Amazon Multiple DVD/CD Glitch
I have an odd problem.
Most birthdays and holidays, I seem to end up with a pile of media — CDs, DVDs, other forms of digital recording. Much of these goods come from Amazon.com. Percentages being what they are, some of the discs are damaged.
Examples:
• Californication Season One Disc 1 plays really poorly — freezes, doesn’t advance, skips — its a bad recording (Having seen the first 6 episodes on Showtime, I bought the DVD for my wife, and for the next 6 to catch up with season 2).
• Marvin Gaye’s The Master 1961 1984 Box Set as soon as I got the set, I ripped it. But I didn’t notice Disc one (of 4) has only one channel; the other 3 are fine.
Californication was apparently a wide-spread production problem, and Amazon refunded the discs despite the purchase being made on November 11, 2009 and the discs open (The return window closes on January 31, 2010). Amazon gave me a hard time about replacing Disc 1 of the Marvin Gaye Box Set.
For the holidays, I received the Curb Your Enthusiasm full set, and BBC’s The Planet with David Attenborough (an 11-part series shot entirely in high-definition — the video is spectacular) I cannot possibly watch/listen to all of this stuff within 60 days of receipt. Half the stuff I buy for myself is for future usage, and the gifts are sometimes not reviewed for many months. For the holidays, I gave a managing director at our firm the Family Guy – The Total World Domination Collection — 23 DVDs. He has an other 5 weeks left to finish checking it out.
Short of hiring someone to preview all of my digital media, or becoming a torrent phreak, is there any sort of solution to these production errors of digital products?
Any ideas how best to handle this?
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January 17th, 2010 at 4:49 pm
There are probably others, but take a look at
http://www.kvipu.com/CDCheck/
http://www.cdspeed2000.com/
I haven’t used either, but this should allow you to semi-automatically screen a disk without having to view it.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
Given that it only happens with the occasional disc it is unlikely to be an alignment problem with the players laser. Cheaper systems apparently do get this however and I guess occasionally the more expensive systems do as well.
January 17th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Create a job. Hire someone. It’s a start.
January 17th, 2010 at 6:20 pm
Burn quick copies of all your cds and dvds with nero, and use the after burning data verification option, that would take about 5 minutes for each disk. I believe you have the right to make personal copies of your disks.
If you have no time for that, then ask one of your kids, nephew, your neighbor kids, the new guy in your office … who wouldn’t accept to do an easy job for BR ?
January 17th, 2010 at 6:27 pm
BR:
As a fan of Marvin Gaye….I didn’t understand your post….due to (on my part) cluelessness about how you would “rip” your DVD Gift.
What was wrong with it? If you could take time to explain what was wrong more than “ripping.” I would have ordered that one…but would have second thoughts. But, I already own a lot of Marvin Gaye..although having his “greatest” in one place, would have been a good thing to send to myself and others on my Holiday list.
How would you “rip” a DVD from Amazon? ?????????? Just so I will know in the future if I order a Boxed Set of any gropu from them.
January 17th, 2010 at 6:30 pm
BR:
BTW I gave Attenborough’s “Life of Birds” to two people on my Holiday List..plus ourselves….and we were all thrilled with it. It’s not HiDef……but it’s beautiful, nonetheless and as bird lovers and feeders we were satisfied.
January 17th, 2010 at 6:37 pm
6 weeks from Xmas seems quite reasonable
A few years ago, my brother bought me a Christmas present from AMZN affiliate (or store, whatever the proper designation is) ANTOnline.
The present was defective. And when I called them Dec 26th to return it, they informed me of their 15 day return policy and since my brother ordered the item on Nov ~27th, those 15 days had long gone by. So, tough luck for me.
Needless to say, I will not buy anything from ANTOnline anymore. Nor, do I think you should.
If you know how to block ANTOnline from ever appearing in my AMZN searches please let me know.
January 17th, 2010 at 6:54 pm
TakBak04:
By “ripped” I believe he meant that he copied the contents of the CD/DVD to his hard drive. CD’s are usually ripped to MP3s. DVDs to either ISOs or AVIs.
A quick Goggle search will tell you how to do this.
Although I believe iTunes will effortlessly rip a CD for you and place the MP3s in your iTunes library.
Ripping a DVD/BluRay is more complex as they include a form of copy protection that must be broken before copying the contents of the disc. IIRC, while copying the contents is a fair use under copyright, breaking the copy protection, which you must do to copy the contents, is illegal under another law (DMCA).
I do not believe the Nero verify option would be successful as it only checks that the copy it made is identical to the original. Therefore, if the original had errors Nero will only verify that the copy also has those errors. Verify for CD/DVD burning does not confirm that the DVD will play “correctly” merely that the original & copied DVDs are identical.
