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Disney DVD debacle: Wall•E vs. DRM (or defects)
January 6, 2009 | 9:43 am
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By Chris Meadows
As anyone who’s watched his adventures knows, Wall•E knows all about obstinate, malfeasant corporate software that does nothing except step on individuals’ rights. Which is why it’s so ironic that the DVDs of Wall•E are encumbered with particularly obnoxious DRM that causes them to fail to play in many players. [Update: The idea that DRM is the cause is conjecture; a Disney technician to whom I spoke on the phone claimed it was probably due to errors in the manufacturing process; see update below.]
I just received the Wall•E 3-disc standard-DVD set as a belated Christmas present yesterday, and settled down to watch it—and discovered that the DVD would not play on any player in my computer (PowerDVD, VLC, or Media Player Classic).
It got to the menu once, then froze up—and wouldn’t get to the menu again. Once I managed, through experimentation, to get the Burn•E short to play, but it had all this weird digital noise along the top of the screen. Likewise, the second disc played, once, with a lot of the same digital noise, then wouldn’t play again.
And it doesn’t take much Googling to determine that this is not an isolated incident. One review of the Blu-Ray version drew a comment about the regular DVD from “Sandra”:
Wall-E might be a “beautiful film” but if the dang disc won’t play then I don’t understand why I should bother. I’m really angry about the copy protection or whatever stupid problem causes this disc not to play in 4 out 5 dvd players. We tried on the kids’ portable units ( 2 of them ) we tried on grandma’s dvd home player ( it is literally 2 years old! ) .. finally got it to work in one of 2 home players. This is ridiculous. I’m pissed at Pixar and Disney for this crap that I’m now stuck with since you can’t get a refund.
I posted a question about this on Mahalo, and the answer I got was instructive. The respondent, “pastubbs,” claims it was because of DRM on the disc. If this is so, what pastubbs goes on to add just about says it all:
What most people are doing is ripping the movie (not copying to an ISO but actually ripping the movie cracking the DRM this is illegal in the USA) to the hard disk (allowing you to watch the movie on your PC off the HDD) which shows that their DRM isn’t even working. Even if you make an exact copy of the disc it still manages to copy the DRM and you still will not be able to use it on your PC.
If you want a disc that can play in a DVD player and a PC you have to rip the movie then burn the DVD off the ripped file. And this shows how DRM only hurts the consumers because you still can pirate the DVD (which a lot have already done), but the real consumer can’t even use the real copy.
In a mostly-unrelated matter, the Wall•E 3-disc set is actually a standard 2-disc set with an extra disc that contains a digital copy of the movie for iTunes (plus your iPod) or Windows Media Player. The disc comes with a serial number that can be used precisely once to unlock the movie for you—but it can be used only once, and the movie cannot be transferred. So, if you should resell the DVD set, whoever buys it is actually getting a 2-disc set, plus a plastic coaster.
Why? DRM.
Update: As suggested in response to another question I asked on Mahalo, I called Disney’s customer service hotline at 1-800-723-4763. I spoke to a customer service representative, then a technician named Aaron.
When I floated the suggestion that the DVDs might have been manufactured with deliberate errors, Aaron stated this was absolutely not true. He said that it was more likely that some lots of the DVD might have had errors in pressing that did not affect their ability to play on DVD players, but caused problems for computer players (as computer players tend to be more finicky about discs). He said they had a number of discs that would play perfectly on their computers.
Aaron said he would send me a prepaid return mailer for sending the Wall•E DVD set back in, and he would request a new set be sent directly to him so he could test it on their computers to make sure it would play, then send it on to me.
Those others who are having problems with the disc might want to call Disney and ask for replacements as well.
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Comments:
Great!
This is insane. I don’t understand how companies that are this stupid are ruling the freaking world. The power of power I guess.
I had the unfortunate experience of renting Wall-E for the holidays, and I can assure you that the problem isn’t limited to playing on a PC. Much like old floppy disks, CD games, and some audio discs, it appears that they are attempting to add DRM where it shouldn’t exist by mastering the disk with intentional errors. In theory, computers access data with the assumption that there aren’t errors and players use error-correction schemes that can correct such flaws. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.
We had a cheap DVD player that works great with most discs, but doesn’t appear to be able handle DVDs with these engineered errors. My solution was to rip the DVD (the software I use has the ability to work around this “protection”) and burn a new copy.
