Last year I purchased the DVD set of The Munsters Season 2. It was new.

I recently opened the package and attempted to play the episodes. The first disk in the set (Disk 1) will only play about half of the episodes on the disk, and this is for both Disk 1 Side 1 and Disk 1 Side 2. During episodes it will freeze up, or the picture will break up, and one episode would only play the soundtrack while showing the menu for that episode.

Disk 2 and Disk 3 play perfectly without any problems.

The problem disk does not appear to be scratched or damaged in any way. Is anyone aware of a general problem with this DVD set? How can I have this problem disk replaced with one which is not defective?

I went to this page and sent an 'email' comment (or whatever they are)
http://www.universalstudios.com/homepage/html/contact_us/contact_form.cgi?email_id=10
in hopes it would do me some good, but I don't know if this is really the way to contact the producers of the DVD and ask for a replacement.

Does anyone know for sure?

Thank you

Probably have to call them. I had problems with the 1st disk on my "Flash The Series" , and I called and told them, and they sent a replacement in 8 weeks. :)

I would be glad to call them, but I have no idea how to obtain the telephone number. All I saw was the universal website listed on the packaging, and all I could find there through the 'Contact Us' link was the pseudo-email page.

How do I find the telephone number?

Thank you.

I have very rarely had any problems with Laserdiscs and DVDs since I started buying them back when they first came out in 1997.

However, today my daughter and I decided to sit down and watch a few of the Hammer Frankenstein movies in order of release.

I watched:

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
DVD - 2002 Warner Home Video 11066
The Revenge of Frankenstein (1958)
Laserdisc - 1995 Columbia Tristar Home Video 09806
The Evil of Frankenstein (1964)
Laserdisc 1992 MCA/Universal Home Video 40544

So far, so good! All had excellent picture and sound!

Now it was time for:

Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)
DVD - 2000 Anchor Bay DV11190

Guess what? There was absolutely no picture and no sound. In fact, my DVD player kept displaying the message "No Disc". I examined the disc, but I couldn't find any observable defect. In fact, I remember watching this particular DVD shortly after buying it a couple of years ago at Sun Coast. I remember all of the extras distinctly. I know it played without any problems at that time. I then tried playing it on two other DVD players, yet none of them were able to play it either. What could have happened to it? I've been storing it on DVD shelves along with another 1000 DVDs on wooden shelves in my air-conditioned home. This is the first time I've had a problem while living here. What could have caused it to go bad? I couldn't detect any dirt nor scratches on the surface at all, yet none of the DVD players I tried it on can read it.

I guess I won't be able to finish watching the series until the new disc I ordered arrives from Half.com. I noticed Frankenstein Created Woman was coupled with The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires in a subsequent release as were other Hammer films. Although I already had that one too, I figured I'd might as well get this other release just to have something a little different.

Is there such a thing as DVD-Rot or DVD-Death?

I had an issue with the Criterion Collection "A Night to Remember" DVD. Played fine when I purchased it. Then shelved it for years. Tried playing it recently on 3 players and a DVD drive in a PC. All failed to read the disk. E-mailed Criterion about it and they never replied. Bummer.

But, as to the new disk's problems. It may very well be defective, but try this. Get a clean cotton cloth (T-shirt) and thoroughly clean the entire disk from the middle of the disk to the outer edge. I have had disks straight out of the shrink-wrap that would freeze or stall. After cleaning, they played fine. It seems there can occasionally be some residue on new disks that you can't see. That's only theory, but I can't envision what else it could be.

All I saw was the universal website listed on the packaging, and all I could find there through the 'Contact Us' link was the pseudo-email page.




So what's the problem with that?


Regarding FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN, this, unfortunately, is one of a number of discs which is known to have a manufacturing defect. Anchor Bay produced an unusual number of discs that would fail very quickly. There was even a joke that THE WICKER MAN extended edition should have been called "The Limited Shelf Life Edition" because most of them crapped out in the first year. THE WITCHES, SPACE CAMP, early release of KENTUCKY FRIED MOVIE...all AB discs known to fail.

These unfortunate occurrences shouldn't be seen as an inherent DVD problem. It's not "DVD rot" or any such thing. It's poor manufacturing for a series of specific titles. I would liken it to an auto maker identifying a specific defect in a car...it's not an inherent car problem but, every once-in-awhile, some nitwit let's a thousand cars off the production line with loose fuel pump connections.

I'm currently waiting for a replacement for WAR IN SPACE. The first production run has a transfer that completely tanks about 31 minutes into the movie.

In May of 2003, VCI released HORRORS OF THE BLACK MUSEUM with a bad transfer and a completely trashed commentary track (half way through the commentary, it starts moving at 20x speed and becomes unintelligible). VCI said we were stuck with the crap transfer but said they'd correct the commentary track and deliver new discs in June of 2003. I'm still wating...three years and they never repressed corrected discs.

Regarding FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN, this, unfortunately, is one of a number of discs which is known to have a manufacturing defect.

Do you know of a web-site that lists all of the problematic disks released by Anchor Bay?

Hmm...I should double-check my copy of KFM...

Here's a thought.....
Try to get a phone number for Universal HV at the 10 Universal City Plaza address. The area code is 818. I know the person you have to ask for is Rene Wolfensberger (he's a guy, guys). You will probably have to send him the disc, but he'll send you a new one.

I actually got a reply and instructions on the exchange through the website's contact function.I will gather the requested information and mail off the bad disk as I am told to do and then see what happens. I sure hope I get a good Disk 1 from this.