Problem With “The Two Towers” Extended Edition
Dear Gary: I am a magazine and Web site subscriber. I frequently turn to Widescreen Review as a source for information on equipment and DVDs and I’m hoping you can help me with a problem related to a DVD special edition you recently reviewed. Suzanne Hodges reported a detailed review of the new The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers (Special Extended Edition) four-disc set. I found that Discs 3 and 4, containing supplemental material, do not play on my DVD player, a Marantz DV3100, now about three years old. Scanning the Internet on this subject revealed many reports of other consumers with the same problem using other DVD players. The discs play fine on my Apple Powerbook DVD player. The problem is either a manufacturing defect or, more likely, an incompatibility between these discs and some DVD players. I am hoping you may be able to shed some light on this problem. I am considering whether to return the DVD set to Amazon.com for a replacement, and I am guessing that a replacement will exhibit the same incompatibility. Since this may end up being a particularly popular DVD set with your readers, I thought you might want to look into it to help your readers' buying decisions. I would personally appreciate any information you can provide.
Jim Moore, M.D., Manhattan Beach, California
Picture Quality Reviews & Film Review Editor Suzanne Hodges Comments:
Yes, these incompatibilities do exist today. I have a four-year-old RCA and find, when bringing work-related DVDs home, that an occasional disc does not work, though it worked on other players at the office. It is strangely inconsistent though...as I’ve found that getting a replacement DVD sometimes fixes the problem (with, for example, the Heathers Limited Edition DVD). When I went to visit Thomson/Technicolor, the tour took me to a room with what seemed like 75 to 100 DVD players (imagine all those remotes!) used to check to make sure that their DVDs are compatible with all (or most) players. Apparently, New Line’s authoring company does not use the same QC, as we have been told by other readers that they have experienced playback difficulties. This problem unfortunately continues to exist throughout the DVD world due to manufacturers and authoring facilities not adhering exactly to the DVD standards. But then, insiders tell us that the standards were not written in iron-clad terms and interpretations have varied, obviously to the extent that playback compatibilities still exist.
You can E-mail Widescreen Review @ mailto:editorgary@widescreenreview.com