Re: DVD Rot ?
 

Looks like there may be a replacement program with the WB DVDs

https://www.theverge.com/news/626482...08-replacement

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

Time to go through the list and test out the discs I have.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

I'm not sure if I agree with the statement "The issue comes down to the way the discs were authored." as the problem seems to stem from manufacturing faults with the dual-layer (DVD-9) disc format. If the disc played fine 15 years ago and then suddenly stalls at the mid-way point, that's a physical problem with how the two layers were bonded together at the manufacturing stage.

In my experience the single-layer (DVD-5) discs seem to be fine whether they are the main feature (bare-bones, no extras) or were often the format of choice for the secondary "Special Features" disc.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

I think the writer of the JoBlo piece confused "authoring" with "manufacturing."

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

Back when Pioneer manufactured and distributed laserdiscs, they had a lifetime guarantee where they would replace any title that went bad. That should be the case for these.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

Round 2 of going through the "Death List":

Astaire and Rogers Collection (The same as TCM's Fred & Ginger 4-pack? If so, All played fine for me)
Arsenic and Old Lace (I've got this via TCM Cary Grant set. The old menus seem to look like the Snapper version. Regardless, it plays fine)
Austin Powers in Goldmember (Fine)
Black Legion (Fine)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (I've got this in a 20-set Liz Taylor collection. Don't know if it's from the "Tennesse Williams" line but it's bare-bones and played fine)
City for Conquest (Part of TCM's Cagney set. The movie played fine but there was some freezing during the middle of "Breakdowns of 1940". Such a shame because the Breakdowns are among my most favorite WB extras)
Destination Tokyo (Fine)
Dog Day Afternoon SE (I've got this as a 2-pack with Serpico. Hence, it's just "Disc 1" but it played fine)
Each Dawn I Die (Fine)
Eight Legged Freaks (Snapper and it's fine)
Eyes Wide Shut (Is "Director's Series" the same as "Stanley Kubrick Collection"? If so, the snapper's still fine)
Fort Apache/Rio Bravo (I've got this as a flipper 4-set as TCM's "John Wayne Westerns". Fort Apache was fine but Rio Bravo froze up after an hour. I bought this set used, btw)
G-Men (Fine)
Julis Caesar (Part of my Brando set. Fine)
Rebel Without a Cause (Do they mean the 2-disc? Mine was fine)
Reflections in a Golden Eye (Another one from the Brando set. Played fine)
Strangers on a Train 2-Disc (Fine)
Superman II-Donner Cut (Fine)
The Pirate (Fine)
The Yakuza (Part of my Mitchum set. MAJOR freezing past the hour mark. This was also bought used and could have been an old wound)
Vacation/European Vacation (I was worried about this one, but both were fine)
Watch on The Rhine (Fine)

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

Snapper cases were phased out around 2003ish, so any DVD in a snapper case should be good.

I own literally thousands of WB DVDs. There's no chance I'm going through my collection testing them. 2005 is when the studios and their pressing plants started really cutting corners on DVD as they were already switching focus to HD DVD and BD.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

I agree the snapcase titles should be fine. The main problems in my collection were the new releases and often the collector editions which came out between 2006-2009.

MGM titles I encountered were from the same era and probably from the same plant;

Species (2-disc Collector's Edition)
A Fish Called Wanda (2-disc Collector's Edition)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (2-disc Collector's Edition)

Here in Canada, the New Line Cinema titles were distributed through Alliance Home Video and so far I haven't noticed any issues with those titles.

The quickest way to find out if your discs work or not is to go to the menu chapter selection and pick a chapter at the midway point. If it plays, it's probably okay... for now.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

It's this one:


https://cimg8.ibsrv.net/gimg/dvdtalk...1a578589ed.jpg

Which was also included in this boxed set:


https://cimg0.ibsrv.net/gimg/dvdtalk...2df4af0780.jpg

I have the boxed set, and my EWS DVD from it shit the bed. It's the same SE discs as the standalone release but has a different cover -- it's all black but has a mask on the cover instead of Tom and Nicole.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

Your old DVDs are suffering disc rot — Warner Bros. will replace them: ‘They curdle like milk

Your DVDs are dying — and it’s got nothing to do withstreaming apps.DVDs might be a thing of the past, but if you’re someone who kept your collection, you’ll want to check if they’ve fallen victim to disc rot — especially if they are titles distributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE).

Disc rot is not necessarily a new phenomenon, but according to Sony, DVDs have a life expectancy of up to 100 years if cared for properly.

