When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

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John Roberts
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When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

Post by John Roberts »

Hello to everyone :-)

Before a recent inter-club challenge match I was contacted by a knowledgeable member of the competing club to ask if some of their entries could be supplied on a USB memory stick. My stock reply was yes, but with the ever expanding range of codecs being employed we couldn't absolutely guarantee playback 'on the night without prior testing' so it would be best to bring along a Blu-Ray disc as well.

Along came the night of the competition, and Blu-Ray discs were duly presented, and to my surprise (and not a little embarrassment) one of the Blu-Ray discs would not play back. It appeared to register in the machine, showing the film's menu page, but a generic error message along the lines of "unrecognised format" (can't remember the exact wording) was displayed. After several unsuccessful playback attempts were made, we continued with other sections of the competition whilst one of our club members, on a whim, nipped home to collect the club's 'old' Blu-Ray player. The previously errant Blu-Ray disc played back perfectly in this player.

We have a special club meeting next week where we discuss all manner of club aspects, and I know this issue will come up, especially in the light of recent expensive equipment upgrades to enable us to (try to) play films on media other than Blu-Ray discs. I believe the software used to burn the Blu-Ray disc in question was a number of years old, possibly of a similar vintage as the club's older Blu-Ray player, but I was surprised that the new upgraded equipment appears not to be able to read what purport to be older Blu-Ray 'codecs/standards'.

This is the first and so far only time a Blu-Ray disc has failed to play, but I think it's something worth mentioning. Do any of our more knowledgeable members have any idea or comment as to this potential issue? It would be useful to at least try and present a plausible explanation at next week's club meeting before all hell breaks loose! :lol:

John
Roy1
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Re: When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

Post by Roy1 »

JOHN. I have two identical LG Blu-ray playback units bought from the same supplier at the same time. Every so often A Blu-ray disc will play back ok on one player whilst the same disc will not play back on the other and it displays a message "disc error ". Not very often thank goodness. But I won't send a copy of that disc to any other person as I can not be sure if it will play on another persons player.
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John Roberts
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Re: When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

Post by John Roberts »

Thanks for your reply, Roy

Still not sure what to say to the club about the errant disc, though. Apparently it was checked on 3 different Blu-Ray players prior to arriving at the competition, and all three played it back perfectly :?
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John Roberts
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Re: When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

Post by John Roberts »

*bump*

Has anyone else come across a similar situation before? Just so I have something to say about this at our meeting tomorrow, otherwise it's going to be a very early bath! :lol:
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TimStannard
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Re: When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

Post by TimStannard »

Other than confirming that I have also come across one (only) instance of a BluRay that would play on some players but not others, I've nothing to add. (But i thought yyou'd like reassurance that (a) you are not alone and (b) someone is reading this thread)
Tim
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John Roberts
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Re: When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

Post by John Roberts »

TimStannard wrote:you are not alone...
Thanks Tim - I wouldn't like to be accused of talking to myself (any more than usual LOL) :lol:
Peter Durnall
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Re: When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

Post by Peter Durnall »

Hi John,
I don't know if you have solved your problem yet but this senario has happened to me.Some of my films are shown at various events by my friend Ray Johnson at the Stoke on Trent film theatre and I also now burn Blu Rays for him as he has no facilities.A couple of years ago the theatre upgraded all their projection equipment. When we tried to play my Blu Ray films the new machine came up with disc error like yours but played the DVD version OK. After trying discs without labels, I then burnt copies onto TDK Blu Ray discs which worked fine. The problem proved to be Sony discs which are slightly thicker to my eye although all these played OK on my 2 sony BRD players and my LG burner which created them,so it may be worth you checking what makes of discs fail in your new kit.
Hope this helps

Peter
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John Roberts
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Re: When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

Post by John Roberts »

Hi Peter, thanks for the reply :)

We didn't solve the problem and put it down to 'one of those things' but also 'glad' to see that we are not the only ones suffering from a similar, if rare situation. We'll keep an eye out for any further failures and make notes of disc brands and burning software used in case we can pinpoint a common factor.

Thanks to everyone for chipping in :D
tom hardwick
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Re: When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

Post by tom hardwick »

A Blu-ray is not a Blu-ray when mp4 files are recorded to DVR-R. It will look and sound every bit as good as a genuine Blu-ray, bit it isn't actually a Blu-ray disc as it has no menu structure.

Not so long ago it was quite common for people like us (crazy) to put our less than 20 minute films onto a 20p DVD blank in HD. But now BD-Rs are 50p and you end up with a genuine 25gb of Blu-ray, why bother?
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Dave Watterson
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Re: When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

Post by Dave Watterson »

Standards do change ... though in the case of DVDs and BluRay changes are usually backwards compatible.

The most useful advice - often heard from Tom and repeated in handbooks and articles all over the place - is use good quality blank discs. Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden are usually very reliable. Beware of "shop brands" ...

Players for BluRay and DVD are actually quite fragile items. The tiny trolleys which move the laser heads have electric step-motors smaller than the nail on your pinkie. It does not take much to jerk things out of perfect alignment and then ... they may play some discs and not others.
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TimStannard
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Re: When is a Blu-Ray not a Blu-Ray?

Post by TimStannard »

Dave Watterson wrote: Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden are usually very reliable. Beware of "shop brands" and some brands starting with M ...
Sadly Taiyo Yuden have ceased production. I used to lve their Watershield range for my finished product. I now use Falcon Smart Guard which were recommended on the the SOny Vegas forum as an excellent alternative. No problems as yet ...
Tim
Proud to be an amateur film maker - I do it for the love of it
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