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PS2 Class Action Lawsuit Against DVD Player
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing us to this class action lawsuit against Sony regarding the Playstation 2's DVD player. You can fill in a form on the page to be informed of 'material developments' and assist the case, which alleges that the PS2's "..DVD player component suffers from a number of defects that prevents it from playing a wide-variety of DVD movies." Unfortunately, it seems the lawyers forgot to change the page title, which still reads 'Palm M130 Class Action Home Page'. Uhm, whoops.
Sleazy lawyers.
..."
I wonder if lawyers get spam with "make money fast, do a class action suit against
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
I'd like to sue Sony's Playstation 2 DVD REMOTE for not having a properly working fast forward. I've spoken to at least half a dozen other PS2 owners (with varying brands of remotes) and all of them have the same problem (if you hold fast forward it only goes for about a second and then you have to press it again).
I really was going to rely on my PS2 as my primary DVD player, but this caused me to have to get a different one (an X-box).
"Probably the toughest time in anyone's life is when you have to murder a loved one because they're the devil." -Philips
"Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing us to this class action lawsuit against Sony regarding the Playstation 2's DVD player."
Nintendo made a pretty strong stand with the GameCube that a game machine should only be a game machine. Gotta admit, they had a point. The GameCube was $100 cheaper than the PS2 or XBOX, plus it was considerably smaller. From what I gather from this story, the DVD player on the PS2 wasn't exactly a stellar. For the cost of a DVD Player and a GameCube, you could get a Playstation 2 that wasn't exactly stellar at either. I realize that the PS2 has games people like, however at launch Dreamcast games were looking better because of a nasty little bottleneck the Playstation 2 has.
Well I've drifted away from the point a bit. When making a game system, focus on making it play games. Not everybody is happy to spend $300 on a game system.
"Derp de derp."
I have a dedicated dvd player, but when I tried the ps2 one I never had a problem. My dad did initially, but I bought him the dvd remote that came with updated dvd software for it. That fixed all his problems.
Bullshit. They are advertising the product (PS2) as a fully functional DVD player, which is not. RTFA.
IANAL, but that's at least false advertisement and they should be punished (and at least fix the defective components free-of-charge).
"If you don't like a product, don't buy it. "
Too late. My Mr. Fusion needs some servicing.
"Derp de derp."
I'm reading the lawsuit filed and it spends a couple pages explaining DVDs and a couple pages explaining the PS2 (!!!???)
"26. A DVD is the same size and thickness as a CD, approximately 4.72 inches in diameter and about as thick as a penny."
"28. Compared to a VHS (which plays on a VCR), the DVD (which plays on a DVD Player) offers consumers significant advantages as a format for playing studio released movies at home."
"29. The video and audio quality of DVD is significantly better than VHS."
"35. PlayStation 2 is a successor to PlayStation (PlayStation 1), an advanced computer game console. PlayStation 1 was a breakthrough in computer technology due in part to its capability to play computer games on CDs."
etc...etc. Any lawyers in the house? Is this type of "explanation" normal in a lawsuit? Or even necessary?
"PlayStation 1 was a breakthrough in computer technology due in part to its capability to play computer games on CDs."
It's a breakthrough to do something that had been done many times previously? The only radical thing Sony did with the PS1 was to not include a disc activity light.
"Derp de derp."
I'd like to sue Sony's Playstation 2 DVD REMOTE for not having a properly working fast forward.
Um, you're supposed to sue the company, not individual products.
More lawyer scum looking for a quick buck. If you don't like a product, don't buy it.
If I were the plaintiffs, I'd want some serious reduction of lawyer compensation on the boiler-plate documents. There's no way a law firm should earn millions for search/replace...especially when it's not even done right.
moto411.com
Any lawyers in the house? Is this type of "explanation" normal in a lawsuit? Or even necessary?
You know, his honor might not be a GTA fan. In fact, he may not even own a PS1, let alone a PS2.
If you'd like a ruling based on the technological merits, you'd better let people explain them.
Not to mention that some parents (I know this scenario is hard to imagine, but stay with me on this) may buy consoles for their kids; these people may have no idea what they do (some of them may have professional and/or personal lives) but they need to understand the issues before becoming part of this class action lawsuit.
