Netflix Blu-ray movies showing up cracked and unplayable?
By Richard Lawler 
posted Apr 18th 2009 10:42PM
posted Apr 18th 2009 10:42PM
[Via Hacking Netflix]
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posted Apr 18th 2009 10:42PM
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I rent Blu-ray movies from time to time and have yet to have a problem with scratches or cracks. I doubt it is a problem with their sorting machines. I generally don't have problems with DVDs either. I think subscribers just need to take better care of them.
Actually, I have received more blu-ray movies that have that tiny crack than with DVDs. It irritates me because I have to wait for a replacement disc because sometimes my BD player can't play them.
Never had a problem with a BD. I've had some DVDs come in scratched and unplayable, though.
Absolutely a problem. About 70% of blu-ray discs they have sent me have had these small cracks in them since December. Never had this problem with normal DVD's. It's gotten to the point of being ridculous.
Looks to me that you are in a wast minority.
I see it, too. I suspect that it's temperature-related.
During the Winter when it was much colder (I'm in Michigan), roughly half of the discs came to me with these 1/4-inch cracks on the outside edge.
Now that it's warmed up, I don't see this anymore.
Happened this week to me on three straight BluRay Netflix shipments. All had identical cracks like in the photo. Never a problem with DVD's. I can't believe other Netflix subscribers have all figured out how to make identical cracks and only in BD's.
Never had a problem
Yep, had one that had a small crack on the edge. The worse part of it is that you won't notice it until the last 5 min of the movie don't play as your watcing it.
My PS3 won't even recognize that there's a disc inserted when the crack is there.
Rented 50-60 BDs from netflix, and I've never had one show up cracked. I have a feeling that this may be a problem experienced only at certain shipping centers.
I have rented hundreds of blu-ray discs since they started carrying them and never had a problem until 2 months ago. Since then almost every disc i have got is cracked on the edges. Most of them still play just fine but now i always check the discs when i receive them.
I remember, back in the day, folks saying you had to _boil_ HD DVD discs from Netflix to get them to play. Do you suppose this is a similar bit of propaganda?
Boiling them? Sounds like a surefire way to make the situation even worse. HD DVDs are fairly similar to DVDs except for the higher density and tighter specs. End users shouldn't do much more than lightly rinse them in soapy water to remove fingerprints & muck and patting them down. Anything more is likely to damage the disk even more. It wouldn't surprise me if some Netflix users do resort to resurfacing the disks and other measures but it doesn't seem very responsible.
It's hard to say what the BD's issues are. Maybe its some machinery that Netflix uses for processing, or the mailing service, or a manufacturing fault, or perhaps BDs crack easier if you drop them on their edges. Can't think it would be caused by players as the issue would most likely be a circular scratch rather than a radial crack.
I hears somewhere and those could just be some bologna but don't Blu-Rays have some kind of protection on them that makes them harder to crack and smudge than normal DVDs?
They do have a tougher coating, but that's because it's also a thinner coating - the greater pit density of Blu-ray discs requires a thinner coating than DVDs so that the laser is refracted as little as possible.
But I have to say this: I skimmed over this comment the first time, saw bologna, and immediately imagined getting a NetFlix envelope, opening it up, and pulling out a slice of Oscar Mayer!
I also never had a problem...
It's one of 2 reasons I just canceled my account completely. Of the discs I COULD actually get, more often than not they were unplayable. But, more annoying, I had not received a disc anywhere near the top of my queue in months. And everything showed Now Available. I'll just go get the few that I watch these days from BB up the street. At least as long as they are open.
I've had 2 or 3 Blu-ray movies show up that were warped in my almost 2 years with them. aside from that I've been ok. Suppose thats not all THAT bad considering that I got 5 plus games from Gamefly that were damaged before they started using the cardboard inserts...
I used to help out by saving them postage by returning the movies two together in one envelope but now that they are doing so well to take more money from my blu hands, I send them back one per envelope.
Actually, that probably didn't help them at all. If you notice, there's a barcode that can be read on the disk while it's still in the package. I'm sure they have major automation to handle the return process. By putting two disks in one envelope, you're forcing them to have a human open it and scan it - slowing things down.
So you're doing them a favor. :)
I have rarely had this issue. Maybe once or twice. I have had this issue more often with regular DVDs, although it has never happened often enough for me to complain.
