Take it back to see if you can exchange it. Depending on your player and how old it is, some players take 2-3 minutes to load. By any chance, did you switch out the disc and try another disc to see if it works quickly?
As for “Starship Troopers”, I believe the issue is with Panasonic Blu-ray players especially DMP-BD60’s but not with other players.
I do know that some people had issues with playing the “Days of Heaven” Blu-ray with a similar problem and similar to the Panasonic, they had to add an SD card or USB drive, take it off from the back and replugging it in.
Not sure why but some players are requiring for a USB or SD card inserted. And those who are having problems….just taking it out and plugging back in.
Is your system up to date? Sometimes they need a firmware update for newer blurays.
Another reason I went with the PS3 option.
I remember having a problem with Pineapple Express and it was an issue with the Blue-ray live features trying to load automatically and there was some option of my PS3 as I’m sure there is an option on your player where you have to change the setting to “cofirm” rather than automatic connection or something like that and then choose no when it asks to connect. Not sure if that is going to solve your problem, but it worked for me for that particular film.
Making sure firmware is up to date is always the best first step.
I had exactly the same problem with The Red Shoes. I left it sitting there for a few minutes and nothing. I took my copy back to the store and they tried it on their machine and the same thing. I was going to exchange it for a copy of Black Narcissus but the store tried playing their rental copy just to be sure and again, nothing but the gray Criterion C in the top corner (glad to hear your copy works). I still have to update my player, but every other recent Criterion (my most recent is Ride With the Devil) works fine. I’d bet on a faulty batch of discs.
Yeah . . . it happens.
B&N told me to bring it back and they’ll exchange it.
I checked it out at “dvdbeaver” and saw that the Blu-Ray of “Red Shoes” uses 49,569,258,077 bytes on the disc while “Black Narcissus” takes up 47,668,686,014 bytes. Relatively, not much difference. “Black Narcissus” loads; “Red Shoes” doesn’t.
I’ll report back after trying the replacement disc.
I recall Jimi Plays Monterey & Shake! Otis At Monterey loading quite slowly.
@Christian – That could be your player? Do you have an older Blu-ray player? Esp. one that is not a profile 2.0 (can’t be updated via firmware and no connection to the Internet)? Certain Blu-rays will load longer….around 2-3 minutes for some titles. For example, on my older BD player, my LOST Blu-ray season box sets take several minutes to load.
It was at my college library. They are lower end players.
@CHRISTIAN – OK, yeah…the lower end or older players take a while to load. Definitely a common problem with older or cheaper players. Even some expensive players back then had longer loading times.
@CINEASTE – Hopefully, things are working now after the exchange.
cineaste
Before now, the only other time I’ve had this problem was with Sony’s Blu-Ray disc of “Starship Troopers” The film wouldn’t load at all.
Tonight, I had the same problem with Criterion’s Blu-Ray of “The Red Shoes”. The Criterion logo appears but doesn’t load thereafter; no menu, nothing.
I’ve read that, for “Starship Troopers”, you need to add an SD card or Flash Drive to one’s player and the disc will then load and play. Could this also be the case with “The Red Shoes”?
Has anyone else had this problem? If not, perhaps this one disc is defective. Criterion’s Blu-Ray of “Black Narcissus” loads and plays beautifully.