Disney Takes Quick Action on Reports of Flawed Blu-ray Discs
Disney’s Buena Vista Home Entertainment (BVHE) paid swift attention to Internet reports that alleged some Blu-ray discs suffer from so-called “laser rot” that makes them freeze or pause fail to play at all when inserted in a PS3 or other hardware. BVHE, replying to our query, issued a statement late Thursday advising consumers to phone its hotline to report any problems.
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In recent postings on the AVS Forum’s Web site, Blu-ray customers claimed some discs developed spotting that affected play. Photos posted on the site showed what appeared to be patterns of gray dots in varying quantities on the reflective layer of the disc, beneath Blu-ray’s 0.1-mm protective cover layer. Laser rot once affected analogue laserdiscs, and later the early CDs and DVDs. In those cases, manufacturing flaws enabled moisture to reach the discs’ reflective metal substrates, causing them to pot or buckle, rendering them unplayable. In other cases, mildew deposits prevented the lasers from reading the data on the discs.
BVHE’s The Prestige was the Blu-ray title most often cited on the Internet postings as having problems. Other postings said BVHE’s Gone in 60 Seconds, Sony Pictures Home Entertainment’s (SPHE’s) Stranger Than Fiction and Warner Home Video’s (WHV’s) The Departed also were affected, but to a lesser extent. We examined unused copies of Stranger Than Fiction and The Departed and observed no obvious defects.
Most of the affected discs were replicated and released within a short time of one another. The Departed was released February 13, The Prestige February 20 and Stranger Than Fiction February 27. Gone in 60 Seconds came out earlier -- October 17. The Departed and Stranger Than Fiction are known to be 50-GB discs. Sony’s DADC was the only known replicator producing 50-GB Blu-ray discs at the time of those titles’ street dates.
A Sony spokeswoman wouldn’t comment on DADC’s presumed role in producing the affected discs, referring our queries about the Disney titles to BVHE. As for SPHE’s Stranger Than Fiction, she said only that Sony has not received any complaints. We were awaiting WHV comment about The Departed at our deadline. Steve Nickerson, WHV senior vice president, said his studio was not aware of any problems, but was investigating further. We queried the Blu-ray Disc Association about the Internet postings, but got no reply by our deadline.
However, Disney was quick to respond to our query. “We encourage customers that are experiencing any kind of problem with The Prestige Blu-ray disc to call our Consumer Relations hotline at 800/477-2811,” the studio said. “It is important to conduct forensic examinations of the affected discs in order to rule out any form of external tampering.” Internet postings said some who had phoned the hotline were offered postage-paid mailers to return the allegedly defective discs.
We phoned the BVHE hotline posing as consumers who were having trouble playing The Prestige Blu-ray on a PS3. An operator named Karen took down our history and transferred our call to a technical support agent, Mark, who first asked us if we had installed any of eight PS3 firmware upgrades. When we said we had not, he advised us that doing so would likely fix the problem. If not, our “Plan B” was to phone again to request a postage-paid mailer, in which we would send the defective disk to BVHE for testing in exchange for a replacement, Mark said. But Mark also assured us there was only a remote likelihood the disc was defective. Of the many thousands of Blu-ray movies BVHE has distributed, only one has been returned by a consumer complaining of rot, and that disc appeared to have been cleaned with a caustic substance, such as bleach or ammonia, he said.
It’s not known what causes the spotting -- if indeed it is true -- or if it’s related to humidity, as was the case with analogue laserdisc. Some experts we questioned speculated the problem could be related to a combination of Blu-ray’s 0.1 mm protective coating and other materials used in the disc, and how they bond together. At the time the discs in question were made, Sony DADC used a transparent adhesive film to apply the protective layer. It and most other replicators have since switched to spin-coating the cover layer with resins.