What DVD was it that the Tesco exclusive Wharfedale DVD player wouldn't play?

[Gurke and Hare]

Around the turn of the century, Tesco had an exclusive deal to sell the Wharfedale DVD-750 DVD player for what was, at the time a breakthrough low price of £180. It was a great player for the price, but it had a problem playing (possibly the bonus disc 2 of) a particular high profile film at the time. This wasn't an issue with the player, it was an issue with the disc doing something that didn't comply with the DVD standard, that most players let it get away with. It was quite a big deal at the time, getting as far as Watchdog - I remember Anne Robinson interviewing some bloke from Tesco who patiently explained how the problem was with the disc and not the player, only for Robinson to ignore everything he'd said and fire back with "So will you still be selling Wharfedale?" - those were her exact weird words.

I've been trying to remember what the disc was and I can't, and searching isn't helping. Can anyone remember this and remember what the film was?

[Glebe]

Never heard about this before but it's a fucking disgrace. Robinson's line of questioning wasn't tough enough by the sound of it. I hope Wharfedale went under after this fiasco!

[peanutbutter]

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/comment/28189 seems like it was several beyond this wallace and gromit one

"Jaws, Gladiator, LA Confidential, etc"

I guess Gladiator was the standout?

[Sebastian Cobb]

Wharfedale are a weird one, by the looks of it they always kept the name to make high quality speakers but licenced it out to make some pretty ropey av equipment (not that this specific player was bad and I understand the fault in this case was with the disc).

[drummersaredeaf]

Can anyone name a more wretched television goblin than Anne Robinson? A forerunner in the 'being nasty for money' movement, and in a way responsible for Carl of Swindon and the like.

[Sebastian Cobb]

Cilla Black?

[thecuriousorange]

Her alleged nastiness was all offscreen though.

[idunnosomename]

Is that Jaws the shark film or another Jaws

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Asda: The Movie

[touchingcloth]

Can anyone name a more wretched television goblin than Anne Robinson? A forerunner in the 'being nasty for money' movement, and in a way responsible for Carl of Swindon and the like.

I was just about to do a VERY funny "Sargon of Akkad considers rewrite", but imagine my surprise when I googled "Carl of Swindon". Go on. Imagine it.

[Gurke and Hare]

I guess Gladiator was the standout?

Yes! Gladiator was the high profile one!

Imagine paying £180 for a DVD player (I did)

[Video Game Fan 2000]

I recall Anne Robinson trying to make asking people if their children had ASBOs into a personal calling card.

[Sebastian Cobb]

I recall Anne Robinson trying to make asking people if their children had ASBOs into a personal calling card.

So grim. Can't help but smirk at that bit of Sissons passing comment on her as he's watching a bit of VT going out, problematic that it is.

[Video Game Fan 2000]

The Sargon comparison is on the money. The smug grin and pause, leaning on the podium after she said it. Unbearable.

I don't know how it got more popular than 15 to 1, William G Stewart didn't ask us if our mams were on benefits he just wanted the Parthenon Marbles sent back. The exact perfect political cause for a quiz host to care about.

edit: as I wrote that I was thinking "I hope William G Stewart wasn't a nonce" so I google to check, and then horrifyingly found out he transformed into an exact duplicate of Roger Stone

[thenoise]

bonus disc 2

Not a issue for 99% of people then.

[Johnny Yesno]

Is it Ghostbusters II?

[Johnny Yesno]

Basketballheadz?

[Replies From View]

Think maybe the original DVD pressing of the Matrix went a bit shit on some machines.

[Pranet]

Seeing the phrase "Wharfedale DVD player" gave me a real Proustian rush.

Used to be able to buy DVD players everywhere. Bought my first DVD player in a small Co-op shop in a village, had them behind the counter. Bought it because I wanted to watch the Belle and Sebastian Fans Only DVD. It was a good player wish I hadn't got rid of it.

[buzby]

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/comment/28189 seems like it was several beyond this wallace and gromit one

"Jaws, Gladiator, LA Confidential, etc"

I guess Gladiator was the standout?

There were three separate issues with the Wharfedale DVD-750. Early models had firmware that could not cope with discs that had Region Coding Enhancment (RCE) on them (a feature developed by Warners and Sony to stop a multi-region player playing Region 1 discs) which would not play at all, and needed a formware uddate to that used on the later models to fix it.

There was also a separate firmware issue with some discs like Jaws and the Wallace and Gromit one where the layout of the menus would cause the firmware to crash, which also needed a formare update to fix (though there was a workaround by using the 'Goto Title' function). The firmware update was only available via Tesco's customer support, and you had to prove you had a copy of one of the discs that caused the problem.

The last, and most serious problem was that some revisions of the DVD-750 used an LSI Logic decoding chipset that had a bug in it that would refuse to play the DVD extras on the Gladiator disc. There was no fix for this, and you hadto send the disc back to Columbia to get a re-encoded one created specifically to work around the LSI Logic chipset bug.

The DVD-750 was soon replaced by the DVD-750S that was completely redesigned internally and didn't have any of these bugs.

Wharfedale are a weird one, by the looks of it they always kept the name to make high quality speakers but licenced it out to make some pretty ropey av equipment (not that this specific player was bad and I understand the fault in this case was with the disc).

It was the player that was at fault, not the discs (see above).
Since 1997, Wharfedale has been one of the brands owned by International Audio Group (who also took over Quad, Audiolab, Castle, Mission, Castle and TAG/McLaren Audio). IAG still do some design work in the UK at the old Quad site in Huntingdon, but the manufacturing is done in Shenzhen (IAG is Chinese-owned). Since 2008, alongside still using it on their high-end speakers, IAG have licenced the Wharfedale brand out to the likes of Argos and Tesco to use on generic AV gear, of which the DVD-750 was an example.

[SteveDave]

I think an old girlfriend had a Wharfedale DVD player in the mid-2000s and she used it mostly to play CDs through her TV speakers. One time I put the "GP"/"Grievous Angel" Gram Parsons twofer CD in there and then got freaked out by the lyrics appearing on the screen and weird Teletext style images of Gram. I wonder if that still happens.