I am never renting DVD's again.

[areohbe]

So i use that .99 cent dvd rental coupon from Hollywood video to pick up Das Boot, Requiem for a Dream, and Fight Club. Come home and check out Das Boot and there's a FAT scratch on it. I put it in my dvd player and its skipping like no other. So i take it back, and pick up The Thin Red Line instead.

Come back home, watching a Thin Red Line and about 50 minutes through, it starts skipping and blockiness is everywhere. The audio cuts out and its like this for about 20 minutes. I give up on this movie and decide to watch Requiem for a Dream. That movie turns out to be great and the dvd is fine (it actually looks like no one has rented it. Too bad, its a great movie).

Start watching Fight Club today and i'm really getting into it. About 45 minutes into it, when they start discussing the rules of Fight Club, same thing that happened with the Thin Red Line dvd happens with this disc. I go through the chapters and its like this for pretty much the rest of the movie. I look at the disc and man it looks like its been torn to hell. What the hell is wrong with these people that rent dvd's?! Do they actually use these things as drink coasters while they're watching other movies before they return them?!

I guess if i do end up renting a movie it'll be on VHS because i can't deal with this hassle. That's 3 out of 4 movies that were bad. Dvd's are perfect to own, but terrible to rent.

 

[gopunk]

hmm, i can't say i've had that experience. out of about 35-40, i've encountered 1-3 bad ones. btw, maybe you should just look at the dvd before you take it out of the store? that would save you a lot of trouble...

 

[Sepen]

<< So i use that .99 cent dvd rental coupon from Hollywood video to pick up Das Boot, Requiem for a Dream, and Fight Club. Come home and check out Das Boot and there's a FAT scratch on it. I put it in my dvd player and its skipping like no other. So i take it back, and pick up The Thin Red Line instead.

Come back home, watching a Thin Red Line and about 50 minutes through, it starts skipping and blockiness is everywhere. The audio cuts out and its like this for about 20 minutes. I give up on this movie and decide to watch Requiem for a Dream. That movie turns out to be great and the dvd is fine (it actually looks like no one has rented it. Too bad, its a great movie).

Start watching Fight Club today and i'm really getting into it. About 45 minutes into it, when they start discussing the rules of Fight Club, same thing that happened with the Thin Red Line dvd happens with this disc. I go through the chapters and its like this for pretty much the rest of the movie. I look at the disc and man it looks like its been torn to hell. What the hell is wrong with these people that rent dvd's?! Do they actually use these things as drink coasters while they're watching other movies before they return them?!

I guess if i do end up renting a movie it'll be on VHS because i can't deal with this hassle. That's 3 out of 4 movies that were bad. Dvd's are perfect to own, but terrible to rent. >>




I ended up buying a DVD cleaner and find myself cleaning them prior to watching them. Greasy foods and carelessness.

 

[ThePresence]

I rent dvd's from Hollywood all the time. I've never had a problem.

 

[areohbe]

<< hmm, i can't say i've had that experience. out of about 35-40, i've encountered 1-3 bad ones. btw, maybe you should just look at the dvd before you take it out of the store? that would save you a lot of trouble... >>



Yeah i'm probably gonna have to start doin that. Its not a problem with newer ones when you're one of the first folks to rent it, but when you watch flicks a few months old that were really popular (Fight Club) then i guess that's where the bad ones will be.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

My brother rented Moulon Rouge and it worked perfectly. You got a messed up Hollywood video

 

[MichaelD]

Before I leave the store, I open up every DVD case that I rented and check for scratches. If they are scratched bad enough (IMO) I don't leave the store with it. Waste of my time and money to have to come all the way back to the store.

Every DVD I rent, I wash w/warm water and wipe it CORRECTLY with a soft towel. Most rental DVDs have peanut butter and jelly and other unknown sticky substances (ewwwwww) on them and I'll be damned if I'm putting them in my expensive (for me) DVD player and mucking it all up.

My personal DVD/CDR collection is either in their storage cases or in the player. Never on the table, under a drink or anythign else.

 

[NaughtyusMaximus]

That happened with me the other night watching "O".

I cleaned the disc and had no further problems.

 

[crawford]

yea try it again, because i get dvds from blockbuster all the time and ive never had any problems with em.

