Good lord, will it never end. Read this link and let's finally put the "melting glue" boogeyman to bed:

http://www.oto-online.com/jul01/basics.html

Or just do a google search yourself and read the countless pages of other reliable technical information from people who actually know what they're talking about.

good info in that link. although I'm tempted to toss a few discs onto the sidewalk, or slip a flathead inside to test it's grip, I'll just pray that the peel strength is all they think it should be. what the hell, wheres that Kung Pow dvd...time for surgery.

You seem to automatically assume the "Disc" is bad when in fact it may well be your "player"! If the disc is indeed bad then it would not play in ANY player! The odds are more likely of a player going bad and not being able to play certain discs it used to, then having the disc go bad. The lasers on the player can go out of alignment or get dirty which gives the player less tolerances to play some discs that may be less then perfectly made. Also DVD's can get fine scratches in the wrong place on a disc and players that are more sensitive to these fine scratches can all the sudden stop being able to read the discs.

CD and DVD Replication process

Yep! I've never had a problem playing a disc on my Sony DVD players, but have had issues with the same discs on my old Pioneer DVL 700 combi-player and cheapo Daewoo all-code players.

Very True! I'm sure there are some glitches to be found in some DVDs (they are software), but by far the majority of problems seem to be with DVD players. I've gone through 3 players over the past 4 years or so, and if there is a DVD player out there for under $200 that plays even 75% of the time without flaws I have yet to find it. I have a good but not great TV (JVC 27" Flat) and HT (Kenwood) so I hate to have shell out $400 or $500 for a player, but I am getting really sick of the lousy playback I get on my Samsung ($150 MSRP) and JVC ($109 MSRP). A bit off topic, but any recommendations for a decent player would be appreciated. By decent, I mean R1, DTS, sensible menu options and the ability to play CDs and DVDs without skipping, pausing, badly pixelated image or shuting off during play as my current players do.

I've been trying to convince some folks that sub-par DVD players are also responsible for poor VCD playback. While it is true that VCD picture quality is no where near DVD, on a player "tuned" to play VCDs (and not just as a happy coincidence), picture quality is on par with the best pre-recorded VHS tapes.

Although I've had it for 2 years, my Pioneer DV-434 DVD player is still going strong. VCD playback is outstanding. And despite reviews stating how poor the progressive scan feature is, I have found it to be quite acceptable.

Laserdisc is a format that was notorious for "laser rot". But if a disc was fine, it stayed fine, and lasted for years. My King Kong Criterion is coming up on being 25 years old!!!! (that's older than I am) and it plays like the day it was new. If a laserdisc can last this long then I am confident that a DVD will last at least that long too.

Soon they'll be breeding us like cattle! You've got to warn everyone and tell them! Soylent green is made of people! You've got to tell them! Soylent green is people!

The only problems I've ever had with DVD's (which is rare) is when I first bought them and the DVD had a problem from the get go.

This is completely irrelevant to the discussion of "DVD rot". The process used to bond two substrates ("platters") of a DVD-5 or DVD-10 disc is completely different from that used for DVD-9 (and DVD-18, for that matter). There is no requirement to be able to read through such a bond, and therefore its thickness and transparency can vary greatly (within certain tolerances). However, the bond between layers of a DVD-9 must be of a precise thickness, and the optical attributes of the bond must exactly match the rest of the materials, or else the refraction will not be consistent, and read errors will result.

For these reasons, the bond between DVD-5 or DVD-10 substrates is much less likely to fail, but even if it does, it will be behind the reflective surface, and will not interefere with the operation of the disc. That is why there have never been any reported cases of "DVD rot" on single layered discs.


"Rot" is a very bad term, because, in fact, there is no decomposition taking place. There is a delamination taking place, but nothing has decomposed. Even those cases involving the microscopic "speckles" do not indicate that any decomposition is taking place. That syndrome is more likely a chemical reaction that also takes place over time, caused by impurities present at the time of manufacture.

The point of all of this is that there is no systemic degradation occurring in DVDs. There is a percentage of discs that exhibit one or more signs of manufacturing defects, most of which are not readily apparent when a disc is initially manufactured. But, if a given disc does not contain one of these defects from day one, it will never develop them.

There are simply too many people wringing their hands, worrying that their entire collections are about to self-destruct, when no such possibility exists, and the use of the term "DVD rot" only exacerbates the problem.