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Author Topic: Sensitivity to dirt and scratching on BDs Leo Enticknap Film God Posts: 7474 From: Loma Linda, CA Registered: Jul 2000 posted 12-10-2011 06:12 AM                        I have now had several occasions when both the BD drive in my computer and the player in the projection booth at work have frozen and stopped with a read error. The reason has always been fingerprint marks, dirt or scratches on the disc. On all but one occasion, cleaning the playing surface with some isopropanol and a lens cloth has solved the problem, and the one disc for which it didn't had a deep lateral scratch on it, which was beyond help. It does strike me that BDs are more sensitive than DVDs to contamination on the playback surface. I've played DVDs in a similar condition, without bothering to clean them and with no problem. Given that the size of each data pit and thus the laser beam is so much smaller, that makes logical sense I guess: it takes a physically smaller and less dense bit of crap to prevent the laser beam from reaching and bouncing off the pit of a BD than a DVD. It does make me wonder, though, whether, once arthouses start screening BDs on a regular basis as a cheap alternative to film prints (in the way that some already do with DVDs), if we aren't going to have quite a few disrupted shows.  |  IP: Logged Gordon McLeod Film God Posts: 9532 From: Toronto Ontario Canada Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-10-2011 11:11 AM                     We have already started to see that in one art location At that location all DVD and Blue Rays are transfered to a Hard Drive and played from there for the run  |  IP: Logged Victor Liorentas Jedi Master Film Handler Posts: 800 From: london ontario canada Registered: May 2009 posted 12-10-2011 11:42 AM                     I had a new one yesterday,I was trying to cue a blu-ray up and it played fine but would not respond to any commands such as stop! It kept on playing,I had to unplug the Pioneer player to bring order to the Galaxy!  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 12-10-2011 11:42 AM                        More than likely Leo, or at least it will become a much more widespread practice to do check screenings/disc cleanings before shows. But with consumer discs, even a successful pre-screening doesn't guarantee that the next playback will be glitch-free. I imagine those screens that had reputations for showing dirty scratched prints in the film days will continue their crap media handling practices and have reputations for skipping and freezing and cancelled shows. Yeah, the BD format is more sensitive to physical contamination. When the format was being developed, it was predicted that there would be such issues. One of the proposed solutions was to enclose the discs in caddies to minimize the exposure of the discs to contamination. But that method was ultimately deemed to be too cumbersome to use in a consumer format. In the end the BD format ended up with an extra scratch-resistant layer applied to the surface of the disc. Still, BDs are rather delicate things. I like Gordon's observation. It's probably best for a professional operation to rip the BD to a hard drive and then do playback from the drive. I'm building my first HTPC and will be playing with doing such things for my future private screenings. Having the file on hard disc also gives one the chance to remove all the extra stuff that won't be needed/wanted during playback (extra soundtrack languages, subtitles, home video labels, etc.).  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-10-2011 08:38 PM                        How do you get around the "copy protection" when ripping a BD to a hard drive?  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-10-2011 08:41 PM                     I believe this is what most people are using.  |  IP: Logged Claude S. Ayakawa Film God Posts: 2738 From: Waipahu, Hawaii, USA Registered: Aug 2002 posted 12-10-2011 09:44 PM                        When playing movies on DVDs and BDs in a theatre, how do you get around from not showing copyright infringement warnings, menus and other things that are not part of the movie you are showing? -Claude  |  IP: Logged Joe Redifer You need a beating today Posts: 12859 From: Denver, Colorado Registered: May 99 posted 12-10-2011 11:30 PM                        Does ANY DVD HD copy the lossless audio tracks and/or convert them to full bitstream uncompressed audio?  |  IP: Logged Mike Blakesley Film God Posts: 12767 From: Forsyth, Montana Registered: Jun 99 posted 12-10-2011 11:59 PM                        Claude - what we do is, start the movie, pause the player, and close the douser (the thing that keeps the light off the screen) before we let the audience in. The only "telltale" that it's a BR is the "play" symbol up in the left corner when we start the show.  |  IP: Logged Dustin Mitchell Phenomenal Film Handler Posts: 1865 From: Mondovi, WI, USA Registered: Mar 2000 posted 12-11-2011 12:15 AM                     We do the same as Mike. I think it was 2 years back we ran a marathon of all the Potter films followed by a midnight premier of the latest one. What I did to keep the audience from seeing the menus FBI warning/etc each time I loaded a new disc was to time them all the weekend before so I could close the douser and switch the sound until the disc had reached the main menu. Since by default 'play feature' is usually selected when the disc menu pops up once enough time had elapsed plus a few seconds worth of buffer all I had to do was hit play, open the douser, and switch the sound. Unfortunately all we had was a DVD player so the picture really looked terrible. If it had been Blu Ray I don't think the audience would have even realized we were playing a DVD.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-11-2011 12:19 PM                     At least you guys are trying for showmanship from consumer video formats. Way too many theaters I have seen just run through the menu and FBI warnings in front of the audience. We had to do a bit of custom programming to get around these issues on the DCS, but the end result is that there is no "play" nonsense on the screen and the entire show is automated starting with previews/snipes on the DCP player and changes over to the bluray player.  |  IP: Logged Chris Slycord Film God Posts: 2986 From: 퍼항시, 경상푹도, South Korea Registered: Mar 2007 posted 12-11-2011 12:25 PM                     quote: Mike Blakesley How do you get around the "copy protection" when ripping a BD to a hard drive? In addition to what Brad posted, there's also this  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 12-11-2011 02:42 PM                        quote: Joe Redifer Does ANY DVD HD copy the lossless audio tracks and/or convert them to full bitstream uncompressed audio? I'm pretty sure it does, but will find out for sure in the next couple of weeks. AnyDVD HD is what I'll be using for region code removal. I already use AnyDVD on my existing desktop (and on my former work laptop) and it has performed well. Slyfox has been really good about updating with the latest encryption schemes too.  |  IP: Logged Brad Miller Administrator Posts: 17775 From: Plano, TX (36.2 miles NW of Rockwall) Registered: May 99 posted 12-11-2011 04:31 PM                     Does either of those programs actually permit you to strip the stupid previews, home video logos and the FBI threats like DVD Shrink does? How about subtitles and audio tracks you don't want? Can they "squeeze" it into a 25GB disc?  |  IP: Logged Paul Mayer Oh get out of it Melvin, before it pulls you under! Posts: 3836 From: Albuquerque, NM Registered: Feb 2000 posted 12-11-2011 06:21 PM                        That's my understanding, but it will be another couple of weeks before I get everything assembled enough to play with this on the new hardware and see what it really can do. As for getting the ripped version (minus all the extra crap) back onto another 25 or 50GB disc, that is what it is supposed to be able to do. We'll see. For me, those edited/cleaned up files will end up on the 2TB storage drive within the HTPC. At some point down the road I guess I will be burning some of those files to writable BDs as backups.  |  IP: Logged

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