There have been a lot of complaints about Sony's hardware. Just read USENET newsgroups for a while to get an idea of what I'm talking about. Here's my story, although not all of it has to do with the posted class-action lawsuit.
I stood in line on launch day, 26 October 2000, and got my PS2 at a local Best Buy. Ever since that day, it has traveled four times on trips to visit the in-laws (12 hours away, by car) and over to a friends' apartment several dozen times, always travelling in a padded case. It has always been used standing in the upright position. I have completed several PS2 games and even some PS1 games during that time. I've watched dozens of movies on it.
I've never had a problem playing a game. Well, ok, I did once, but that turned out to be a dirty disc and once cleaned it played without problems.
I've only had trouble with two movies that I can think of. One of them was Jurassic Park 3 and the other was The Mexican. Everything else has worked flawlessly, to my knowledge. The glitches have always been at the layer change. One or both of these might have been before I go the updated DVD drivers with my Sony-made remote control.
Others have had trouble with PS2 consoles. Many also had trouble with PSX consoles. Back then, I suspect much of that was because the machines were put on carpet and didn't have adequate ventilation. I always put my PSX on a hard surface, like a large book or a shelf, and never had trouble with it, after four years of heavy use. I wouldn't be surprised if many of the problems with PS2 consoles you read about on USENET and so forth were from habits similar to those that caused problems with PSX machines.
I've had good luck with my systems, using a little care. Others have had trouble. Perhaps it is Sony's problem, but I've seen more than enough games and hardware that were obviously abused to think that much of the problem could well lie with the consumers. Is there a link to data that shows that it's Sony's problem and not the consumers? Something like "here's a list of movies tried with a just-out-of-the-box PS2. See how they don't play?"
I sure hope my luck holds.
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy
Sounds to me like the problem is with the DVDs not being produced to spec, rather than with the PlayStation. Sure, the PlayStation is not a good DVD player by any means, but if a DVD is manufactured out of spec just so people with 'real' DVD players can have more features, with no thought given to people playing DVDs on PCs, Macs, or game systems, well... hard to blame that on Sony. It would be like suing Mozilla for not correctly displaying a page that was made for IE only. "Hey, you said this was a web browser, but it doesn't work with every web page!"
The goatse guy for president. Win one for the gaper!
playing DVD movies rock. I love the zoom and pan ability as well. Maybe all DVD players have that, but it was a nice touch on the XBOX.
I used to use my PS2 to play DVD's. I never had a 'remote' for it though, I justed used the joystick. That wasn't the greatest. But the XBOX DVD/Remote combo worked really well. It's my primary DVD player, you get the AC3 out, as well as HDTV if your TV can handle it. All that other jazz. I'm sure the offset the cost of testing and perfecting the DVD playback capability by forcing users to buy the DVD remote to playback DVD's.
Well worth it in my opinion.
The only issue I had with DVD's and XBOX was when playing Morrowind. I later found out the losers at Bethesda used the "Dirty Disc" error as their catch-all exception handler. So whenever you saw "Dirty Disc" you essentially had an uncaught exception coming from the software. Pathetic.
-Malakai
-Malakai
A Dragon Lives in my Garage
I shouldn't have to explain it to you. BC
It's the web site, not the filing. The lawyers don't create the web site, they create the filing.
I really wonder what the problem exactly is. Are the non-working DVDs out of specs, or just the PS2 cannot read prefectly in-spec DVDs?
For what I've read, the problem is the second one(I can be wrong). In that case, Sony IS responsible for this.
Otherwise, I guess the case would have no merit.
I've had my PS2 for about 6 weeks now and the only problem I had with it (aside from figuring out how to turn it off the first day I got it), was the loud click and "disc error" that only lasted as long as it took me to shut it down, look at the warrantee label, and then spary some canned air into the fan port. Not a single issue with playing DVDs though, and I've done that on many occasions.
At anyrate, aren't all the games themselves DVD discs too? I can understand people getting miffed over having to pay about half the price of a new unit in order to get something "fixed", but I still am completely baffled by this case...
