Fatso - anyone else receiving an endless supply of faulty discs?

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AnnaMc

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#64259 12-Jul-2010 11:04

I've been a Fatso subscriber for three months, and am on the brink of cancelling, because around one in four discs I receive are faulty. (We test them on the DVD-player and our laptop, so it's defo the discs!) Twice in the past fortnight we've found a disc to be faulty halfway through the movie and requested a replacement, only to have the same experience - watching half a movie - with the replacement disc! Am I just hopelessly unlucky, or is anyone else having a similar experience?

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#350161 12-Jul-2010 11:06

When I was a subscriber I had the same issue. The discs never looked in pristine condition. As Fatso is quite a few years old now, its bound to have plenty of scratched up discs. Just hope they do something about it.

AnnaMc

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#350163 12-Jul-2010 11:09

Thanks heavenywild - it's reassuring to hear I'm not the only one. It's a shame, because it could be a really great service. Just a bit poorly executed at the moment, in my experience.

chiefie

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#350175 12-Jul-2010 11:40

I only had a couple of disc out of hundreds that we rented...

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heavenlywild

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#350180 12-Jul-2010 11:45

Hmmm, it depends on the movie you are renting too - the newest would obviously most likely be OK whereas the older movies tend to wear out more.

keewee01

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#350183 12-Jul-2010 11:47

Yeah, a few years back we were with the competition (which was then consumed into Fatso) and we had the same problem. Our very expensive (by todays standards) Sony DVD player with mega amount of error correction just could not handle the poor quality of disc we were receiving week-after-week. (Interestingly the very cheap Warehouse DVD Player in out son's bedroom could usually handle them with just the odd skip and jump).

In the end we gave up and canceled our contract.

I often think about giving it another go, but if people are having lots of issues with the quality of disc, then there is no way I am signing up. Just make sure you complain heaps and are not paying for the weeks that you don't have a usable disc.

AnnaMc

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#350191 12-Jul-2010 11:57

Thanks, everyone - it's great to get a response like this. We're definitely having more issues with classic movie discs - I've got the entire Hitchcock catalogue in my queue - than with new releases. Unfortunately it's the oldies that I joined Fatso for, so perhaps it's not for me.....

heavenlywild

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#350193 12-Jul-2010 12:00

You would think fatso would invest in a disc cleaning / maintenance machine. Hmmm, I am sure they should have something like this but the question is whether they use it...

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chiefie

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#350214 12-Jul-2010 12:28

I have tweeted the link of this topic to @FatsoDVD on Twitter, and got a respond

@FatsoDVD: @chiefie thanks for the heads up kelvin- will forward this on to our team

http://twitter.com/fatsoDVD/status/18313429393

@AnnaMC if you're based in Christchurch, check out Alice in Videoland for classic movies: http://aliceinvideoland.co.nz/ Alternatively, they also offer movie delivery as well.

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trallis

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#350235 12-Jul-2010 13:25

Hi guys,

Rob here from Fatso. We're sorry to hear you've had some playback difficulties.

Firstly let me assure you that we take this matter very seriously indeed.

We've invested very heavily in discs resurfacing equipment and actually have more disc repair capacity than anyone else in the country (we own about half the Azuradisc repair machines in NZ). Every week we resurface between 7,000 and 9,000 discs and we have a couple of people whose sole job is to operate this machinery. So yes we do have the equipment and yes we most definetely use it.

Within the last couple of weeks we have taken a further step - completely repackaging our entire disc library (which was no small task I might add). The new packaging has a TYVEK lining which is the best, most kindest material that can be used against a disc surface. This is expected to also improve disc condition.

We visually inspect every single disc that is returned to us and resurface the ones that are judged to require repair. We also resurface all discs that that have been reported as having playback issues by our customers.

To clarify, all discs can be resurfaced, it doesn't matter if it's a new title or old. They can be resurfaced multiple times although there is an eventual limit.

Unfortunately it is also the case that some players are a lot less tolerant than others and it is often true that the more expensive ones have more playback issues than the really cheap ones. A disc that has difficulties on one player can play with no problems on 80% of others. We also have optical testing equipment and through experience have found that sometimes, some players can still have problems with discs that pass optical testing and also play without issue on our other test equipment. (As well as optical testing we test in a range of DVD players, Blu ray players, PS3, Xbox360 etc. So you can probably see this is actually quite a complex issue.

We're always lookng for ways to improve our systems and will be implementing some further measures in the next couple of months but please be assured, we put a lot of time and resource into this part of the business.