The joys of DRM, indeed.
I had a similarly frustrating experience with Wall-E on DVD. I, too, got the 3-disc set for christmas. Last weekend I decided to move the digital copy to my computer, so I could play it on my iPod and iPhone. I like to watch movies during my commute and also when I’m doing mindless busywork at my job. I popped in the disc and discovered that it needed an activation code printed on one of the 50 pieces of seemingly unnecessary paper that came with the DVD, which had all been pitched with the rest of the Christmas morning trash. So, after some frustrated ranting I decided to be a bad consumer and use handbrake to rip the DVD, just like I do with many of the DVDs I own. Sadly, they have some magic juju that scrambles the chapters, so the handbrake rip was unwatchable. Last night I ended up going through a box of trash and found the activation code. This whole thing has turned me off of Disney DVDs for the foreseeable future. If I can’t watch the movie which I purchased in the manner that I prefer, I’m not buying it.
I work in a shop that rents out DVDs in the U.K. We haven’t had any bad feed back on the Wall.E Dvd rental discs at all (that i know of) Just a problem with Retail copies or region 1 only? (UK is region 2) is DRM used world wide or differently in different territories? What about on eBooks? It’s consumer poison for sure.
Updated the article; I called Disney customer service about the issue.
Kerry, FYI, the “ripping the movie” link leads to a discussion of a free utility that can apparently successfully rip even non-playable versions of the movie to your hard drive, where you can then handbrake them from there. Might want to check it out.
(P.S.: Wow! I made TechMeme!)
Bob, it’s very possible that Region 2 DVDs do not have the same problem. Although it is easy to think of Disney as one big company, the truth is that publishing decisions are uniquely made for each region.
For those seeking more information, my brief encounter leads me to believe that the system is, or is based on, ARccOS protection. It also appears that, in general, ARccOS is primarily a Region 1 issue. Perhaps the publishers are afraid of stricter consumer legal protections in other regions?
Logan: See my update? It may not be a DRM issue at all, but an unintentional flaw in the pressing process.
I did read the comment (after posting unfortunately), but I’m still not convinced. From Disney’s perspective, they wouldn’t wish to admit the use of deliberate corruption as a DRM mechanism.
While it is possible (and, in fact, probable) that some of the discs were affected by a manufacturing defect, I’m not about to give them the benefit of the doubt when Ratatoullie and Cars were both manufactured with similar defects. Disney is still the company that pushes DVDs with unskippable commercials, after all. A lack of respect for the customer is not out of line with their general attitude.
If that’s the case, then the replacements I get will probably have the same playing errors as the ones I send back. I guess I’ll see when the time comes.
I’ve had the same problem with Disc 1 of the Special Edition on multiple players, and am having it replaced by Disney DVD customer service.
The support rep I spoke to acknowledged that this is a known problem with Disc 1, and so sending a new disc was his first suggestion.
I’m glad they’re happy to replace it, but not being able to watch it, waiting for a prepaid mailer, sending it back, and waiting for a new disc is extremely irritating. If this is indeed the result of sensitive/brittle/broken DRM then it’s even more annoying.
Interesting, I have rented this DVD from our local Video Ezy, and interestingly enough, I get all the same issues on my 64bit vista lappy, vlc hangs etc… HOWEVER, Windows Media Centre reads the disc just fine, so this indicates it’s not a disc manufacture issue as media centre would also choke. Looks like DRM issues (Yet again) to me…
I’ve been having the same problem with my G3 Wall Street Mac running OS 10.1. (Cannot find a version of Windows Media Player for the laptop, so I use the Mac player.) Everything else on the two DVDs played flawlessly, including the Easter eggs. (And I recommend the deluxe edition!) The movie itself did not play.
CyberLink PowerDVD on my office Dell (Pentium 4/XP Professional) plays it without flaws (I tested it up to the Satchmo song in the BnL Mart). PowerDVD unfortunately does not adjust the window to the letterbox. Windows Media Player took too long to load.
I suspect if someone checks the files on both discs, they will find different DRM encoding on the movie.
For what it’s worth, I finally got around to sending the DVD in for replacement. Will see whether the version Aaron sends me works, and write a new post about it at that point.