With Hollywood tech comes the occasional lurking gremlin.
That’s been the situation with the Blu-ray disc format during the past month. Paramount on Wednesday recalled 100,000 copies of a special edition of “Saving Private Ryan” because of an audio-synchronization problem. The snafu comes a few weeks after some purchasers of Fox’s Blu-ray version of “Avatar” discovered that their machines require firmware upgrades to play the movie.
The “Ryan” ruckus is tied to an authoring process used by its vendor, Technicolor.
“Technicolor has been a valuable partner to Paramount Home Entertainment, and both Paramount and Technicolor are committed to providing the highest-quality product to consumers,” PHE president Dennis Maguire said in announcing the recall.
Retailers were told to pull “Ryan” inventory from shelves, to be replaced by Tuesday with corrected copies. Domestic consumers with troublesome discs were asked to call (888) 370-8621 to request replacements.
The audio difficulties — limited to Chapter 15 of the “Ryan” special edition, which went on sale May 4 — involved discs shipped in North America, the U.K. and Benelux territories.
In the case of “Avatar,” released April 22 on DVD and Blu-ray, electronics manufacturers have asked consumers to visit company websites to download required firmware updates or to get contact info to request discs loaded with the upgrades be sent by mail.