Why do I M2 everything negatively?
One was playing a not entirely legal Power Puff Girls DVD - it seemed to only play the keyframes - while my Samsung POS dvd player handled it fine.
The other problem has been several PS1 discs - Finaly Fantasy 8, Resident Evil 2 - they don't recognise the disc. Not that it matters I still have my old school playstation and it's more than capable of handling these.
I think I may have had the problem they are talking about... a few months back, my PS2 stopped reading any DVD movies. Just kept saying "disc read error". After running a cleaner thru it many times, and dissasembling and blowing out any dust, it still didn't work. So, I turned to the mecca of all answers: google. W/in a few minutes, I had found a solution. I don't think this is the exact same link that I found back then, but it has the same information. The portion that mattered to me was the laser voltage adjustment. A minor turn of the screw, and it's been working flawlessly ever since. (Although I was stumped for a little while until I realized I was turning the wrong screw and adjusting the CD voltage instead of DVD voltage -- doh!) Of course, doing so voids my warranty, but my PS2 was old enough by then to be out of the warranty anyway, so...
Much easier than lawsuits...
However, I do see the point of the lawsuit, considering that apparently Sony's position on this is that you should send or take your unit in for service, costing you around $100-$120...
Sony should just fess up and fix them for free when people have these problems, since it seems to be a widespread enough problem and not just "isolated incidents"...
Place sig here.
I noticed several months back that some video stores had big signs on certain DVD's "Will NOT work on a Playstation 2", I guess a lot of customers were complaining about the compatibility issue with the stores. Not to mention buying Korn's new DVD and also realizing it didn't work. Got the remote for my Xbox though and everything was a-ok.
I havent encountered any problems playing discs on my ps2. However the sound is AWEFULLY low (the tv has to be turned to full volume to hear the dvd at normal tv volume - and this has been tested on 2 tv's) also it sometimes plays things in the wrong aspect - Lee evans live in london plays fullscreen and looks all screwy. My downstairs tv has a widescreen button which squashes it down so it looks fine but my bedroom tv doesent :-(
Slashdot - The one stop shop for procrastination
But then, I wasn't an early adopter.
A DVD may look like a CD, but it's nowhere near as simple. DVDs can have variable bit-rates, rudimentary scripts for menu interaction, all sorts of stuff for subtitles, multi-angles, and so on. The software implementations differ from DVD player to DVD player, and there are always bugs.
The difference here is that there's 40 million or so PS2s out there. It's gotta be the single most numerous model of DVD player on the planet. So any fault makes it ripe for ambulance chasers.
Ive had two different PS2s. I bought one about 2 years ago, used it for a couple months, then sold it when I was strapped for cash. In that time, I never had a problem playing any games, or watching any movies.
Ive had another one for about 9 months or so. I have the sony dvd remote (dont use the updated drivers, because my model already has them built in. Most of the newer ones do, if you RTFM and check), and this is the primary DVD player of the house. I use the optical output for audio, the svideo for video, and everything sounds and looks great. There is a HUGE difference in the looks of several games (maybe movies too, havent checked) when switching from the RCA video out, to svideo.
Anyway, in this time, Ive ran hundreds of dvds through it, and never had a problem playing a single movie. In fact, my dad has 3 different dvd players, 2 cheapies, and a 350$ (at the time) JVC that wont play near all of his dvd's. None of them. He brings them to my house, because my ps2 plays them all. I dont see what everyone is whining about personally.
For Christ's Sake, change the page title! Probably got some high school kid to do the web page. Didn't know what he was doing so got another page as a template and modified it for this PS2 page and forgot to change the <title></title> information.
If putting your games on CD isn't a breakthrough when a console does it, perhaps you could explain why the N64 did so poorly, compared to said PS1?
Here's a hint: one of the advertising campagins for Final Fantasy VII said something like 'Somebody take those cartridge guys out back and given them a cigarette.'
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
"If putting your games on CD isn't a breakthrough when a console does it, perhaps you could explain why the N64 did so poorly, compared to said PS1?"
The N64 didn't do poorly. It did quite well. Being beat by PS1 isn't the same as doing poorly.
