Gladiator - DVD Rot?

[black__omega]

Was watching Gladiator for the first time a while last night and right after the layer switch things went south and I had massive pixelization, image freeze-ups and audio skipping and popping problems.

I took the disc out and couldn't see any scratches or anything. Nor did I see any of the cloudness I've seen associated with DVD rot although there is a slight pasted together look between the disc layers (imagine glue squished out between two layers of plastic or glass, kinda squished out and imperfectly shaped).

I tried the disc out this morning in my other player and it had similar problems from the same place on.

Does this seem like DVD rot or something similar to anyone else? I saw a few other posts in the forum of similar problems with the disc.

Either way it sucks for two reasons:
(a) I've had the disc for a long time (nearly two years) and I don't know if I still have the reciept around for it.

(b) I was screening it last night with my new-ish DTS setup with a few hot chicks. Needless to say, the pixelization and popping audio really killed the mood :-( Oh well, at least they were impressed by the first half of the presentation.

[tomdkat]

I haven't had any problems with my copy of Gladiator on my Pioneer DVL-919. Please post the make/model of your DVD players.

Peace.....

[Flash Ahhh]

I checked my disk also, visually it looked good.

What chapter was the layer change at and I'll test the layer change.

Previously, both disks of Gladiator played flawlessly for me and two different Sony players.

One thingI noticed when I first bought this title, the Gladiator disks are nearly translucent, I thought that was somewhat odd.

-Flash

[black__omega]

It's was a Panasonic DVD-115A player where the initial problem occured and a Creative 6x DVD-ROM whose exact model number I forget with PowerDVD 4.

And the layer switch was a few minutes into Chapter 15: Battle of Carthage. At least that's where I think it's at.

Update: Checked the Digital Bits and it says the layer change is at "layer switch at 1:16:27, in chapter 14".

[black__omega]

Okay, checked my disc and the layer change is at 1:16:27, chapter 14 and my problems start around 01:24:57 and continue onward pretty much the for the next 30 minutes and then kinda of let up for the rest of the film save an occasional pixelation error. So I'm not sure what to make this now. Any new thoughts?

[tomdkat]

Originally posted by black__omega
Update: Checked the Digital Bits and it says the layer change is at "layer switch at 1:16:27, in chapter 14".

Thanks..... I just tried it on my Pioneer DVL-919 and it played flawlessly.....

Peace......

[Flash Ahhh]

Dang, this is a great movie.

I just played chapters 13 (Proximo giving Maximus advice) to around 16 or so (Commodus goes down to the arena floor to meet the gladiator) and mine plays fine and the layer change is fine.

Is your disk dirty? Perhaps some surface grime on it? And as far as the DVD Rot is concerned, this is a RSDL disk.

Good luck.

-Flash

[black__omega]

hmm...

I can't see any kind of grim or dust on my disc. I think i've got something deeper going on, personally. Since it is messing up at the same place on two players I think I can rule out a dirty player. And both are playing other discs fine.

Played with my Disc 2 earlier today and couldn't find any problems with it, but then again since it's just featurettes nothing has a layer change that I'd notice.

I guess I'll try to track down my old reciept and swap my copy. I got it at Walmart so worst comes to worst I can bitch my way into a new copy reciept or no reciept but last time I did that they got kinda ticked off and put me on some kind of list.

[Flash Ahhh]

Better to have old receipt, than no receipt.

Also, a DVD shouldn't wear out, so age shouldn't have anything to do with it.

If that happened to me, and they said no, I'd fight them. You aren't returning a coloring book that you filled the pages already, and you aren't trying to get a different movie, you want the same title replaced, because it went bad. So it shouldn't matter if you got it 5 minutes ago or 5 months ago.

So got at 'em...

-Flash

[limacharliewhiskey]

Just wanted to chime in my experience with my Gladiator disc set. The movie disc has worked fine for me with no problems, but the 2nd disc with all of the featurettes did go bad on me 6 months after I bought it. It played perfectly fine when I bought it. The disc visually looked perfect: no dust, no scratches, no fogging, no cracks.

Luckily, I still had the receipt, and the store (DVD Planet's brick-and-mortar store where I bought it) was kind enough to exchange it for me. New disc works fine.

It would help to check out any other Dreamworks DVDs that you have just to make sure that your player is fine. If more of your discs are pixellating, it could be your player going bad.

You're not the only one to have your Gladiator disc go bad.

And as Flash mentions such wise advice, ALWAYS keep your receipt, no matter how long ago you bought a disc. Smaller or local stores tend to be more flexible with their exchange policies than large chain stores.

Worst case scenario: buy the DVD a 2nd time, give them back the faulty disc in an exchange, don't open the newly exchanged DVD, and then return it for a refund a week later. If you or they open the DVD so that it can't be returned for a refund, then just sell it on eBay. This is what I did for my ID4 disc that went bad on me.

[videoworx]

Although my Gladiator movie plays perfectly, there is a small (as in RCH small) crack, which can be attributed to the Amaray 2 disc case. The insert disc platter where the movie disc sits is (apparently) poorly designed, and applies a huge amount of pressure to the inside ring of any disc that sits there. It could be that your disc had an "earthquake"...in any case, if you don't want it getting any worse, make sure you don't store the disc on that swiveling insert

[limacharliewhiskey]

Originally posted by videoworx
Although my Gladiator movie plays perfectly, there is a small (as in RCH small) crack, which can be attributed to the Amaray 2 disc case. The insert disc platter where the movie disc sits is (apparently) poorly designed, and applies a huge amount of pressure to the inside ring of any disc that sits there. It could be that your disc had an "earthquake"...in any case, if you don't want it getting any worse, make sure you don't store the disc on that swiveling insert

You could just switch the movie disc to the regular hub, and then put the extras disc on the swinging insert. That's what I do with all of my 2-disc sets now.