Certain DVD - Curse of the Golden Flower - refuses to play on certain DVD players and my sisters laptop?

Question

Awhile ago I bought the DVD The Curse of the Golden Flower from Wal-Mart. This was a regular DVD, not a Blu Ray one or anything. It played fine on my upstairs DVD player the first time, but refused to play again later. The player said "loading" for an unusually long time then went blank. The movie wouldn't play. My sister was also unable to play it on her laptop. I tried it on our downstairs DVD player, and it worked fine, which really surprised me (I'm not sure if the downstairs player is older or newer - sorry).

So I returned the DVD to Wal-Mart, thinking it was defective, and got a new one. Well, five minutes ago I put it in the upstairs DVD player. Same thing. Noooooo movie. It said loading for a long time and nothing happened. Then I put it in my sisters laptop. No movie again. So I tried it downstairs. Worked fine.

WHAT is going on? I'm totally baffled. Other movies work fine in the upstairs player and my sister's laptop. Is The Curse of the Golden Flower DVD cursed?!

Answer 1

My guess is that the laptop may need a different player or codec to view the the movie. I have had to use different players like InterAcual Player or Power DVD and even DivX player As for your TVs DVD player Yours might be the old one or just dirty. You did not say if either plays other movies and If region code was the problem The laptop should have had a widow pop up regarding that.Good Luck!

I guess we are stumped as well. the only pther thing that I can think of is that the way the DVD is recorded wil not play on DVD players with a different size laser focal point. the laptop I get I have DVDs and recorded DVDs that will not play except in a player like the one it was recorded on or certain makes of DVD players ( for PCs) sorry I can't be of more help. I tried:(

Answer 2

The only thing I can possibly think of is, is it a region-free DVD? But seeing as how you bought it from Walmart, I doubt this is the case...I have no idea. The problem is definitely with the DVD though, since none of the DVD players will play it, and I'm assuming other movies play fine.

Answer 3

Doesn't sound like a region issue.

Assuming you can't see any dirt or scratches  it's may be defective. I would take it back to Walmart and ask them to try it on a couple of their players. IF it fails get them to try a couple more disks.

Very small faults can cause a DVD not to play, and some machines are more sensitive than others.

I recently bought a new commercial DVD that wouldn't play on my HD DVD player but played fine on a DVD player. I made a backup copy and that plays fine on the HD DVD player!  

Advice I got from a movie rental place --- who deal with lots of dirty and scratched DVDs --- clean it with "Pledge" (spray furniture cleaner) -- spray and wipe carefully with a soft, clean cloth -- and try again. They claim it solves many problems. I wouldn't try that if you are going to take back to Walmart ... but otherwise you haven't much to lose.