I've recently purchased a Foxy DVD on the Barry Attack (trying to develop a 1.d4 repetoire) and my DVD player doesn't like it. If it loads, it freezes after about 30 minutes. I've never been able to watch the entire DVD and most of the time I just get Disc Error.

The DVD players has absolutely no problems with any DVD that I get through blockbuster or any other DVD that I've bought. The only time I've had this kind of problem is when I've tried to view DVD's that I've burned at home.

Are Foxy DVD's just very low quality?

I have rented (and purchased some used) dvd's that simply refuse to play on our dvd player which is a fairly new one. When I tried them in the computer they worked just fine. I don't know what the problem is but I'd suggest trying it in the computer just too see if it plays.

On the other hand, that may not be good for your pc. I lost a perfectly good DVD drive because I played a bunch of new DVDs purchased legally at respectable shops.

As a sidenote, when I play 'legal' DVDs, it generally shows a notice that illegal DVDs may damage your playback device; from personal experience I can say the opposite is true.

I have two Foxy Openings DVD's (on the Morra Gambit Accepted and Declined), and I've never had a problem with them in my DVD player or my PC. In fact, there's only one movie I've had a problem, and that was in the DVD player (never tried it in the computer).

I do think the Foxy Openings DVD's are pretty cheap, though. The two I have were obviously just VHS tapes that they copied to a DVD, with no menus or anything. You can't even "skip" directly to the start of the next chapter. You have to hunt around to find the starts of various sections. The quality of the material is good enough to make them worthwhile, though.

--Fromper

Eladar

There are a few things that can cause the symptoms you are describing. First some DVD players, especially older ones, have older firmware that have a difficult time decoding different types of DVD media. i.e. -R. +R, +-R, RW types, duel layer, ect Each DVD player is different and require different sets of firmware. Most of the time this firmware is not easily upgraded, but can be upgraded. You should be able to go online to see how your standalone DVD player is upgraded.

The firmware decodes a binary image that is created by your DVD player's laser which brings us to another consideration. If you laser gets weak or misaligned, it could have a hard time reading specific types of media while having no problems at all with others. While this is not typical it can still happen and generally a sign your laser is going to fail.

Also, the speed at which foxy burns the DVDs has a great effect on the quality at which you DVD play can read the disk. Because time is money most companies burn at a high rate of speed. This produces a higher rate of failures but the failure rate is still rare and giving the customer a new DVD is much cheaper than verifying each DVD at pre-ship.

I don't know what media foxy uses but some smaller companys will a codec known as SVCD or KVCD. This allows the use of a CD to be played in a standalone DVD player. I don't think foxy would put out poor quality like this but alot of illegally sold software is typically done this way. While I was in Afghanistan almost every illeagal movie disk I purchase was encoded on a CD.
(although only illeagal if I broght them home....ummm...which I didn't)

I'm not sure if this helps but thought I would let you know.