As for the PS1, I'll happily concede that it's CD-ROM choice did help in it's success. However, I doubt we'll agree on the reasoning. The PS1 had a shitload of games. (Mostly shit games, so it really was a shitlaod) The cost of entering the PS1 game world was very very low in comparison to the N64. The N64's choice of cartridges made publishing games very expensive and risky. It had fewer games and fewer people interested in it. Despite that, though, it's not clear that Nintendo's most successful games would have been any better with CD. Cheaper, definitely, but better in terms of game play? Doubtful. "Now loading..."
That's all completely off-topic, though. The PS1 was NOT the first, by far, to use CD's as a medium for games. It was not a breakthrough. It was successful, but not a breakthrough.
"Derp de derp."
Sorry about that; new user here. I didn't notice that it posted in HTML by default, hence no paragraph breaks.
My apologies, won't happen again.
Mmmmm.... Pigeons. Sometimes, they come with notes attached...it's like...a fortune cookie with wings.
For further education, find the book "Game Over: Press Start To Continue."
To make a game for the Nintendo/Super Nintendo, and to a lesser extent the N64, you had to buy a batch of carts from Nintendo. Therefore, if you overestimated your sales, you were stuck with carts; underestimate, and you had to wait several months(!) for the big N to make you some more. Carts were expensive. Oh, and for the Nintendo, at least, big N limited you to five titles per year.
Now, the PS1; cds are dirt cheap to make. Any production house can stamp out hundreds of thousands over the weekend. You didn't need to go through Sony. You could do a small run, or a big run.
Suddenly, it's worth doing a 'niche' title. You have tons of space to play with, instant reproduction, no licensing fees, no dealing with a forced vendor, and no worrying that the price of RAM chips is going to go up, or your order won't be filled any time soon because Dragon Warrior 3 or Final Fantasy 3 is taking up the world's available cart-manufacturing capability.
It was a breakthrough in that it was the first mainstream console to do it; on the PC, you had Myst at the time. You had the CD-I; flop. You had the SegaCD; useless. Oh, and the Saturn; fine. But the PS was originally supposed to be an add-on to the Super Nintendo; it simply got released late.
In terms of gameplay? Hell yes. The N64 had some sweet texture processing capability; if only you could have had a CD full of textures. If only Mario 64 had more than five or six digital sound samples; Conker managed to squeeze an entire game's worth of dialog into a cart, but it was one of the last games out; took them that long to figure out how.
Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
Has anyone contacted Sony support and been told that they have to pay to fix their PS/2 if it doesn't play / red dual layer DVD properly?
"Now, the PS1; cds are dirt cheap to make. Any production house can stamp out hundreds of thousands over the weekend. You didn't need to go through Sony. You could do a small run, or a big run."
Fair point. I think you make sense, but I'm not willing to concede for the simple reason that they're not the first to do it. PCs have an even lower barrier to entry (even in the PS1 days) and were quite successful with CD-ROM titles. Heck, people could put out games for free without any media at all, simply using BBS's and eventually the internet. That's how ID was started.
In any case, Sony was quite successful and I respect that. I'm just not willing to throw the term 'breakthrough' at it. The technology was already proven and the business model was made viable by the rapidy dropping prices of burning CDs. See what I mean?
"Derp de derp."
Could it be that the reason that some of these DVDs are not playable is because they have strong anti-piracy encryption, and therefore don't comform to the standards?
By this example you'd think it was okay to sue CD-player companies for their older players that do not play some moderns CDs (anti-piracy reasons). When in fact, the players work perfectly fine on CDs that comform to the standards. It's not their fault that companies are selling coasters and calling them CDs.
ok, someone posted these instructions on how to fix it (http://www.geocities.com/djyayo/PS2errorFAQ.txt) and i followed those instructions to clean the lense on my ps2 (i bought it soon after they came out, so i have no warranty anyways) and it worked like a charm. all of my ps2 blue cd games that didn't work, now work again, as well as all of the dvds that didn't play before.
huzzah!
i kinda feel like kramer when he used that balm during his coffee lawsuit.
Gabriel Ricard