per a suggestion on the blu-ray.com forums, I turned off 24p output on the BD player. Now it works.
That you have to turn that off is ridiculous in the first place. They probably instituted some new copy protection scheme that isn’t compatible with older players.
Probably. But what doesn’t make sense to me is that 24p settings have anything to do with copy protection schemes.
It kinda/sorta makes sense.
I had the exact same problem on my sony S5200 player as well. I picked up the 4k combo thursday morning at best buy on my way into work. I don’t have any 4k gear, but I’ve been future-proofing the physical media purchases whenever possible. In any event, that part is irrelevant since this issue has also been affecting people who only bought the regular blu. It’s the exact same bd whether it comes with a dvd or a uhd.
Anyway, finally got home late that night, unwrapped the plastic, threw the blu-ray into the player, saw what I assumed to be the background for the language select screen Disney always loves showing us first on all their titles and … the languages didn’t appear. Worse, my player completely locked up and I had to unplug the power just so I could start over. It randomly worked the second time, and I watched the movie all the way through (my first viewing since catching a 12:45 AM screening at the Uptown here in DC back on that first Thursday night in December!) before starting the audio commentary and getting a few scenes in before passing out. When I tried it again the next day it froze up again forcing me to unplug the power, and kept doing so even after nearly a dozen attempts. I have no idea why it randomly worked the second time the night before.
I tried messing with some of the player’s other settings. It should go without saying I made sure the firmware was up to date. I swear this is the very first disc I’ve had any problems with since getting the player three years ago. Finally I tried turning off 24p as suggested on the blu-ray.com forums, and the disc loaded successfully.
My theory?
This new breed of DRM that Disney put on the disc is finding something suspicious about the hardware chain in the player and thinks something on the other end of the hdmi connection might be trying to capture the native 24p signal coming off the disc. That’s why switching to 60p gets the disc working, because the DRM doesn’t care as much (I guess?) about the hdmi signal being captured on the other end if it’s had 3:2 pulldown applied to it and is no longer the pure 24p source itself.