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So has everyone checked other 2010 discs around that time period like Close-up, Red Desert, Vivre sa vie (which came out the same day as Summer Hours), etc?

SpiderBaby wrote:So has everyone checked other 2010 discs around that time period like Close-up, Red Desert, Vivre sa vie (which came out the same day as Summer Hours), etc?

I just finished Vivre sa vie (which I bought within a month of release). No signs of browning and played beautifully including supplements. Hope the same goes for everyone else's copies.

I ran Days Of Heaven, Pierrot Le Fou, M, Seventh Seal and my replacement Walkabout (just for kicks) through Nero and they all seem to be fine. I'll probably make a backup of Pierrot just for paranoia's sake.

You can put The Seventh Seal on the list. Mine has browning.

What can us internationals do? I probably pay more than double per Criterion due to shipping and tax of importing to my country. Mulvaney is probably not going to be sending replacement copies off to Europe :(

While it doesn't hurt to check other 2010 discs, I wouldn't panic too much. This seems like a problem that came from one crappy manufacturer. In fact, because Vivre sa vie and Summer Hours came out on the same day, they almost certainly were made at different manufacturers.

I got a reply to my email today asking for my mailing address for replacement copies of Walkabout and M.

I got a reply from J.Mulvaney too. He kindly proposed to sent me a replacement copy of "Walkabout" : "We are aware of a skipping issue
with the first run of the WALKABOUT Blu-ray disc"
Regarding the other titles mentionned "M" - "Summer Hours" : "we are currently looking into the issues
being discussed regarding the other titles you've mentioned, but I donot believe that all old stock of these titles is defective"

The thing is that there's no word in this email about the "browning"/"bronzing" issue. The skipping issue of Walkabout was well known just after this title came out and Criterion offered at that time a replacement copy.

I'd like to know if your email got a reference/answer regarding the "browning"/"bronzing" problem...

Rupert Pupkin wrote:I got a reply from J.Mulvaney too. He kindly proposed to sent me a replacement copy of "Walkabout" : "We are aware of a skipping issue
with the first run of the WALKABOUT Blu-ray disc"
Regarding the other titles mentionned "M" - "Summer Hours" : "we are currently looking into the issues
being discussed regarding the other titles you've mentioned, but I donot believe that all old stock of these titles is defective"

The thing is that there's no word in this email about the "browning"/"bronzing" issue. The skipping issue of Walkabout was well known just after this title came out and Criterion offered at that time a replacement copy.

I'd like to know if your email got a reference/answer regarding the "browning"/"bronzing" problem...

I mentioned the bronzing in my original email to Criterion but it was never referenced in the reply. I got just a standard email:

"I hope this email finds you well. I'm sorry to hear that your copies of M and WALKABOUT on Blu-ray are defective. Please respond to this email with your mailing address and I'm happy to send you replacement disc. Please let me know if you have any other questions, and thanks for supporting Criterion!"

Being in France, I guess I should not wait much longer before emailing Mulvaney and asking what's happenning for Walkabout and Days of Heaven.

However, it is indeed worrying they don't talk about the bronzing issue, which seems clearly stability related, but only speak about the skipping issue. In the end, practically speaking, it is indeed the same, but the search for the cause of a skipping and the one for a stability issue is not at all the same.

My concern is that next year, we find out issues in 2011 titles, and the year after in 2012 titles and so on.

tenia wrote:My concern is that next year, we find out issues in 2011 titles, and the year after in 2012 titles and so on.

While I'm not suggesting that is the case here, it's exactly what happened with the CDs, manufactured by the UK PDO factory, which gradually bronzed and became unplayable (referred to in previous posts). I still possess a 1994 letter, no doubt written in good faith, from the ASV company - one of the affected labels - assuring me that only "the first few batches of discs that were pressed when PDO opened their new factory in Blackburn in the late 1980s" were affected. They added, "the problem was solved quite a time ago".

