A New DVD Feature: Unplayability!

This is weird. A few weeks ago, I got a video through that big subscription-based DVD rental program, a biopic of actor Tab Hunter. A few minutes before the end, the movie just stopped, froze mid-sentence. The player would not respond to any commands except Eject.

No problem. I sent the disc back, reported the non-playability, and got another.

The exact same thing happened. Figuring someone got lazy and just polished the disc before mailing the same one back, I reported once again that this disc would not play. Before slipping it in the mailer, though, The Wife™ wrote down the serial number.

New disc, new serial number. Same problem. Freeze frame, no play.

We slipped it into the newer player in the other room, and it played.

That was last week. This week, a new movie about independent video game designers.

This time, the movie froze once again… in both machines.

I can only assume that someone out there is using a popular video editing/formatting program to code these into DVD format that has a glitch, but a glitch that only glitches in older DVD players (we don't buy the latest and the greatest when the old machines still work just fine).

If this is the case, I see doom on the horizon, since I appreciate small, independent productions a heckovalot more than big-budget flicks.

Anyone else stub their watching on this?