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Patlabor Movie 1

Vendor:

Manga Entertainment

Problem 1: At the switch from the end of chapter 8 to the beginning of chapter 9, time index 68:40, there is a slight pause. This is a layer switch and really isn't a problem with the disc or the player. I believe that the layer switch could have been placed in a better location though. Workaround: none Discs Affected: all Players Affected: all Severity: 2 (upgraded to to a recent re-watch) IMO, not worth a recall but worth dropping an email to ask them to fix it.

Problem 2: In the opening sequence a lot of colored speckles appear in the video. This is reportedly not in the R2 version. Workaround: none Discs Affected: all Players Affected: all Severity: 2

Recalled:	no
Last Updated:	3/17/2001

mach_six:
On Chapter 8, after Azuma says, "Just that we are going to blow up the arc.", it stutters the scene right after where the mechanic is running by the screen. I have played this on my Panasonic 6X DVD player and RealMagic Hollywood DVD Plus and Samsung 709 and it does the same thing so it isn't the hardwares' fault. That part plays fine in PowerDVD, so is it the disc or what?

michaelwb:
I had this same problem on my Pioneer DVL-909. I also had a problem where it didn't want to start the disk at first and I had to get the menu button to bring it up.

Patlabor Movie 2

Vendor:

Manga Entertainment

Problem 1: At time index 72 mins 38 sec there is a layer switch and really isn't a problem with the disc or the player. I believe that the layer switch could have been placed in a better location though. Workaround: none Discs Affected: all Players Affected: all Severity: 2 (upgraded due to a recent re-watching). IMO, not worth a recall but worth dropping an email to ask them to fix it.

Recalled:	no
Last Updated:	3/17/2001

I believe Jim Lazar posted this information.

Patlabor TV volume 1

Vendor:	Central Park Media
DVD Authoring:	?

Problem 1: A few players have severe artifacting problems, right now the one noted is a Samsung NUON player. Workaround: Try a different player. Discs Affected: ? Players Affected: Samsung NUON players, possibly other NUON players, I suggest testing before purchase if possible. Severity: 2

Recalled:	no
Last Updated:	8/12/2001

Please Teacher vol. 4

Vendor:	Bandai Entertainment
DVD Authoring:	Ascent Media DVD, menu design credited to Erika Offutt and Victor De Anda.

Problem 1: Volume 4's menu does not work on Pioneer's DV-440. Workaround: Try to manually switch to the correct title Discs Affected: volume 4 Players Affected: 3+ reports of problems with Pioneer DV-440, one report of problems with Cyberlink PowerDVD 4.0. The Pioneer DV-444 might exhibit this problem too, because of its similarity to the 440. Severity: 5 if you own these players

Recalled:	no
Last Updated:	2003 Nov 15

Now, I don't blame the authoring studio for this bug, but I do ask they find what went wrong so it doesn't happen again. The same studio made the problematic menu for Witch Hunter Robin volume 1 too, so there is some commonality there that needs to be resolved. For just one or two player models, I can't say it needs a recall, but I think it should be fixed for future volumes.

Thanks to "martialstax", "hitparade" and "Z28" for reporting the problems with this title on their Pioneer DVD-440. "Iridium" reported the PowerDVD problem.

Princess Mononoke

Vendor:

Disney / Miramax

Problem 1: Some of the discs are improperly pressed, with some discs separating into halves, one may find discoloration of the metal as well. Workaround: Exchange the disc. Discs Affected: Undetermined. More than a few but it doesn't affect them all. Players Affected: Player isn't an issue, it is a manufacturing problem. Severity: 3-5, depending on the disc.

Problem 2: Subtitles disappear under unknown circumstances except that it seems to happen in the chapter 1 to chapter 2 transition. Workaround: Possibly rewind to the end of chapter 2 and play again. Starting the movie over seems to re-trigger the problem. Discs Affected: ? Players Affected: ? Severity: ?

Problem 3: There seems to be a problem near the chapter 11 at about the 4min 33 second mark, into chapter 11 I presume, and other places, chapters 1, 9 and 16 are noted. Sometimes the player displays garbage, gets confused and skips to the next chapter. Workaround: Possibly exchange the disc. Cleaning doesn't seem to affect the situation. Discs Affected: Not sure but it could be a related manufacturing problem Players Affected: ? Severity: ?

Recalled:	No. Simply return the disc if you are experiencing problems #1 or 3.
Last Updated:	2000 Dec 24

Princess Rouge (a.k.a. Legend of the Last Labyrinth)

Vendor:

Media Blasters / Anime Works

Problems: About 1/2 way through ep. 1, it kicks back to the opening disclaimer, prod. logos and then restarts the episode. Workaround: ? Discs Affected: all? Players Affected: Toshiba SD-3109 Severity: 2? Last Updated: 2000/9/22

Recalled:

no

Thanks to RG Bickers. As the Toshiba 2108, 2109 and 3109 seem to have few but interesting bugs, I really suggest checking with the manufacturer if this affects you. I haven't heard about this problem from anyone else, so I think the disc should be considered fine from the glitch standpoint.

For the record, I rented this title and found no glitches, but I did see a lot of artifacting though. This disc uses alternate angles to encode unsubtitled and subtitled video. It is an interesting system but likely unusable for more than two episodes on a disc. BTW, I liked the story, episode 1 is especially humorous, so it's on my wish list.

Notice: There is a new version of this disc available that was not released by Image Entertainment. The below reports apply only to the Image version.

Project A-Ko DVD 1

Vendor:	Central Park Media
Authoring House:	Image Entertainment

Problem 1: By many accounts, this has a very poor video transfer, among the worst in anime DVDs, noted mostly for "shimmering". Workaround: Maybe turn the TV's sharpness control all the way down. Otherwise, wait... and wait... wait some more... see below. Discs Affected: all? Players Affected: all? Severity: 2-4

Problem 2: "The subtitles get more and more mistimed as the DVD continues. By the end of the DVD, it's showing the line a good three seconds before it is spoken." Workaround: wait... and wait... wait some more... see below. Discs Affected: all? Players Affected: all? Severity: 3-4

Recalled:

No. CPM reps acknowledge the problem. They said they signed away too much control when they sublicenced it, as this is one of their earlier DVDs. All they can do is wait for the licence to expire. If you want this fixed, complain to Image Entertainment.

Thanks to Musicman for bringing problem 1 to my memory and to PatrickD for posting #2 at the AoD Glitch forum. I confirmed the first by checking Chris Beveridge's review. I've finally managed to rent this movie and I don't feel it is _that_ bad in the video department, I feel I've seen several worse anime DVDs, namely Silent Service, Nazca and the original Bubblegum Crisis DVDs to have more grain and have less definition than the first Project A-Ko DVD. I think it just gets despised as a poster child of Image's work, which is quite substandard but not as bad as some people are saying. It is a 15 year old show, so difficulties with the video master should be expected. I feel the subtitle timing issue is a much more pressing issue because that is obviously sloppy work.

[Update 7/3/2001]: Skywise has posted a DVDsubber file that is a mostly-fixed correction of the R1 subtitle timing problems. You can download that file from here.