I have one Blu-Ray movie, Blood Diamond that will not play anymore. It used to work, but now that I put it in my PS3 nothing happens. It tries to read it but no success. Also, my computer with a Blu-Ray drive freezes while trying to read the disc. It comes back to life after taking the disc out. There have been updates to the PS3 but none for the BD drive in my PC. So weird. Sorry, for the off-topic.
I also have problems trying to play blurays on my computer. I have two drives, both made by Lite-On, one of them is a read-only drive (reads Blus, records CDs and DVDs), the second one is a recorder (records all discs - Blus, CDs, DVDs). The read-only drive stopped reading bluray discs two or three years ago (but, to my surprise, it still reads some old blurays from 2009-2010 and has no issues reading BD-Rs). The recording drive stopped reading most blurays a year ago but after a few attempts of loading/unloading the drive it may be brought to life and start reading the discs for a while. Both drives read CDs and DVDs smoothly. There might be something wrong with their lasers. I don't know.
A Russian account with a fake photo and counterfeit Blus on sale... nice, lol. In fact, there is a shop in my town that sells these BD-Rs with cheap inkjet printing and horrible scanned artwork. They normally go for 300-400 RUB which is approximately 5-6 USD. They've been selling this crap for three or four years, and I don't understand who their target audience is. If people are interested in physical product, they will order a legit physical release. If they aren't, they will simply download the disc from torrent trackers or file sharing sites. But they've been around for quite some time so I assume the business is going well, and they must have some kind of protection from local authorities because otherwise nobody would allow them to sell such forgeries.
I have the optimal disc and it won't play. I dug out my ps3, on which it played fine back when I bought the set. The last time that ps3 could have had a firmware update would have been June 2014, after which it was disconnected and never used again. I don't know if that helps in determining the possibility of updates to players being the cause. I can't remember when I last played the disc in that ps3 though...
Well, in the case of this disc I'd consider buying it. I originally paid 100 euros for something that doesn't work anymore. I'm not going to spend another 100 euros because 1. I already spent that and shouldn't have to do it again and 2. what if I end up with another unplayable disc? I don't know anything about torrents and I'm not sure I want to go there...
Haven't played my DSOTM or WYWH BDs for a while; I'll have to test them. If they're faulty, the time spent ripping them to FLAC files will have been well spent.
In this particular case, I absolutely agree with you. I own the 20th anniversary box set of "The Division Bell" -- the bluray disc of the set was also pressed at Optimal, so in a few years it might become unplayable (however, they may have upgraded their equipment at some point between 2011 and 2014, who knows). I just think that physical media mustn't have any particular "best before" dates. If the disc becomes unplayable - after 5 years, 10 years, 15 years of use - and it is obvious that the damage hasn't been caused by the owner of the disc, it must be immediately replaced with no questions asked. I'm sick and tired of the quality of modern physical media. The prices are going up, the quality is becoming worse and worse. Major companies don't understand that they're still alive thanks to a small number of devout collectors who are ready to spend money on physical discs. Once these collectors are gone, the discs will also be gone forever.
I have the EU Optimal pressing. I would tend to discount the firmware issue as the f/w for my player hasn't been updated for two years. I also noticed a bit of rippled discolouration towards the rim of the disc itself. Manufacturer's defect?
That could place us back to square one unfortunately. It would be cool if an OPPO owner would send their offending disc in for them to look at. I would in a heartbeat, but I have the NA copy that still functions fine.
I live in the U.S. and ordered from Amazon U.S. Mine is: BVDL-196930B1 3 No issues with mine it seems. Wasn't there a recall in Europe for the Wish You Were Here Blu-Ray? Connected somehow?
The Europe WYWH Immersion boxes had a faulty BD which had some audible skipping towards the end of WYWH allegedly (never went listening for it myself). I was sent a replacement BD by Amazon, I think without having to do anything to request it (though I may be getting mixed up with the faulty discs on the first two Rush Sector boxes; i'm sure I had to request replacement discs for those). The boxes themselves were not recalled.
My set has: 294349 DB44459-01 optimal media production L1 I just skipped around audio and video on Sony and Panasonic BR players with no issues...
Just tried mine; same as above poster, plays fine on my LG BD player. The edge of the disc does have an irregularity that isn't present on my WYWH BD, but I'm pretty sure that was present when I bought it.
Mine appears to ay fine it's been a while. I took all the discs out of the big box and put then in single jewel cases, when I got the box. Someone mentioned that it may be gasses from the foam inserts which may be a cause of failure as they interact with the material used on the blu ray disc
It is interesting that you mentioned the possibility of interaction with the foam inserts. My UK Optimal-pressed disc matches the matrix identification numbers of the discs that usually fail, but it plays fine on several different Sony players (for the time being.) I have always stored it outside the original box. It makes sense to me that this is a manufacturing defect rather than a firmware update issue. I guess anything is possible, though.
This is interesting. I was unable to read the matrix numbers on my DSOTM Blu-ray so I'm not sure which version it is. But I've always kept the Blu-ray separate so it would be easier to play without opening the box. If the foam was an issue wouldn't it happen with all the Blu-rays including the ones from the WYWH Immersion set?
Hadn't heard about the foam issue till now. I checked my two Immersion sets and the foam appears identical. But then I have the NA pressings which consensus says aren't problematic anyway. You wouldn't think the age difference between the two Immersion sets would come in to play since they were issued only a couple of months apart. Bill, yours is likely the NA pressing unless you bought from the other side of the pond. At this point though, I think all theories are still on the table...
For the record, I bought both the WYWH and DSOTM Immersion boxes on the same day at Costco Warehouse in Brentwood, TN. The WYWH box contained a US pressing, the DSOTM box contained the UK Optimal-pressed disc. I was pretty surprised that Costco was selling UK versions myself - but they did for this title. Comparing the WYWH disc to the DSOTM, the Optimal disc definitely looks slightly different in the way the playing surface reflects ambient room light. The DSOTM disc has a sort of "wavy rainbow" appearance - similar to a funhouse mirror. The WYWH disc looks more like a normal mirror. The edges of both discs feel different, too. There are definite "fit and finish" differences between the two discs. I have kept both discs stored outside of their respective boxes for the sake of convenience.
Forgot to mention... the foam is definitely different in each box. The EU foam is darker, has more raised areas per square inch, etc. The smell seems slightly different, too, but I think I may be imagining that. LOL
Interesting that Costco in NA was selling European pressings, but I guess they're a world wide company so maybe not so surprising. And I'll take your word on the foam odor difference
