If it plays fine, why mess with it? Scratches happen. I've accidentally dropped a disc and a minor scratch might occur. If you have a decent player, you won't notice a scratch during playback (depending on direction of scratch)... as you found out. Why spend time, aggrevation and gas on something that works fine. IMO, it's just not worth the worry.

Don't mix-up scratches with cracks. A crack could get worse from the pressures of the hub (and from the pulling and pushing). Granted, sometimes it's hard to tell one from another. If it seems to increase in size over time, it's probably a crack.

In terms of playing, the only two discs that have ever faltered on me were Star Wars (bad pixelation and stuttering prior to the layer change) and Futurama volume 4, disc 4, (doing an episode selection from the main manu caused the disc to stutter and freeze up, although the "play all" wasn't affected).

As for physical defects...well, way more often than I would care about. Who are these clowns that are putting the discs into the cases, anyway? I notice that some DVDs from some studios have no fingerprints or scratches on them, so I assume they're put in automatically by machines. But most others are not. Whether or not a disc plays fine with the scratches and all isn't the point -- I like keeping my discs in pristine looking condition. Secondly, it severely diminishes the disc's value if I have to sell it/trade it in, in which it might not be accepted for that.

I agree. I sometimes sell DVDs that I no longer want and if they are scratched or otherwise defective I can't do that.

I have had many defective discs. The Babylon 5 sets were notorious for floaters because the digipack hubs didn't hold the discs tightly or they weren't put on the hubs all the way. And I had a season 4 disc that froze part way through two episodes (one on each layer). Had to replace that one. The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine sets had a defective disc that Paramount replaced free of charge. But when I tried to get another defective disc replaced they blew me off and told me to take it back to the store (but it was way too late by then).

The defects do make me concerned about the handful of DVDs I haven't gotten around to watching yet but, overall, the number of defective discs is only a small proportion of the total. So, odds are that any single disc will be ok. But I sure wish that studios would stand behind their products and set up an exchange system for defective DVDs, regardless of when the defect appears.

I'm super anal about any physical flaws on the disc, but I'm learning to toterlate some defects that don't affect play back..

For example, discs that appears as follows:

http://members.shaw.ca/johnsun_ebay/DVD.jpg

I tried to bring a similar disc back once and the retailer refused saying it won't affect playback.. So I just started to live with discs like these.. BTW: does anyone know what happened to create the darker areas? I heard it might be separation of the layers?

Also, I have these halogen track lighting in my living room and really brings out flaws that is harder to see under a normal light bulb.. Anyone else noticed that type of light might bring out more flaws?
Thanks
John

I'm closing in on 2000 discs. Never had a problem. I vote for rare.