DVD's f**kups

[Ranger1]

Ive heard a lot of people got f**ked up B5 boxes of season 1 and season 2,i got my Season 1 and 2 and both were fine,i was like "oh man im so happy,where those people are buying their dvd's?"
And today,alas,got my Season 3 box from amazon.uk,disc 2 and 4 were loose,disc 4 was scratched like a hip-hop record!! but it was viewable so i dont really have to return it.
Why we are been treated like this? i know its the factory where they make the plastic holders is the main problem,cus when i pushed the cd's back into place i needed a screw driver to pull them out again.
Im paying with my money to get a top product and this is what im getting?
If i was the only one i would not even dream about posting this,but i heard so many f**k ups that other people had.
Then the studios are amazed to see why people rather get these things downloaded and burned.

-Now about other thing,Season 1 picture quality was great,the CGI parts were great.
Season 2 wasn't so great,and the CGI parts were..how should i put this? the sides of the pictures were cut off,now i heard lots of rumors that this problem has been fixed for the Season 3 box,and guess what...same problem in season 3,and what really annoys me is that on Season 2 where they talk about the Hugo awards you can see a CGI shot of Severed Dreams,and the quality and the right widescreen picture was so perfect that made me feel so cheated out when i got my copy of Season 3.

Anyone else had these kind of problems?

[DougO]

Damanged DVDs

I didn't have any problems with the box sets I purchased from Amazon. I wonder if the loose discs could be the result of rough shipping?

-DougO

[Ranger1]

Season 3 box's plastic holder are so tight,even if they threw the box from the second floor it shouldnt have come off.

[Wintermute]

I got my copy of Season 3 yesterday from a high street store (It was only released in the UK last Monday).

Like the the previous two seasons, the discs were perfect, as was the picture quality.

Are these problems with the dvds restricted to specific countries/regions ?

[Ranger1]

No its random,and how can you say the picture quality is perfect? its still grainy (although less then season 2),and the CGI shots are cut off on the sides and blurry.

[Lorien1]

Damaged DVD's

I ordered two Season 3 boxed sets from Amazon, and two sets from Littlewoods. They were [U]all damaged in exactly the same places. It's gotta be a manufacturing cock-up.

[Ranger1]

Re: Damaged DVD's

Originally posted by Lorien1
I ordered two Season 3 boxed sets from Amazon, and two sets from Littlewoods. They were [U]all damaged in exactly the same places. It's gotta be a manufacturing cock-up.

Damaged in which places? scratches? loose cd's?

[RedFox]

Got my S3 box about 2 weeks ago from amazon.de. When handling the box I already heard that some disks were loose, which in the end resulted in at least two of them being scratched. I wrote an email to amazon and they said they were aware of the problem and I should return the whole thing. Same with a friend of mine.

In the meantime they've stopped shipping S3 on amazon.de.

[KoshN]

It's been My R1 Experience That...

...when I opened the shrinkwrap for the first time, 1 or 2 discs were loose...

B5 R1 Season 3 Discs 4 and 5 As They Arrived from DVDPlanet

...and were scratched in an arc, or had hub shaped scratches caused by the hubs.

B5 R1 Season 3 Disc 4 Damage

B5 R1 Season 3 Disc 5 Damage

That damage affected the following episodes:

Ship of Tears
Interludes and Examinations
War Without End, Part 2
And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place


Disc 4 of 6 (details of the problems encountered):
--------------
Episode #14 of 22, Ship of Tears:
DVD hangs, and skips from 00:00:56 to 00:01:36.
DVD hangs at 00:05:39, and either skips from 00:05:39 back to 00:04:52 (over
and over again), or skips ahead to 00:13:51.
DVD hangs at 00:26:00, and skips back to 00:14:36.

Episode #15 of 22, Interludes and Examinations
DVD hangs at 00:35:19, and skips back to 00:04:27, or just stutters around
for a few seconds and then continues.
DVD hangs at 00:36:34, and skips back to 00:28:54, or just stutters around
for a few seconds and then continues.
DVD hangs at 00:40:53, and skips to 00:41:34.