Later, the problem period for PDO-pressed CDs was revised to 1988-1991 and then extended further to 1993.

Here's the response I got back in October 2012 about the issue:

Jon Mulvaney wrote:We are aware of the deterioration of some of the M and SUMMER HOURS discs. We don't have a problem with all of the discs made at that time, only a small number of them. We do not believe there are any other titles with this issue. I will send you a SUMMER HOURS replacement today via USPS, please let me know if you have any further concerns.

Best Wishes,
Jon

I just saw this thread, checked my Walkabout BR, it's browning, and it skips at exactly 51:00 minutes. It played fine when I first got it in 2012. (My M is OK. My Pierrot is slightly browning - AAARRRGGGHHH!!!! - but is still playing all the way through, for now.)

Should I email Mulvaney, or directly send it to Criterion for a replacement? (I'm in Canada.) And is the address at the top of this thread still the good one?

Thanks in advance for any comments.

After much pestering I finally did get a promise to send replacement discs for my two casualties thus far. However, no tip of the hand regarding the larger issues. Still holding out hope we will see an actual public statement on the issues from Criterion and they aren't just trying to dodge the problem.

Reading DeprongMori's post I emailed Mulvaney again, and he said I wil get a replacement copy of Summer Hours when they are available. So it is possible even if you don't live in USA.

Can anyone describe what the "browning" looks like? I saw some pictures on the Criterion Cast, but it's hard to tell what to look for since the surface is reflective and gold-ish to begin with.

It appears to be a brownish circle around the outer perimeter of the disc? Is that what I'm looking out for?

Yes. Additional pictures have been posted numerous times in this thread.

jedgeco wrote:Can anyone describe what the "browning" looks like? I saw some pictures on the Criterion Cast, but it's hard to tell what to look for since the surface is reflective and gold-ish to begin with.

It appears to be a brownish circle around the outer perimeter of the disc? Is that what I'm looking out for?

Here's my Seventh Seal vs. Amarcord for comparison.

Seriously, if your disc has browning, it's going to be absolutely obvious as soon as you look at it. You can't miss it. I don't know if I've ever seen a disc that looks like my Walkabout disc. It's even worse than martin.myssen's Seventh Seal.

The problem is that some discs are not brown but already have playback issues.
My Walkabout and Days of Heaven discs are not brown at all but both have playback issues.

Checked my Seventh Seal, Walkabout, M, Days of Heaven, and Pierrot Le Fou blus for browning and playback issues and found nothing. I will say though that the Walkabout disc that I originally bought skipped around the 51 min mark and Criterion then sent me a perfect replacement.

Looks like I'll be waiting awhile before I pick up Summer Hours.

I just checked my M blu ray and yes, it's as brown as a cup of coffee. It froze right from the get go. I checked all my other discs from that period and nothing else is brown. M is the only one I bought from it's release date. Many of the other discs from that period I bought well after they were released.

I emailed Mulvaney with a pic.

My "Summer Hours" and "M" are affected too Emailed Jon...

I just moved, and now I'm terrified to go into my Criterion boxes and start the brown disc hunt... In 2009 and 2010, I was buying most titles during the week of release...

Are most people's copies of Seventh Seal and Pierrot le fou fine, even those who bought them at release? I imagine my Summer Hours and M will be bad, since everyone's seems to be, but I'm hoping it isn't as widespread on the other titles.

For the record I own M, bought it in 2012 or so, and didn't see any color issues. Haven't tried to play it in a while. Same thing with Days Of Heaven, bought in 2013.

I also was able to watch whatever copy of Summer Hours I got from Netflix, on blu-ray, without any incident a few weeks ago for film club.

I think this is a case where people with bad discs are speaking up and people whose discs are fine are keeping quiet. I own M, Days of Heaven, and Pierrot le fou, all of which I *think* I bought the week of release, and all three are fine. It's been quite some time since I've watched Days of Heaven, but the other two I've watched within the past nine months or so.