To Doug Schneider,
I’m trying to understand what is actually happening in the current scenario I (and it appears others as well) am experiencing. The second half of my Prometheus Blu-ray has extensive macro blocking and is unwatchable. Are these the possible scenarios?
1. The disc is bad. (I would think that everyone would then experience this problem. It appears to be a limited number.)
2. My Blu-ray player is bad. (I would think that all my discs would have playback issues. They do not.)
3. The disc is encoded such that some players have issues. (This seems to be what people are thinking, and getting a replacement would not solve the problem.)
If #3 is true, then are the possible solutions:
1. Disc manufacturer changes disc to eliminate problem. (Doesn’t seem likely as they probably do not see it as their issue.)
2. Blu-ray player manufacturer issues software upgrade to address new encoding.
I think I have read about other discs where sometimes they just won’t work on certain players. Can’t there just be a single system of encoding that would assure all discs work on all players? It seems I read that disc makers change the “encoding” (not sure what that really is) in an attempt to reduce illegal copying.
Could you please explain how this all works?
Thanks!
K. White
I feel for you because Prometheus is a great movie and you likely want to know how it turns out. Based on what you’ve described, I’m going to go with your first point -- that the disc is bad. There are various things you mention that point this way. First, if your player was the problem, then a similar problem would likely show up with other discs -- and you said it isn’t happening with others. If there was a problem with the encoding, then it wouldn’t just show up on the second half, but the first half as well. In fact, the disc probably wouldn’t play at all. The point about other people having a similar problem corroborates the faulty-disc premise, since that means the issue is happening on different player types -- providing that their issue is the same.
Discs are sold worldwide in many stores, but they’re made in a limited number of facilities. If it is a widespread problem, then more than likely there was a faulty run when they were pressing them. It doesn't mean that every disc out there is bad, but its plausible that there's more than one that escaped from the manufacturer in bad shape. If it’s not truly a widespread problem, then you might simply have a faulty disc that got damaged somehow. Whichever one it is, head back to the store and exchange it to see if a new disc fixes it up. Please let me know how it turns out. . . . Doug Schneider
