy of season 1 too. But if the new copies have the same problems as the old ones. Do I have to spend the rest of my days buying all DS9 seasons over and over again?

OK, I can buy the US DVD:s. But then I have to buy a Region 1 DVD player as well, or some region free DVD player.

To be honest, I try to respect copyright. If there's a rockband, like Iron Maiden that I really like, then I buy the CD:s. If there is a series I like, then I buy the DVD:s. Even if the treatment of the character Kes by Paramount still annoys me, I must actually give them credit for TOS, TNG, DS9 and seasons 1-3 of Voyager.

But honestly, issues like this with those crap CD:s shipped to Europe makes me wanna look at other possibilities.

A person I know (no, it wasn't me, I'm not the kind of guy who do such things ) once bought a double CD box with a collection of a half-famous European rock band. Everything was OK until a couple of years later when the guy decided to listen to the records and found that they were unplayable.

The guy went down to the local CD dealer who fortunately had two copies left in the store. They decided to test the CD:s there and they were unplayable as well. Something had happened to those CD:s after some years.

The record dealer wasn't that interested of bringing in more copies of the box, or maybe they were no more copies available from the record company. So the guy with the defect records wrote a letter to the record company about the problems.

Two months passed and no reply, in fact up to this day there has been no reply at all from the gentlemen at the record company.

So after two months, the guy thought that enough is enough and started to look for other options. Finally he found what he was looking for and downloaded the whole box from some "special" site on the Internet. And the CD copies he burned of the downloaded stuff are still playable.

If that what's the company wanted with their policy, let them have it.

I'm not suggesting such methods in this case, at least not yet. But maybe we who have defect DVD:s should start writing to Paramount about the problem and send back our defect copies to them. Just to see what happens.

 

[Maab of the Ten Tribes]

All this talk makes me want to back up my dvds to a hard drive, then back that drive up to another hard drive. Then back up on those hard drives every year or so with a new drive. Okay maybe that's a bit extreme but you get my point. Especially since it doesn't look like we are getting hd ds9 for a while at least. That's assuming my dvds are still working. I'm in the US but I haven't watched my earlier seasons for a good while now.

 

[f14peter]

Sounds like you've checked the bottom of the discs for scratches and smudges, and cleaned as necessary. Check also the label-side of the disk for scratches as the actual data layer can often be closer to that surface than the "data" (no pun intended) or "play" side.

In the USA, you are legally entitled to back up your media without violating copyright, and I have on occasion been able to get a copy (via DVD Shrink) to play through issues an original would choke on. Also, some copying software such as Shrink can make the copy as an ISO image file, which some media players (such as VLC) treat identically as a DVD.

That these issues are limited to just this particular box-set tells me there was either a case-lot of discs with some small defect was used in the duplication process, cheaper less reliable discs were used (Some brands are better than others), or that possibly the master discs/files has some minor defect that affects playback (Although that's usually plain from the get-go).

Even though there is no physical contact with the data and surfaces of the discs (other than the hub), the material used to print the data layer (I've heard it referred to as "ink") will deteriorate over time. However, that is usually predicted to be a couple of decades and not just a couple of years. Incidentally, BR discs are reputed to have a much longer shelf-life.

 

[aj1981]

There have been quite a few known issues (skipping/freezing etc) with the Full Journey boxsets for TOS, TNG, DS9. I was having real problems with Season 5 of DS9 especially "Call To Arms". I was using a older bluray player but I recently started watching them on my XBOX One and I've had no playback problems at all, even on episodes I'd previously had issues with.

 

[Inactive-Shapeshifter]

I've had a similar problem with my Stargate Atlantis DVDs from season 2. Some episodes ware simply impossibly to watch.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Perhaps recent firmware updates have caused a compatability problem with older DVDs.

Or, if your machine can't update its firmware, try a more modern machine that can?

 

[Guy Gardener]

The day is coming.

Star Trek Dinner Theatre.

The surviving castmebers of all known renditions of Star Trek will tour the country reinacting episodes.

In years to come, as everybuggers DVDs become unusable, this may be your only option left, other than paying 15 cents a month to Netflix to stream as many episodes as you want, as often as you want on any device you own.

 

[borgboy]

This makes me nervous, as I'm getting close to the point in my massive multimedia ST marathon where I'm going to start watching DS9 again. I have the region 1 original release DVDs. I'm already spoiled by watching TOS and TNG (and the first six movies) on blu ray.
As for streaming, I did try streaming on my smart tv, and I couldn't get it work properly, it stalled out very badly to make it unwatchable, but the same show played fine from the same source on my pc. It wasn't Netflix, though, it was Hulu. I have 2 smart tvs in the house and neither one would stream properly. I live way out in the country, so my internet isn't probably as great as it would be in a city.
I'd go to Star Trek Dinner Theater.

 

[Lance]

This is actually (unfortunately) quite a common thing. It's called "Disc Rot".

Obligatory Wikipedia link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot


Everything on Earth is subject to basic entropy, and unfortunately optical media (digital media, for that matter) is no exception to that. Blu-Ray discs are apparently authored in a way which extends their life considerably longer than DVD and CD based media. But yeah, nothing is infaliable, and discs are gonna decay over time, no matter what we do.....

And the extent to which they do is somewhat random. It can't be predicted why, or when, it will happen. My TOS DVDs actually suffered from it on the Season 3 set. They all used to work, then one day one of the discs just... didn't anymore.

 

[Mage]

Strangly enough, I had a similar situation with a Bluray not long ago, not Star Trek though. The Dark Knight Rises.

Bought it last summer or so, watch it, fine. Watched it last week, and at about the half way point, it skipped a few seconds, at three seperate points in the movie. Then it behaved fine again. I can't believe that's discrot though.