Aviator DVD won't play

[Gollnick]

I have not seen the very popular movie The Aviator. Everyone says it's very good. So, when I saw it featured for $20 on DVD at a local store on Saturday, I bought it.

On Saturday evening, I fired up my video projector and got everything set to watch and the DVD would not play in my Pioneer DV606D player (one of the best DVD players ever made). I've never seen that player simply lock up. It locked up completely and would not respond to any commands or anything. I had to, for the first time ever, use the manual bypass method to get the drawer to open and get the disk out.

I cleaned it and carefully replaced it and it locked up again. So, yesterday, I took the disk back. Of course, the store would only replace it with the same title which was fine with me because I want to see this movie. But the new disk wouldn't play either. It also sent my player into a tailspin (pun intended).

I took it back today. The clerk gave me the run-around about only replacing the the same disk and I explained that two in a row had failed and I felt the must have a bad batch or something. The clerk called the manager who said, "Oh, The Aviator. Yeah, that disk has some new-fangled copy protection scheme on it and a lot of players won't play it. We're getting alot of those back. Refund his money and put the disk in the bin."

So, I suggest you be very careful about buying this DVD if your store won't be willing to refund you.

 

[Point44]

I've had that disc for weeks now but haven't even tried watching it yet. Of course i'm in the UK and it won't have the same problems. However, i still don't understand why companies are trying so hard with this copy protection when whatever they do someone is going to find a way to break it and 1 disc is all they need to make thousands of copies.

 

[rebeltf]

Yea I had the same problem with Trading Places (Eddie Murphy , Dan Akroyd etc) , gave up on the 2nd copy.
Plays fine on my computer's DVD player but not on my TV DVD.

 

[gordonk]

I something like that with the Constantine DVD. It came up with the message "Incompatible format ... try in a different player" or something like that. I could eject it, but it locked up all my controls. Played fine on my desktop PC at work. I exchanged it for the 2 CD version and it worked fine. My initial thought was that there was a new format out, but it may have been bad media, though I've had bad media DVD's before and usually get a "Cannot read" error of some sort. My DVD player is a Koss - about 2 years old.

- gord

 

[Temper]

I've had that disc for weeks now but haven't even tried watching it yet. Of course i'm in the UK and it won't have the same problems. However, i still don't understand why companies are trying so hard with this copy protection when whatever they do someone is going to find a way to break it and 1 disc is all they need to make thousands of copies.

What's ironic too is that it will be the PC that cracks it and not the TV