Got the just-released "Gone Baby Gone" dvd from netflix in pristine condition. Neither of my two media center PCs would even recognize it as a playable DVD, they gave choices of "do nothing" or "burn a dvd". PowerDVD Ultra would play it for a while, with av sync problems then freezup after a while. This has never happened before.

The disk played fine on my old school regular DVD player. The two VMC boxes have very different DVD-RW drives but both gagged.

Any ideas?

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Deane G Vista SP1 Home Premium 32, 2x A180, 550 Pro, HD3450 at 1080i to plasma, Intel D945GNTLR w/Pentium D 2.80GHz, 2GB, Seagate 300MB + Hitachi 1TB, Linksys DMA2100, Harmony 550

I was wondering if Miramax was implementing some new kind of copy protection that makes new issues unwatchable on PCs.  Unlikely?

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Deane G Vista SP1 Home Premium 32, 2x A180, 550 Pro, HD3450 at 1080i to plasma, Intel D945GNTLR w/Pentium D 2.80GHz, 2GB, Seagate 300MB + Hitachi 1TB, Linksys DMA2100, Harmony 550

here is a link about ripping the disk http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/627235 , some ppl seem to be having issues with it... so, i would say it's a bad disk.

Thanks for the pointer - interesting info.  Looks like it could have been a half-baked attempt at reducing piracy, keeps it from being watchable on my PCs.

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Deane G Vista SP1 Home Premium 32, 2x A180, 550 Pro, HD3450 at 1080i to plasma, Intel D945GNTLR w/Pentium D 2.80GHz, 2GB, Seagate 300MB + Hitachi 1TB, Linksys DMA2100, Harmony 550

I had a similar issue with a rented copy of "Shoot Em Up" on DVD. Wouldn't play in any PC but would apparently play in a normal DVD player (had a friend take it home and try it). Ended up downloading an HD version which worked perfectly using FFDShow! The disc did seem to have an installer for the InterActual player so I'm going to assume it's required to be installed in order for a PC to play the thing.

Technically discs like these shouldn't have the "official DVD logo" on them since they won't play in "any DVD player" but no one seems to be enforcing the playback rules anymore.

I read somewhere that you can hold down SHIFT when inserting the DVD and it might get the thing to play but who has a keyboard hooked up to their VMC PC's? It's nonsense like this that basically forces us to download content we've paid in a format that actually plays on our hardware. Har har.

I recently had this exact same problem.  I am spending the remainder of this morning writing negative reviews of this disc.  It might be a great movie, but I haven't seen it.  I encourage the other users of Media Center PCs to do the same.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I feel ripped off.  I paid a rental fee to view this movie, and the disc manufacturer was certainly paid for the disc in turn.  I was thanked for my purchase by being given an unviewable product.  They will get to keep my money and I will not be able to enjoy the movie.  We must make sure movie manufacturers lose profit by pushing a non-standard product.

I have also had this problem with a couple of movies, the most recent being "Live free or Die Hard".

I found that when you hold down SHIFT while choosing "Play DVD" in Media Center, the DVD will begin to play.

Thanks for the tip! 

What does the SHIFT key do exactly? Bypass some software on the DVD?

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Deane G Vista SP1 Home Premium 32, 2x A180, 550 Pro, HD3450 at 1080i to plasma, Intel D945GNTLR w/Pentium D 2.80GHz, 2GB, Seagate 300MB + Hitachi 1TB, Linksys DMA2100, Harmony 550

it bypasses auto-run for removable media in windows

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yeah, it will do that

I also rented "Gone Baby Gone" and my Media Center would also not play it.  I figured I had messed something up on my computer so I ripped the DVD to my hard drive and played it from the drive.  I then of course deleted the DVD from my computer when I returned it to Blockbuster. 

I'm just glad to see it was the disk and not my computer, I just tested another disk and it plays just fine.

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E4500
2gig Ram
500gig hdd
Nvidia 8500gt
Nvidia DualTV Tuner
HDHOMERUN Tuner
Vista
Linksys 2100 Extender
WHS 2TB storage

pete1122:

I also rented "Gone Baby Gone" and my Media Center would also not play it.  I figured I had messed something up on my computer so I ripped the DVD to my hard drive and played it from the drive.  I then of course deleted the DVD from my computer when I returned it to Blockbuster. 

I'm just glad to see it was the disk and not my computer, I just tested another disk and it plays just fine.

On a thread outside of thegreenbutton I found someone suggesting that updating Vista to SP1 removed the "can't read DVD" problem on these new disks. So, I updated to SP1 this weekend and now my VMC can successfully read and play "Gone Baby Gone".

However, a ripped version of the disk using the latest version of AnyDVD would not play. I got a "DVD error" when I attempted playback. My question is: What did you use to rip the DVD?

Note that I was also using a new external hard drive for the above, so it is possible that the issue exists there. I will find out soon....