January 17th, 2010 at 7:58 pm
My experience of dealing with Amazon (From overseas) is very poor. The first problem is that all their communications are “Menu” driven via machines. I can usually only get as far a “Sorry this didn’t work out and thank you forchoosing Amazon” (Aka pi** off). I have never yet been able to get even as far as communicating with a real person.
January 17th, 2010 at 9:14 pm
@TakBak:
“Ripping” is the process of taking songs that are on a CD in your PC’s CD-ROM drive and converting them to MP3 files to store and play on an iPod or PC hard drive.
January 17th, 2010 at 9:21 pm
Imho – no reason to spend too much energy with the chili peppers; they got old. Just listen to mother’s milk and Blood Sugar Sex Magik a few thousand more times….
January 17th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
Well here’s a question:
Does this problem happen on all dvd players or just some of them?
If it happens on all of them, then there’s likely something wrong with either the burning process or the disc itself.
If you take it to one of those places that fixes scratches on dvd’s and you still have the problem, then likely it was just burned badly. Very likely that’s the issue.
You can very easily just rip an entire dvd as well using magiciso or nero or a number of programs, it’ll save as a .iso and you can see if that has problems as well when you read from it.
~~~
BR: The error happens on every DVD player
January 17th, 2010 at 11:44 pm
I am assuming these are glitches due to encoding in the manufacturing process. If you have a glitch cd, sometimes, creating an image and burning a new copy will correct it. If it is just a problem with the surface of the cd, such as scratching, you can make the media play again by repairing the surface. Chrome polish is the best thing i have found as a home remedy to fix scratched cds. I know it sounds odd, but it works. Take some chrome polish and rub it on the playing surface in a circular motion to reduce the surface defects.
January 18th, 2010 at 12:04 am
I honestly don’t know, other than the techie stuff above – and who wants to do that? I’m at the point where I don’t even collect DVDs or CDs anymore. Netflix for movies and downloads for music.
Good luck. Wish I had an easy answer!
January 18th, 2010 at 12:49 am
wow man, rich sucks! You wealthy folks just have such a hard time of it. Now you have to employ people to watch your DVDs? My heart breaks for you pal. :P
~~~
BR: Your sense of “wealthy” is quite different than mine!
I live in a 3 bedroom home, drive a Nissan, and when I buy junk like this, I look for value, and shop for sales. I am surrounded by neighborhoods where 7000 sq ft, 2 acre, 6 bedroom, 3 bath homes are the norm, and anythong cheaper than a 7 series or S class is the servant’s car.
heh — I guess its all relative.
January 18th, 2010 at 4:23 am
If you have around 100 new cds or dvds, you could verify 5 of them each day, by listening or watching them on your player for 1 minute each using FF to verify different areas of the disk. You should be done in 20 days.
With such volume any solution will take some time, including the torrent phreak solution !
January 18th, 2010 at 7:05 am
With all due respect, you seem to be conflating wealth with stuff. The only real wealth is intelligence and depth of spirit demonstrated by the capacity to encourage others to get over themselves and do their best and make their dreams come true likewise.
Meanwhile the smaller the garbage produced is the real bottom line. How big is your can?
As for the DVDs, Trust and let there be Nero in Verify mode. If you have no time, the no blame, no excuses: you are speeding and need to delegate.
You test drive your automobiles; for granted has been done. The path is clear.
January 18th, 2010 at 8:07 am
Failing techie solutions, there’s consumer protection statutes…
January 18th, 2010 at 8:45 am
Switch to a Mac/Apple TV setup. Although I have never had a quality problem with downloads Apple customer service has always gladly refunded my money if I’m not satisfied for any reason.
The Planet in HD is an awesome series especially the Mountains segment – absolutely breathtaking scenery.
January 18th, 2010 at 12:05 pm
Barry — Next time, give a ROKU ($99 from Amazon). Once they have that, give a one-year NetFlix gift subscription.
Why own/store/worry-about-damange with all this stuff, when it’s ready & waiting online for $9/month, or 2 days away via DVD?
January 18th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
I own a Sony BDP-N460 and hooked it up via a wireless bridge to my home network. It now has the whole amazon video on demand library at its fingertips. You can purchase titles (either outright or just rent) and either watch them online or through your DVD player with no software needed. It also has Netflix capabilities.
January 19th, 2010 at 8:10 am
Hi BR, Love your idea of wealth. I look homeless at times LOL.
Thanks for mentioning Attenborough. I like him a lot.
I just ordered BBC package of Planet Earth and Blue Planet.
BTW, Attenborough has many videos on You Tube. There is one playlist with a ton of his work FYI.
Cheers….Hey how many miles on the Nissan, I hope 135k plus !!!
~~~
BR: Brand new Z