thats all a bit extreme. I've been concerned for years now, but I have not let that destroy my enjoyment for adding films to my library. to think that you are going to lose your entire collection is nuts. I blame quality control but it's not the same everywhere. I'm closing in on 1,700 titles and rotate my older discs often....and 20 or so defective discs...I can deal with. many of my early discs have been played to death...but they are not dead.

be aware of the problem and fight for prevention. "nip it in the bud'...before it can get worse. anything made by man runs a risk of not being done right. they need to admit to shotty work, then improve it.

during this time...you can still enjoy what most well-made dvds have to offer. many, many years of enjoyment.

I do add titles now and then, but not as I used to before. Now I only buy big titles like LOTR or Harry Potter. In the old days I used to buy like crazy, but now I rent from netflix.

If that's the case, it really sucks. Especially considering dvd buyers have proven their willingness to double-dip when a superior version comes out. It seems the only people who would win with this scenario are big time rental places like Blockbuster. With piracy where it's at right now, something so obscenely greedy as making self-destructive dvds would certainly push a lot of folks over the edge.

Agreed that something's rotten in Denmark if this problem becomes epidemic as the years pass. However, as it is, I own over 800 dvds, have been collecting since the late 90's, and haven't had a single case of rot yet. I know people have had real problems, but if it's just a matter of a few discs here and there, it's got to be a fluke occurrence. Then again, I never bought THE NEGOTIATOR or CONTACT. Do own quite a few ancient Warner titles, though.

This article is kind of interesting.

http://www.tcs.org/ioport/jun04/dvd.htm

According to the National Science Academy, freezing your CDs @ 17 degrees fahrenheit w/bicarbonate of soda [Arm& Hammer] will extend CD life 75 years +
http://www.cd-info.com/CDIC/CDLite/LongLife.html

Ditto. I've pretty much stopped altogether. I'll buy the SW set plus ROTK widescreen but that may be it for me.

I have plenty of audio CDs with pinholes you can see through now if hold it up to a light (some of the holes are pretty sizeable now). It's an obvious deterioration, which did not exist before. So it's no urban myth. And I take very good care of all my discs.

That article makes a lot of sense. It probably wouldn't take much thermal cycling to make the DVDs data layer start to come loose inside the disc, given the tremendous difference in thermal expansion rates between metal and plastic.

Damn - I've had some of my best DVDs sitting right in front of an A/C outlet. My LOTR EEs, IJ Trilogy, Jack Ryan set, 24 season 1 - aaack! (Moved them immediately).

I don't believe that "pin holes" in CDs are any sign of deterioration, just a cosmetic manufacturing defect. I've never had a single CD "go bad," with one exception.

I have an import Faith No More Live at Brixton Academy CD that looks like its bronzing. This CD is one of a number of a "run" of CDs that were improperly manufactured, and suffer from problems. The edges on the label side are coppery/rusty colored, though the CD itself still seems to play fine. I've copied it to CD-R for comparison purposes, and I plan on keeping an eye on it.

I believe that the label has offered to replace any defective CDs free of charge.

And another thing about CD Rot.

I believe that the question that needs to be answered is whether or not what we're seeing is a case of discs that are rendered unplayable due to manufacturing defects, making such things isolated cases, or if it's a fault with the medium itself and we can expect all of our DVDs to eventually fail.

I've yet to have a DVD actually become unplayable over time, but one occasionally gives me problems. I sometimes get "break-up" in the opening five minutes of the "Angel" episode of the second DVD of the Buffy Season One set.

I check that disc occasionally, and sometimes it plays perfectly, and other times I get problems. One thing that I have noticed is that it tends to show MPEG break-up if my player has been on a long time before I put the disc in. If I power up the player from a long period of inactivity and play the episode, it plays fine. So I'm thinking that it's possibly a player issue. Which doesn't mean the disc isn't "rotting" because it could just be that it's so far minor enough to only show up under certain conditions.

I think people expect products to be fairly durable. Particularly, most people cannot, and do not want to replace a large movie collection every five years.

A lot of people here have spent thousands of dollars on movies, and I don't believe they did that with the expectation that those DVDs would have to be replaced in five years.

The DVD format has generated movie sales unprecedented in home video. This has a lot to do with the faster retail release time brought about by the elimination of rental pricing and the special features included with movies. For people that you wouldn't normally think of as movie geeks, Tuesday has become new release day.

But if these discs start rotting after five years, the mainstream audience will be lost for home video for decades, and I'm going with it.

Contact is a bad batch, and I think there was even a recall for that one. These anecdotal problems could be the result of problems with your player or idiosyncratic manufacturing. But if whole segments of people's large collections start becoming unusable, there will be problems.

If anyone has a DVD they really hate, or some free advertising disc, try this - put it in your freezer for an hour or so, then take it out and put it in the sun. Do this three or four times, then see if it plays - post your results here. This would test my hypothesis about thermal cycling causing the layers to seperate.

Unfortunately, I don't have any DVDs I want to trash, though I will try to get some promo ones.

