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I'm very anxious about this issue.
I have problems with most of the discs from the 'regular' list but also discovered that some others from my collection are faulty (Christmas Tales, Ride withe the Devil, Days of Heaven).
I wrote to Jon to see what they could do about that especially since I live in France.
That's strange they didn't talk about foreign customers and I pray for them to ship the replacements to my place but I doubt it

I'm a foreign customer, as I pointed out in my e-mail to Criterion, and I got the replacement info in a Mulvaney-penned e-mail yesterday, so I'm fairly certain they will ship replacements internationally!

Question for you all: From my first viewing of PARIS TEXAS on Criterion Blu I had noticed a slow pulsing and drift of the blacks in two scenes -- in the laundromat lobby on the road where Travis and his son catch a night's sleep, and the second (I think) scene in the peep show booth. It looks like an amoeba moving across the lower portion of the screen, mostly lower right. I've never seen this problem with any other Criterion disc, so researched and asked in various fora at the time. I think one other person had noticed it.

Now that it's in the list of "bronzing discs", I'll have to go back and check the codes on the inner ring against those of my affected SUMMER HOURS and WALKABOUT. It might just be the beginnings of disc breakdown. Curious if anyone else has seen this issue. I'm still trying to determine whether it is an artifact of the mastering or original source materials, or a deteriorating disc.

According to a commentor on the Blu-ray.com site:

The problem titles seem to have been made by Sonopress. They have IFPI codes of L021 or LB42 on the inner rings of the data side. They're very small and you'll probably need a magnifying glass to spot them (let alone read them).

EDIT: This doesn't appear to be accurate though: My Summer Hours is IFPI 10K7

Last I read, the 10K* code was more pertinent to where the disc was manufactured/pressed while the L0*/LB* codes had more to do with who did the mastering. So the 10K* code seemed like the one to pay attention to. But that was a few days ago now, so there could be more better information since...

Decided to send mine in (M, Howards End, Monterey Pop). Not 100% sure they will be able to replace Howards End still, but since it wouldn't load whatsoever I'm not really losing anything by sending it in now. Monterey Pop isn't on the list yet but I'm pretty confident Criterion will make good on replacing it once they see the disc is clearly problematic.

I will be sending only Howards End and Walkabout. The rest of that list are just working fine for me and no discoloration too. can I send my BD of Eraserhead now with them, or should I just wait?

chatterjees wrote:I will be sending only Howards End and Walkabout. The rest of that list are just working fine for me and no discoloration too. can I send my BD of Eraserhead now with them, or should I just wait?

Just send them together and explain the different exchanges in a brief printed out letter. They'll probably appreciate having one package instead of two.

Is there a list of all the different recalls Criterion has had? I feel like there were one or two before Eraserhead that I had been meaning to get replaced, but never got around to it.

A few of them, including White I believe, had issues with surround mixes. Having a stereo-only system, this also didn't affect or bother me.

Carlos had a similar issue.

L’eclisse too.

I guess they are really overwhelmed by the burden of defective discs that they forgot about the Oct 50% sale.

It's almost always on a Tuesday, I think. If it happens, I reckon it happens tomorrow.

Drucker wrote:A few of them, including White I believe, had issues with surround mixes. Having a stereo-only system, this also didn't affect or bother me.

Yes it did. The problem with the White disc was that the 2.0 Surround track had been encoded dual mono. So you're not just missing out on the surround effects but the front stereo effects as well. You were misinformed in the Three Colors thread, I'm afraid.

The problem with Carlos is the left rear channel is missing on Disc 2. This too affects people using a 2.0 system because usually the data reserved for the left rear channel gets downmixed into the front channels for you to hear. That's obviously not going to happen on the original Carlos disc.

EddieLarkin wrote:

Drucker wrote:A few of them, including White I believe, had issues with surround mixes. Having a stereo-only system, this also didn't affect or bother me.

Yes it did. The problem with the White disc was that the 2.0 Surround track had been encoded dual mono. So you're not just missing out on the surround effects but the front stereo effects as well. You were misinformed in the Three Colors thread, I'm afraid.

The problem with Carlos is the left rear channel is missing on Disc 2. This too affects people using a 2.0 system because usually the data reserved for the left rear channel gets downmixed into the front channels for you to hear. That's obviously not going to happen on the original Carlos disc.

Ouch so just listening to the audio in the regular 2.0 track is messed up?

Yes, there's nothing regular about the 2.0 track on the original White disc; really it's more accurate to describe it as 1.0 encoded across both channels.

I imagine you are getting all of the audio, but any part of the soundtrack that is only supposed to be coming from the left will in fact come from both speakers, and any part of the soundtrack that is only supposed to be coming from the right will also come from both speakers. So you lose all directionality. Also, the music in particular is going to sound less full in mono than it does in true stereo, or in other words, not like the director and composer intended.

So far, my "Walkabout" disc is the only one that looks brown and freezes halfway through. Tried playing "Seventh Seal", "Paris Texas" and they look fine and play back fine. (Haven't tried playback of the other discs in the list) But they only want customers to mail in the ones that are clearly defective, right? Shouldn't send all the affected titles in the list, just in case they start to go back in the future?

So far, my "Walkabout" disc is the only one that looks brown and freezes halfway through. Tried playing "Seventh Seal", "Paris Texas" and they look fine and play back fine. (Haven't tried playback of the other discs in the list) But they only want customers to mail in the ones that are clearly defective, right? Shouldn't send all the affected titles in the list, just in case they start to go back in the future?

I have a similar situation. My Walkabout disc is clearly bronzed and freezes at about 50', but my Paris Texas and Howard's End discs look OK and seem to play OK at the moment. So I've just sent the Walkabout disc back. I'm assuming that their replacement policy is open-ended, so that they will replace any other discs that go bad in future.

manicsounds wrote:But they only want customers to mail in the ones that are clearly defective, right? Shouldn't send all the affected titles in the list, just in case they start to go back in the future?

Yes, it's only a small percentage of each title that are affected. You should verify that you have a bad disc before you send it back.

Bruce wrote:I'm assuming that their replacement policy is open-ended, so that they will replace any other discs that go bad in future.

Yes, they've always replaced discs that have gone bad in the past, and will continue to do so in the future.

It's just that I'm going to New York tomorrow, thought I'd just drop them off at their doorstep, and hopefully get some replacement discs from the closet....

manicsounds wrote:It's just that I'm going to New York tomorrow, thought I'd just drop them off at their doorstep, and hopefully get some replacement discs from the closet....

Make sure you post your video on Facebook!

manicsounds wrote:It's just that I'm going to New York tomorrow, thought I'd just drop them off at their doorstep, and hopefully get some replacement discs from the closet....

OK, but just take a few minutes to fast forward through your discs first to see if they even need replacing. Criterion is taking enough of a hit on this as it is just dealing with legitimately bad product.

manicsounds wrote:It's just that I'm going to New York tomorrow, thought I'd just drop them off at their doorstep, and hopefully get some replacement discs from the closet....

FYI... I dropped off my problematic M at their office. They said, as soon as they get the replacements in, Jon will start mailing them out. So, maybe you shouldn't expect to take home the replacements.

Maybe not the right place for this, but speaking of Jon, is Jon Mulvaney a real person? Has anyone here ever seen or met him?