Had this problem big time in Austin. About 1 out of 3 discs had the issue - and like someone else said - the worst part is they are so small you don't notice until the movie has 10 minutes left to go. I switched back to DVD only. There are only a handful of movies where I care about seeing it in hi-def.
xnappo
I have had this happen a lot lately - I even recently got two discs back to back with small cracks along the edge. Since Netflix is going to charge us extra for Blu Ray discs maybe they should invest in some better packaging for mailing out our discs so this does not occur so often.
happens way too often with Blu-Ray shipments - for a while there it was probaby every 2nd or 3rd disk would be cracked and unplayable
we go through 20-30 netflix discs a month. rarely have a problem.
No problems here and I rent 6-8 blu-rays a month.
I have had several incidents with Netflix shipping DVD's that had been completely cracked in half. I know machines do a lot of this but come on. Just feel the sleeve and see it the disc in on whole piece before you mail it to me.
I've ran into this about 5-7 times since getting all blu-ray for the last 2 years. i get about 3 per week from netflix on average.
I routinely had problems with DVDs coming in cracked from the edge straight to the center, I'm not at all shocked that their BDs have the same problem. I always wondered whether the extra quarter per shipment to put the discs in a heavy cardboard mailer was actually prohibitively expensive and might have helped the situation.
Netflix is in my past for the second time though, I was using streaming far more often than their delivery service, and I have alternate sources for that.
I've had Netflix for three years now and only had two unplayable discs, both DVD's. The were kids movies that hat sticky stuff on them. Probably from the last users kids ! Never had an unreadable Blu-ray
my wife and i have Blockbuster Online which we rent Blurays from, and we have never had an issue with a movie we couldn't play. we've been with them for about a year and have rented close to 100 Blurays without ever receiving one that we had any issues with at all. plus, we don't pay a "Bluray premium" and can trade in discs at a local store. here's hoping Blockbuster at least stays in business enough to keep the Online part going, because we have been nothing but happy.
I was an early Netflix adopter but quit as more and more DVDs were unplayable in my Sony ES player. Come to find out was the player, but with a 4 year old now, who has time to rent movies any more?!
I have had only 1 BR disc that was cracked all the way from outer edge to center.
I rent probably 4-6 a month that are BR so out of the 50+ I have probably received that is a very low percentage.
I also had them send me 2 copies of the same BR in 2 different envelopes once.
I have had far more DVDs that wouldn't play due to scratches.
I rent exclusively Blu-ray from Netflix. I have never had that problem. Probably played at least 40 Blu-ray discs from them. But I don't doubt some have had this problem. How wide spread it is is hard to say.
I have had an amazon shipment for planet earth (BD) that had a small crack just like described - and this was brand new! I have a small feeling these cracks may be a BD vulnerability
I've had this problem, and had the postmaster investigate. Seems they were running them through the machines and cracking them. I was getting quite a few cracked all the way down one side. Now, my local post office sends them to Duluth in a special box, and since then no problems at all.
Netflix now finally big enough to act like the cheap corporation. Looks like the appeal of netflix will begin to dwindle.
I've definitely had this problem; I'd say around 1 in every 5 Blu-ray's I get have this one little crack on the edges. It's not always cracked all the way through the disc; however, my PS3 will rarely play a disc that has any kind of crack on it. I can sometimes get them to play on my laptop though, so it's not always a loss. Definitely frustrating though, considering we're paying a premium for Blu-ray access.
I do live in Michigan, so it could be cold weather like someone else mentioned, but I've experienced this throughout the year, so I don't know if it's that.
I never had a problem like this with normal DVD's; seems to be Blu-ray only for me. I have a feeling it's something with the USPS sorting process, but it's hard to put the blame on them when Netflix could really use a better packaging system.
I haven't had a problem with any of the DVDs or Blu-rays that I've received from Netflix.
I have had a handful of Blu-ray Movies be unplayable from Netflix over the years. I have received replacements that worked later.
I have had nothing but trouble with Blu Ray discs from Netflix lately. At least every other disc I get from them is unplayable. I had 4 in two weeks. When I pull them out of the player, they are very obviously cracked or scratched. I just got another one tonight. Took 3 tries before it would finally load. Then I got halfway through the movie and it froze completely. I took it out, and there was a big crack on the edge. I also got a regular dvd from them a few weeks ago, and it looked like someone had dragged it behind their car. Do they have no quality control? It's rediculous!