You people who have had discs fail - is it possible there were ever times when you kept them in less-than-optimal storage? Maybe next to a window or A/C vent? Or left in a car in the summer or winter, when it might have reached a temp extreme?

Now that you mention it [gulp]... some of our older DVDs, (including our now defunct copy of Twister), MAY have been exposed to extreme temperature fluctuations during one or both of the two long distance moves we made in '00/'01 (CA->WI->CA, unfortunately we had too many DVDs to transport them ourselves). We were told the truck would be climate controlled, but who knows.

Since then all of our DVDs have been in glass doored cabinets in a den, away from vents, with a pretty constant temperature (my husband works from home so the temp is always about the same). We even keep the blinds closed to keep the sunlight off them (we luuuve our DVDs!)

Here is an excellent article on DVD rot from Jun 22, 2004

PC world article

Here is an excerpt:

Similar to the "laser rot" that cropped up in some early laserdiscs, DVD rot makes discs unplayable by impairing the ability of their aluminum layer to reflect light. Its most likely causes include oxidation caused by air coming into contact with the reflective layer, a galvanic reaction between a dual-layer disc's gold and aluminum coatings, and a chemical reaction triggered by impurities in either the disc's adhesive or in the aluminum itself. The good news is that although the aluminum coatings of a small percentage of discs manufactured before 2001 have slowly deteriorated spontaneously, the vast majority of reported cases of DVD rot have been shown to be due to user mishandling.

Well I can assure you that I have audio CDs from the mid 80s that used to play perfectly and now they stop when they hit one of these "pin holes". They didn't used to be there, and a couple of my discs are now riddled with them. If you hold them up to a bright light, you can see them all very clearly.

no...I'm no dvd rookie, nor some kind of maroon. sure, some people live like slobs and mishandle their collection. true, they may have no common sense. I'll stick with blaming the folks at quality control....napping in the break room.

Sorry if this is already available on some other thread, but does anyone keep a list of problem dvds that have been known to rot? I'd like to quality check my collection, but it'd take me forever to check all of 'em.

Is it just me or is almost every dvd if not every dvd discussed here from Warner Brothers? Hmmm.....

It's not just you, based on the thread title, I think it was the general impression of the original poster that WB discs MAY have a higher number of bad discs than other studios (just speculating here, not trying to put words in anyone's mouth).

My personal opinion (FWIW) is that ordinarily DVDs don't "rot" or stop working, but that some discs, particularly older ones (my Twister disc was released and purchased in '00) may be susceptible to the infamous rot or other damage due to manufacturing defects and the right combination of conditions. I'm not concerned and see no reason to expect that the vast majority of the DVDs I purchased prior to 2001 are just going to stop working.

The problem is that a manufacturing defect that's obvious from the start is only a mild inconvenience (you can easily exchange it), but when it's 4 years later, you're basically SOL unless it's a widespread problem and the studio steps up and offers replacements (didn't that happen with Anchor Bay and some problem discs like Heathers?)

It doesn't take a moron or a rookie to have a DVD or two get mishandled on occasion. I had a power outage for a week in Dec 2002, the temp in my house dipped into the 30's at night and back to the 50s during the day. Or maybe the day you purchased them they were left in your car for a couple hours at 120 degrees. Or you lend them to a friend or relative who isn't quite as careful as you.

Heck, I have had several of my discs sitting near an a/c duct - while I doubt that the 15-20 degree variance in air coming from the duct when the a/c or furnace is running is the type of "extreme temps" that would cause problems, it is a remote possibilty that even slight differential thermal expansion repeated over and over, day in and day out could cause some damage to the reflective layer.

This thread lists defective discs, though I'm not sure if it's still updated or if they specifically discuss discs that "rot" (the whole topic of the validity of rot still appears to be up for debate):

Collective list of defective DVDs and further information

If you read the article I linked to, it doesn't seem that the validity of rot is up for debate, but rather the extent. As the article said, it seems to be limited to "a small percantage of discs manufactured prior to 2001".

I suggest checking any DVD manufactured by WAMO, which can include discs from Image, MGM, and Warner. Just look for the name on the inner portion of the DVD to verify. So far I have only found 2 rotted discs in my collection and they were both WAMO discs. Fortunately they are good about replacing DVDs that go bad if you contact them and ask for a replacement.

What colour are you then Gut?

Like a lot of people this whole issue concerns me...but not to the point where it intrudes upon my enjoyment of watching and owning films that i like to have in my own collection...and agree whilst i don't ever think that even with the strictest of quality control you are going to totally eradicate the problem( after all nothing is ever perfect) it should still be the case that this issue isn't really at the forefront of discussion.

Actually I meant still up for debate on this forum. Some people still seem doubtful of the whole idea of rot and I've read other articles that dispute the concept, (though that was several years ago I think <--memory failing me already!)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I personally DO believe a small number of older discs are susceptible to rot (including my copy of Twister), apparently if there are manufacturing defects and/or they are exposed to the right conditions.