 

[Nefrodite]

dude, what ghetto ass place do you live? i've rented hundreds, and maybe 1 disc was bad. maybe your player sucks too

 

[areohbe]

hahha i do live in a kinda ghetto neighborhood. The kind where i remember when i was renting some videos before and some folks were bitching and complaining because they couldn't play the DVD's in their Sony Playstation (ONE) and wanted a refund because the employees didn't tell them they needed a dvd player.

And no its not my dvd player that sucks. It just seems to have a problem with discs that look like they've been rubbed with sandpaper

 

[Smacksmackums]

Yeah, I've found cleaning the disks helps a lot, even if there are still scratches.
The one thing I never understood is why dvd's didn't come in little cases and you put the whole thing in the player. Does anyone remember some of the first cd-roms that were like this? You had to put the cd in a little case that looked kind of like a regular clear jewel case and then you jammed that whole thing into a slot for it. The disk was read from that. Or maybe some other way where you jam the whole thing into the dvd player and some internal mechanism does all the removing of the disk for you so no scratches will happen. Jeez, it's not like dvd players aren't big enough (excluding the portable ones).

Anyway, just my little rant. Simple scratches can ruin a whole disc, wait, I think I just answered my own question in a way. The big companies want you to scratch your discs so you'll go out and get new ones.

 

[Jugernot]

I've rented literally hundreds of DVDs and have only had 4 be scratched enough to corrupt the screen. With those 4 I just took them back and got another movie.

Then again, I use a local rental place for my movies. Though I used to use Blockbuster and never really had a problems with them either.

Smacksmackums, those were called CD caddies. They worked but were expensive.

 

[Renob]

I too have rented 300+ DVDs and have had maybe 5 that did not play they gave me store credit for 2 rentals when it happened.

 

[Parrotheader]

I expect this will become a greater problem over time as DVD becomes the mainstream and takes over the marketshare lead in rentals over VHS. DVDs are not exactly the most robust objects. But of the ~40 or so DVDs I've rented I've only had problems with 3. On each occasion I simply took them back in and the manager was very nice giving me a credit to my account.

I'm probably going to pick up some of that scratch remover stuff too. Everyone I know that has it raves about it.

 

[kami]

What player do you have? Sounds like it might just be sensitive to less-than-perfect discs.

I can't give much feedback cause I have rented all of half a dozen DVDs in my life, but own around ~100 or so. All my dvd's are in pristine condition, and my friends know how anal i am about them so when they borrow one they are VERY careful

 

[areohbe]

i've got two. A pioneer dvd V-550 and a Sony DVP s3000

 

[ThaGrandCow]

I have excelent luck with DVD's. It was tapes for me that I had bad luck with. It seemed that every 5-6 movies I would rent had the tape wrinkled at some point and it would mess up the movie for 15-20 minutes. That basically makes the movie unwatchable.

 

[KingHam]

I rent DVD's from Hollywood fairly frequently and have only had trouble with one. There has a strange substance on the bottom that looked a little like vasoline. Once I cleaned it up it worked perfectly.

KingHam

 

[DaveSimmons]

With Netflix I've had 3-4 problem discs out of about 120 rented. My player is a 3-year-old Panasonic A-110. Annoying when it happenes, but not enough of a problem to make me stop renting.

 

[tweakmm]

<< I rent DVD's from Hollywood fairly frequently and have only had trouble with one. There has a strange substance on the bottom that looked a little like vasoline. Once I cleaned it up it worked perfectly.
>>


what kind of movie was this:Q

 

[Lithium381]

I've never had a problem with renting DVD's....other than the fact my player sucks and IT skips and freezes on almost all disks, my computer plays them fine

 

[Danman]

I had this problem several times too. That's why I don't go through the hassle to rent them, if I find a good DVD at a low price at BB, I just buy it.

 

[Atlantean]

Get a better dvd player then and quit whining, its not the discs, and if it is I am sorry, but your player has to be pretty bad if you had three discs that didn't work, maybe you did just get three bad ones, but I suspect that it is not the discs causing you the problem.

 

[areohbe]

<< Get a better dvd player then and quit whining, its not the discs, and if it is I am sorry, but your player has to be pretty bad if you had three discs that didn't work, maybe you did just get three bad ones, but I suspect that it is not the discs causing you the problem. >>



just came back from Hollywood Video and told them about the discs. Had them try it in their dvd players and same thing. So no, its not the dvd player.