Incredibles DVD Freezes in My Player

Incredibles DVD Freezes in My Player (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog)

The other day, my wife picked up a copy of the widescreen, 2-disc DVD of The Incredibles. The movie disc loaded, played the FBI warning, then froze on the screen that threatens our little family with legal action if we ever offend The Mouse.

I’m used to the annoying tendency of DVDs to refuse to let you jump right to the menu, but this was ridiculous. The screen froze at the warning, and didn’t do anything. The only way we could get the DVD out was by shutting off the player.

The bonus features disc plays just fine, and the disk that hung in on our DVD player worked just fine in my laptop. The DVD has imprinted on it “www.TheIncredibles.com/support,” but that URL leads to an error. Hacking the URL leads to a Disney site containing no obvious technical assistance.

We brought the box back to Wal-Mart to exchange it, and the same thing happened.

My son suggests that we return the DVD and get a videotape instead, but I doubt Wal-Mart will allow that. Maybe somebody else Googling for this problem will find this page and we can commiserate…

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  • For what it's worth, the Incredibles is an excellent film. Your inner geek will rejoice at the gentle ribbing the movie gives the "superhero" genre.

  • My wife says she called the 1-800 number printed on the DVD. The person who answered told her that as soon as you see "Play" on the screen, push "Stop" -- before the FBI warning loads. That lets you skip ahead to watch the movie.

    That's a pain, but at least we've got something to go on. (I haven't tried it myself.)

  • Mine certainly isn't an expensive model, so perhaps I'll have to look into that.

  • region problems with your DVD player? Is it a "universal" model? Many of the ultra-inexpensive models are setup to play all regions. It could be that the DVD is checking for this and not allowing itself to be played on anything but a genuine "Region 1" DVD player. I'd check the manual for your DVD player and see what it says about region encoding. and then I'd write a harshly worded letter to Disney and the MPAA for making it difficult to consume their goods. Region encoding is stupid and flies in the face of common sense about economics. Basically, they're selling crippled products at a premium price here and selling them at pennies on the dollar in other parts of the globe. Good for Disney's bottom line, bad for consumers.

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Published by
Dennis G. Jerz