Disc 5 of 6 (details of the problems encountered):
--------------
Episode #17 of 22, War Without End, Part 2
DVD hangs at 00:02:15, and skips to 00:02:26.
DVD hangs at 00:04:56, and skips to 00:11:09.
DVD hangs at 00:13:34, stutters around 00:13:34, 00:13:35, 00:13:36,
00:13:37, and 00:13:38, and then skips to 00:13:47.
DVD hangs at 00:13:54, and then skips to 00:14:04.
DVD hangs at 00:14:49, and then skips to 00:14:59.
DVD hangs at 00:29:04, and then skips to 00:29:45.
DVD hangs at 00:30:59, and then skips to 00:31:09.
DVD hangs at 00:31:59, and then skips to 00:32:04.
DVD hangs at 00:32:19, and then skips to 00:39:52.

Episode #20 of 22, And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place
DVD hangs at 00:09:21, and then skips to 00:13:58.
DVD hangs at 00:14:51, and then skips to 00:15:31.
DVD hangs at 00:21:48, and then continues.
DVD hangs at 00:38:14, then skips to 00:38:16, and then skips to 00:39:02.
DVD hangs at 00:39:07, 00:39:08, 00:39:09, and 00:39:10, and then skips to
00:39:51.
DVD hangs at 00:40:02, 00:40:05, 00:40:07 and 00:40:08, and then skips to
00:40:14.



So far, I've bought five Babylon 5 seasons sets (Seasons 1 thru 3, some being gifts), and EVERY set had 1 or 2, usually 2, scratched discs.



The problem is with the hub design, and possibly with set assembly. The discs are either not always placed on their hubs during assembly, or are coming off their hubs later in the assembly process and/or during shipping and handling.

In Region 1, the hub design SUCKS. It's a CHEAP, passive (non-moving), pure friction design. That combined with the material used (clear, hard, brittle material), makes it completely unsuited to the purpose of holding the discs on the hubs when being shipped, and releasing the discs from the hubs when you want to play the discs.

It's a SHIT design. WB is too CHEAP and doesn't care enough to recognize this and fix it.

End of story.

KoshN

[Dark Primus]

Good thing I didn't buy the DVD's. I have heard similar stories from other sci-fi forums.

[Mr_Morden]

Ok, On the DVD Sets. I have bought all Seasons from Amazon (USA) and have not had a single problem or Scratch. But Season 2 had two loose DVD when it was unpacked but no scratches.. I am sorry to hear others have had trouble.


Mr Morden

[RedFox]

Looks like amazon.de will start shipping S3 again beginning this Monday (Dec 15), after taking back my scratched DVDs - no questions asked. I wonder what they've been able to do regarding the S3-box issues.

[BretFein]

Damaged DVDs

Just curious - for those of you who've gotten damaged DVDs, have you complained to the company, or just traded disks in until you finally get a good one?

I'm asking because (1) complaining here might let you vent, but won't change anything, and (2) I haven't bought B5 DVDs yet, and I'm hoping the bugs will all be fixed by the time I do...

[Joseph DeMartino]

1) Warner Bros. does not make the cases. They buy them from an outside company and I'm sure they've complained, but they don't directly have the ability to fix what's wrong with them. (Neither do the other Hollywood studios that buy cases from this same company and which have experienced similar problems.)

2) I have returned damaged disc to the retailer. That is the usual way to handle these things. In one case I stood at the customer service desk and made them open sets and go through discs until they came up with six undamaged ones. I think that took three or four boxes. More recently I mailed the damaged discs only back to the internet retailer where I bought them and they are shipping replacements to me. They have a bunch of open sets and are just swapping out bad ones for good ones. Once the rush is over they'll settle lup with Warner Bros. It is always easier to deal with the retailer than the manufacturer in these cases, which is why I recommend opening and inspecting things like DVD sets as soon as you buy them rather than waiting until you get around to watching them. I keep reading posts from people who only just now got around to opening the S1 sets they bought a year ago and are finding scratched and even missing discs. Naturally the retailer refuses to do anything them because most return policies place a limit of 14 to 30 days on transactions.

Regards,

Joe

[Mertu]

Not fixed yet (if they ever will).

Got my Season 1 box from Amazon on Monday. Disks 1 & 3 were loose and badly scratched.

(I'm sure it didn't help that it was shipped in a "box" that was little more than a cardboard wrap, with no padding.)

Got the replacement today (in an actual box with padding). Disks 1 & 3 were loose again. There are a couple of deep scratches on disk 5. It may still work, but I'm leaning towards getting a third set even if they do. My DVD player is rather forgiving of defects and I'll probably be loaning this set out... plus I paid for a new product, not a slightly-used-even-before-opening product.

I'll wait until next Monday this time--after I've watched all the episodes.