Finally we welcome this type of feedback about any part of our service.

chiefie

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#350247 12-Jul-2010 13:51

Welcome to Geekzone, Rob from Fatso.. :-)

I'm glad to hear a bit about what goes behind the scene at Fatso HQ, certainly hope you can participate/monitor on Geekzone forum in the future too as what's done so for Twitter.

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AnnaMc

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#350251 12-Jul-2010 13:56

Hi Rob,
Thanks for your reply - it's certainly a much more useful response than I got through the Fatso Feedback route. It's good to hear that this is an issue you're taking seriously, and I really hope it results in some improvements to the service. I don't really want to cancel - I just want things to get better!
Best wishes,
Anna

wreck90

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#350275 12-Jul-2010 14:39

I would beg to differ,I'm highly impressed with fatso's disc quality.

I've been with fatso (and movieshack) for years.

We rent 4 to 8 discs a week, and in the last year I think I may have had one or two faulty discs.

I'd suggest, you take a look at your dvd player. It is quite possible both are not reading discs as well as they could be. We had one high quality yamaha player, which suddenly started to have problems reading some discs - it seemed like the discs were scratched but in the end we traced it to the player .

My only complaint with fatso, is that they are occasionally slow to offer certain new release titles. In occasional cases, I've noticed new titles are only available in Fatso several months after the dvd store release date .

I emailed them last year I think, with the titles ( Big Stan, Lake view Tce, and Yes Man )which I could rent at the dvd store, but not from them, and their response was that the discs were not yet released yet. I pointed out that i could go to a bricks and mortar store where it was most certainly available , but that is about as much information as i got from them. Those titles were only available in fatso only several months after our local United video released them. And, I think they were all top ten titles too.

trallis

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#350304 12-Jul-2010 15:50

wreck90: I would beg to differ,I'm highly impressed with fatso's disc quality.

I've been with fatso (and movieshack) for years.

We rent 4 to 8 discs a week, and in the last year I think I may have had one or two faulty discs.

I'd suggest, you take a look at your dvd player. It is quite possible both are not reading discs as well as they could be. We had one high quality yamaha player, which suddenly started to have problems reading some discs - it seemed like the discs were scratched but in the end we traced it to the player .

My only complaint with fatso, is that they are occasionally slow to offer certain new release titles. In occasional cases, I've noticed new titles are only available in Fatso several months after the dvd store release date .

I emailed them last year I think, with the titles ( Big Stan, Lake view Tce, and Yes Man )which I could rent at the dvd store, but not from them, and their response was that the discs were not yet released yet. I pointed out that i could go to a bricks and mortar store where it was most certainly available , but that is about as much information as i got from them. Those titles were only available in fatso only several months after our local United video released them. And, I think they were all top ten titles too.

Thanks wreck90,

Your comments reflect our experience. Playback varies greatly between players and more $ does not always = fewer playback issues.

In regard to your 2nd point, all new releases available to video shops are available to us at exactly the same time. In fact we release a much wider range of titles and genres than your average shop picks up. You'll certainly find all current top ten rentals on our site in the new release section.

chiefie

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#350325 12-Jul-2010 16:38

Hey Rob, my recent grip with Fatso lately is the limited availability of newly released BluRay titles... I have few BluRay titles that are forever low, medium or high demand... and seems like that for months :-/ In the end I ended going to bricks and mortar video stores to get them out just to watch :-(

What's the typical number of copy for new released titles? It seems quite hard to get our hands on them other than hoping to queue-wait for it... I'm one of those people that like to "Get it now". *blushes*

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trallis

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#350741 13-Jul-2010 15:01

chiefie: Hey Rob, my recent grip with Fatso lately is the limited availability of newly released BluRay titles... I have few BluRay titles that are forever low, medium or high demand... and seems like that for months :-/ In the end I ended going to bricks and mortar video stores to get them out just to watch :-(

What's the typical number of copy for new released titles? It seems quite hard to get our hands on them other than hoping to queue-wait for it... I'm one of those people that like to "Get it now". *blushes*

We've seen a significant increase in Blu-ray demand in the last 6 months and we have the largest selection of titles you’ll find anywhere in NZ for rental.

The demand-stock ratio levels that we maintain for Blu-ray are similar to DVD so we wouldn’t expect any differences there. We regularly monitor demand levels and stock up if required. Generally speaking newer or more recently released titles aren't available for Get Now immediately.

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