WBHE, the home movie distribution arm of Warner Bros. Discovery, acknowledged in a statement to movie news and reviews site JoBlo that many of their DVDs manufactured between 2006 and 2008 are prematurely failing.

“Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is aware of potential issues affecting select DVD titles manufactured between 2006 – 2008, and the company has been actively working with consumers to replace defective discs,” the statement said.

“Where possible, the defective discs have been replaced with the same title. However, as some of the affected titles are no longer in print or the rights have expired, consumers have been offered an exchange for a title of like-value.”

While WBHE discs aren’t the only ones at risk of falling victim to DVD rot, it appears to have been a problem for years among collectors and film lovers, making them stand out.

People have been posting about these disc rots in particular on forums such as DVD Talk and Home Theater Forum.

YouTuber Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader shared a video in 2021 that suggests there’s a wider range of discs that have been affected than what Warner Bros. acknowledged in their statement.


Crusader claimed that the disc rot problems “centered mostly around classic films and box sets but also extends to some TV seasons and standalone releases.”

The YouTuber compiled a master list of “reported and confirmed” Warner Home Video DVDs that have rotted. In another Google Doc he created, he blames the faulty discs that were manufactured “roughly from 2006 through 2009” on a Cinam manufacturing plant in Olyphant, Pennsylvania. Warner Bros. did not substantiate the claim, Ars Technica reported.

“They all go bad. They curdle like milk,” YouTuber and DVD collector RetroBlasting said in a March 2024 video.


If you’re trying to figure out if your DVD collection has rotted, Crusader suggests looking for any playback issues, such as DVDs that won’t load at all, freeze while watching or have unplayable special features.

Warner Bros. advised consumers with affected products to contact the customer support team at [email protected].

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

Nice to see the WB fiasco finally getting more widespread attention, long after I went through my exchange saga with WHV in 2018. God knows how many Warner DVDs on my shelf have turned bad since l last checked. Maybe I should do that again soon, but the whole ordeal was stressful AF. The one positive (if you can call it that) is that it killed my impulse purchases by shattering most of the security I felt in owning physical media. Hell, I still haven't bothered to unwrap the box of replacements Sherri Bogard finally sent out back then. I was dealing with some personal crises at the time and just never got around to it.

I realize this was mostly isolated to one studio and manufacturing era, but I've only added around 20 new titles to my collection in the last seven years. Considering how many WB discs I had that were effected by this, it just sucked the fun right out of the hobby for me. While not outright admitting they're well aware of the source of the problem, at least the company is finally acknowledging on record these "potential issues" with 2006-2008 stock. That's certainly better than what they tried to tell me on a call with WHV seven years ago - which was basically, "Oh, well. Nothing lasts forever. Are you done now? You're cutting into my lunch hour." -ohbfrank-

I just watched a video on this subject that someone uploaded to YouTube yesterday. They even referenced one of the problem titles I first brought up in this very thread (4 Film Favorites: King of Horror). I'd posted that the Dreamcatcher side of the flipper disc would not load and had become discolored. The vlogger read off my quote and mentioned his copy of it was fine, while showing the data side of his (single-sided) DVD of Dreamcatcher to the camera. I guess he didn't realize his copy was a later pressing released after WB abandoned flipper discs on those multi-packs.

In my experience, it's mostly two-disc editions and box sets pressed during this period that became defective. It's poor manufacturing regardless, but the popular theory is that the sealant that bonded the data layers of the discs wasn't cured properly (perhaps why some discs felt slightly tacky at the edge), causing the layers to slowly separate over time. l suppose boxed sets could have been more susceptible if the edges were touched by human hands right after pressing in order to package the discs in those folding sets with the plastic overlapping disc trays. The only single disc WB releases I checked that had become coasters were Twilight Zone: The Movie and the Donner Cut of Superman II.

