Magnum Mania!

If you go to the product page for Magnum, P.I. The Complete Third Season, you'll find the item is unavailable and a note which reads:

Item Under Review

While this item is available from other marketplace sellers on this page, it is not currently offered by Amazon.com because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it's described here. (Thanks for the tip!)

We're working to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

Must be all the difficulty those darn double-sided discs are giving everyone. I don't even own seasons 2-4 yet because of this problem, and my S1 DVD has two episodes that have the freezing/skipping problem. Here's hoping that Universal gets the message and changes MPI 1-4 to single-sided DVD.

If anything, this dilemma has gotten me to appreciate the 5-8 years more than I ever thought I would! But the first four years are my absolute favorites.

If you have a pretty recent DVD player, the problems go away. Although the double sided discs require some TLC. However, When I had major skippage on my old DVD player, the new one doesn't miss a beat.

Doc Ibold wrote:If you have a pretty recent DVD player, the problems go away. Although the double sided discs require some TLC. However, When I had major skippage on my old DVD player, the new one doesn't miss a beat.

I have several double-sided dvds (Quincy, Columbo, Kolchak, various movies, etc.) and have never had a single incident of skipping. Only with the MPI S1 discs have I experienced this, and no doubt many others have as well.

I bought the season 1 DVD set from Wal-Mart when it first came out but had to return it because of it freezing. The replacement I got did the same thing. I returned it again and told them that unless they could find me a set off the shelf and prove to me that it worked fine, then I wanted a refund. Even though it was against their policy to give refunds for opened DVDs, they did give me one rather than accepting my "challenge" (lol).

It sucked though, because I really wanted the DVD set. I ended up getting them from Netflix because I read online that Netflix's versions of the MPI DVDs were single-sided and worked fine, which was true (they even had artwork on the discs). I had no problems with them at all. I wish the Netflix versions were for sale.

There's nothing inherently wrong with double-sided discs. I have other double-sided DVDs that don't have any issues. Something was obviously wrong with the either the pressings or the master for the MPI double-sided discs; and it is incredible that the problem hasn't been corrected by now.

I bought Season 3 when I was in NYC. The discs skipped- they were rubbish.

Back home in Australia, I bought the Region 4 version which have played perfectly. You could consider getting Season 3 from another region if your US discs are not working.

My two cents on this subject is that...even though I am TOTALLY challenged technically...when my disks start to do the freeze thing, I pop my DVD lens cleaner disk in and in just a few minutes, I'm good to go again...for another week or so. So I guess I'm wondering if the problem is actually the disks...or the players. I haven't had any more problems with the two sided disks freezing than the one sided ones.

????

Agatha wrote:My two cents on this subject is that...even though I am TOTALLY challenged technically...when my disks start to do the freeze thing, I pop my DVD lens cleaner disk in and in just a few minutes, I'm good to go again...for another week or so. So I guess I'm wondering if the problem is actually the disks...or the players. I haven't had any more problems with the two sided disks freezing than the one sided ones.

????

At least with season 1 (I don't have any experience with the other double-sided disc seasons), the problem was/is too widespread for it to be player-related. I tried my discs in two different DVD drives on my PC which to this day have no problems reading DVDs, and a few of the episodes would freeze or glitch. I checked the IMDb Magnum PI board and there was already a long thread going with many people reporting problems with the DVDs. Like I said, I ended up getting the single-sided versions from Netflix and those played in the same drives 100% trouble-free.

With that said, some players are better at dealing with DVD errors than others. DVDs have a certain amount of error-correction data encoded into them; and some players are better able to take advantage of that than others. A DVD that is properly mastered and pressed in the first place is far preferable however.

Thanks for your insights, Maxim. I know that my DVD player is a cheapo so that may be part of my issues as well. I also wonder if that lens cleaner disc does a complete job of cleaning the lens but can't see any way to "open" it and do any better. There was an article in our paper once about recycling electronics and there's a guy in the area who always goes to those events and picks out the DVD players. Says MOST of them only need the lens cleaned and then he can sell them and make a few bucks. I also don't know if I should be cleaning my discs somehow. Oh well. At least people seem to be making an effort to be responsible when the discs aren't good. Even THAT is a bright spot in this day and age.

Agatha wrote:Thanks for your insights, Maxim. I know that my DVD player is a cheapo so that may be part of my issues as well. I also wonder if that lens cleaner disc does a complete job of cleaning the lens but can't see any way to "open" it and do any better. There was an article in our paper once about recycling electronics and there's a guy in the area who always goes to those events and picks out the DVD players. Says MOST of them only need the lens cleaned and then he can sell them and make a few bucks. I also don't know if I should be cleaning my discs somehow. Oh well. At least people seem to be making an effort to be responsible when the discs aren't good. Even THAT is a bright spot in this day and age.

Agatha, I find that cleaning the discs DOES help DVDs, but I can't speak to the cleaning of the lens (on the actual DVD Player). However, if you're cleaning the discs quite often, then I see it as a problem with the disc rather than the DVD player.[/b]

Makes sense to me, Doc...except that I don't clean the discs very often. Unless "clean" means rubbing it across my shirt to get the dog hair off! What do you clean your discs with? Maybe I can get a cleaning routine going with the discs and the player so the freezes are eliminated.

Ha ha!

Well, my cleaning consists of a $20 kit that i get from Best Buy that has a (for lack of a better term) buffer that you put your DVD in, plus a solvent that you put ON the affected DVD side and then do the "twirl" in the buffing segment.

I've only had to do it to my season 1-4 double sided DVDs and only a few of them at that. Season 1 (disc 3, Season 2 dic 2, and Season 4 disc 2). Not saying that this'll work for everyone, but just my experience. Plus, I only did it once. If you have to do it multiple times (aside from the first), then there's a DVD/Player problem.

Otherwise, I'm on board with you in the "shirt wiping method", which seems to work most of the time aside from the above exceptions.

Thanks, Doc! I'm on my way to Best Buys!!

There's a lot of things wrong in the world today and I have my share of problems as well but the STRAW THAT WOULD BREAK THE CAMEL'S BACK...and four of them live with me...camels, that is...would be if I couldn't have Magnum PI playing in the background while I figure it all out!!

Funny. I've never had a problem with my season 3 discs on three different players. However the bonus eps of Echoes of the Mind from season 1 won't play anymore...even though there's no scratches.

I remember really hesitating buying the third season because of all the negative feedback on the Amazon page for the playback problems. I was pleasantly surprised.

Styles Bitchley wrote:I remember really hesitating buying the third season because of all the negative feedback on the Amazon page for the playback problems. I was pleasantly surprised.

Styles, I'm *still* hesitating! S3 is my favorite but I'll put a good face on this situation and say that my ability to delay my MPI S3 gratification is due to my startling maturity!

Or maybe I'll get S3 as a gift!

I do hope that Universal comes around and switches those double-sided discs to singles. They've done it with the rest of their series releases. Even if we got inconsistent-looking transfers to begin with, the least they could do is get some quality control with their "product."

Oh, and I never clean my DVD player. It's a Sony and it has performed flawlessly on everything else I own.

I have several DVD players, but the one I have been watching MPI on each night is a middle-of-the-road model, and I have had absolutely no problem with the double-sided disks at all.

I think it is generally older, early DVD models that have problems with double-sided disks.