That's another positive change from when I was going through this process. There were several titles WHV claimed were out-of-print (like Twilight Zone: The Movie and the Veronica Mars seasons) and they didn't offer me squat in the way of any like-value alternative. Those defective copies are still sitting in the bottom drawer of my dresser after all this time - just in case they ever came back in print and I could possibly exchange them later.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

So far I've only encountered one WB disc in my collection that's unplayable due to (very obvious) disc rot--my Blu-ray of THE GETAWAY (1972).
I ran through the list linked in the NY Post article and bolded 24 titles in my collection that I need to check. (THE GETAWAY isn't even listed.)
I just inspected three of them and the discs look just fine. I'll try playing them all later.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

One thing that bugs me with these recent articles on the WB situation is that they're usually paired with photos of discs that have deteriorated aluminum layers. This is not what these defective Warner titles look like:

https://d1oqwsnd25kjn6.cloudfront.ne...jpg?1499842288

The defective WB discs usually look perfectly fine to the naked eye, but become completely unreadable or start to freeze and skip at the layer change - presumably caused by data layer separation due to faulty manufacturing. It's frustrating to see people in the comments section of these articles chalking the problem up to improper handling/storage, while claiming their DVDs have never deteriorated like the ones in these photos. Instead, they should check if they own any of the titles on the list and actually try skipping ahead to the end credits.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

That's the catch, all of the Warner dual-layer titles (and some 2006-2008 MGM/20th Century titles, in my experience) which have rotted will appear immaculate. Playing the content beyond the midway point will determine whether they are a coaster or not.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

DVD Rot has been an ongoing problem. Old heads will remember that in the late 90s and early 00s there were a number of Anchor Bay (remember them?) DVDs that were prone to rot: Frankenstein Created Woman, Heathers, Kentucky Fried Movie, among others. And I think HBO's From the Earth to the Moon set had a lot of rot problems, too. It tends to effect batches of discs that were made with substandard materials and/or processes, but it also strike random titles, too. And double-sided discs with one or two RSDL sides (DVD-14 and DVD-18) also tend to be problematic.

But, yeah, for a long as DVDs have been rotting, there are have always been people who accuse you mishandling your DVDs or improperly storing them. Went through this in the late 90s when people first started noticing failing discs on usenet.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

My disc of Salem’s Lot in the snapper case no longer plays at all.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

Even if they charged $5-$10 to trade in your rotted DVD for a BR I would be down for it. Nothing sucks more than being into a film and it freakin freezes at the mid point of the movie, you have watched too much at that point to walk away!

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

My Trainspotting feature disc from the Miramax Collector's Series is toast and won't play at all. It does look lightly bronzed.

What really pisses me off is that I just wanted to check the brightness of the image, as my CC 4K disc seems very dark.

It looks like this one:

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/dvdtalk...c6f472fdb6.png

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

I’ve had a few discs go bad like that over the years, usually, you’ll see weird pixelation and freezing in certain spots, and it just gets worse over time. Scratches usually cause skips, but this kind of issue is more like the disc itself degrading

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

Came across a few more:

Starsky & Hutch Season 4 - discs 3 and 4 freeze at the layer change

St Elsewhere Season 1 - disc 1, side A freezes at the layer change. Discs 2 and 3 won't even load side A. And disc 4, both sides play perfectly.

Welcome Back, Kotter Season 1 (WB release): disc 2 & 3 completely dead, won't load (at least with this one the Shout set should be ok).

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

Here's another I came across over the weekend:

The pick of destiny DVD released by new line cinema. It froze at the 80 minute mark and the disc appears flawless.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

My wife's M*A*S*H Martinis and Medicine set is dropping discs left and right. Very frustrating as the discs look perfect.

We have had it for about 15 years.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

I have this problem as well. I feel like it's change in the player's capability. They only manufacture compelte trash now.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

I purchased the entire "Babylon Five" TV Series back around 2006. They sat pristine on a shelf since then. Lately I wanted to have a marathon, and found the five seasons horribly damaged by Disc Rot. Out of 110 episodes only around 50 were recoverable. Warner Bros used a shabby manufacturer to make this set. What remains is now digital. I of course wondered about the rest of my DVD collection, so I went through all, and it appears that 9 other discs are affected by disc rot. This is out of around 500 discs and ten sets. (Not counting Babylon Five).
Edited to add:
I learned a lot about this while processing through the Babylon Five collection. I used MakeMKV to create the digital files, and I noted the error messaging that was showing where the beautiful shiny discs were bad. Out of the whole set, none of the discs were unaffected. But also, now my entire DVD collection is digitized.as backup.
Does anyone know if Disc Rot is a progressive deterioration, or does it just happen initially? My discs were never played previously. Shiny new pieces of crap.

Re: DVD Rot ?
 

It's (mostly) progressive. Sometimes you'll have brand new discs, bought and played on release day, that have issues, but those are kind of rare.

When we talk about disc rot here, it's usually for discs that initially played, sat on a shelf for a while, then stopped working. It seems to come from manufacturing defects that either allow air/moisture into the discs that deteriorate the aluminum surface, or they were manufactured with substandard materials that don't hold up over time.