dvd-4-life

I had basically the entire season one of Highlander become unplayable. Funny thing-they(Highlander website) later on called me and tried too sell me other items and told them I don't want nothing from them because of the problems w/Highlander s1. Think its 10 yrs old and they must have done a crummy job mastering the discs.
Also had problems with Angel s4 with many episodes.

meritocracy

I had Disc 1 of Alias Season 1 and Season 2 spontaneously fail to be recognized in multiple players some time back. All other discs were fine.

Travis McClain

Here's our problem, which does not appear to fit the established criteria of "disc rot" or "CD bronzing." Discs that are unscratched often appear to have a sort of warped ring on the data side, much like looking through bubbles where you see that slight multi-color tinge if you look at the bubble right. On a regular DVD player, this isn't an issue, but our Blu-ray player has fits. Playback is choppy, freezes and the screen will become fragmented pixels. It's like streaming an HD video on dial-up.

darkhawk

Original Apollo 13 is the only one that won't play anymore

TheBang

So, now we're at a point where many DVD's are over a decade old. How many problems are people finding?

I've run into a couple, recently. First of all, last year I found problems with my Beauty and the Beast Platinum Edition DVD set from Disney. The movie disc would not load at all. I tried it in several players, and a couple computers, and nothing could recognize it as a readable disc. It had no scratches, and from a visual inspection, there did not appear to be any problems or deterioration of the media. I ended up trading it at Best Buy for a $5 upgrade and save coupon.

A couple months ago, I found out there were problems with my A.I. Artificial Intelligence DVD. It actually loads, but I found out that the second layer is unreadable. As soon as you get to the point in the movie where the layer change happens, it freezes and doesn't play anymore. Again, tried it in several players and computers and they all had the same problem. Visual inspection of the disc didn't show anything amiss. This one has now also gone into the U&S trade pile.

Anyone else seeing issues like these with older DVD titles?

danwiz

I recently noticed 2 WB titles had gone bad on me (300 and one of the Harry Potter movies), both of which WB kindly replaced for free and they even footed the postage bill for shipping to me here in Japan. I consider that really great Customer Service.

mallratcal

Army of Darkness: Boomstick edition Director's cut disc will no longer play for me. So far that's the only one I've found, thankfully.

Jack Straw

My copy of Rain Man freezes up starting about 1/3 into the movie. I had previously viewed it some time ago w/out incident. Tossed it in the garbage and ordered the Blu-ray.

Ash Ketchum

Contrary to popular belief, VHS tapes last longer than DVDs.

Oh, and books printed on paper last longer than kindles.

drmar35mm

I haven't had trouble with any DVDs yet. But years ago one of the big music companies, Polygram, had a huge run of CD rot. That was primarily classical labels such as DG, London, Philips. They developed pinholes and became unplayable. My recollection was that those obsessive Germans smoothed down the edges of the discs so they would be rounded and pleasant to the touch--thus opening the interior of the discs to oxidation.

wm lopez

I have like 300 dvds and have not watched many of them in years.

milo bloom

I've been getting better about digging into the collection and playing older stuff lately, and I actually haven't had much of this problem. I've run into a lot of transfers that looked good on my older TVs, but now on my 46" LCD, they don't look very good at all.

The only true problem disc I've had is the theatrical DVD of Fellowship of the Ring. After the first few plays, no player I owned would handle the layer change and I eventually picked up another copy for $4.

SterlingBen

Revisited Signs the other day and notices 10-15 in the middle was unplayable. Very disheartening. Especially since I bought this disc back when I was paying retail.

jjcool

The Vista Series disc? What do you mean by "10-15 in the middle was unplayable"? Minutes, chapters?

SterlingBen

Vista, minutes.
Somewhere around 1 hr 10mins

Josh-da-man

When DVDs and blu-rays go bad that's usually how it goes. They will play fine up to a point, usually around the layer change if it's a DL disc, or near the end if it's a SL. What happens is that the disc wasn't properly sealed around the edges during the manufacturing process and air gets inside the disc and oxidizes the aluminum data area. Since discs play from the inside-out like a record you don't generally notice this until an hour or so into the film.

milo bloom

Crud, haven't watched Signs in a while, maybe I'll try to get it onto the docket soon to check it (we're currently in a Tolkien marathon, just did Desolation of Smaug yesterday).

It's on Blu if I need to replace it, though I might try to find another DVD copy cheap.

Alan Smithee

I bought Signs on release day and STILL haven't watched it! Guess I can scan it on the computer to make sure it's not rotted.

jjcool

Crap. And thanks for the info. I will have to check my disc.

mickey65

I had to replace "Frequency" recently since it froze up on me half-way. No scratches, nothing on the disc.

Cardsfan111

The question that comes to my mind is how likely would it be that other copies of the same title have the same problem. Is that more/less likely? I don't know, but would make be a bit hesitant in buying another DVD copy.

ntnon

The 'improperly sealed' explanation is interesting, thank you. I've mostly (so far, fingers crossed) only had problems playing library discs that are scratched up to a crazy degree. Did standard improve over time; i.e. is it only likely to be early/old discs that were poorly sealed/finished?

(And what has baffled me with those - over-and-above the pre-CD/DVD hype of them being indestructible - is that some of them in the most appalling condition still seem to play better than our brand-new Disney Blu-rays, which often can't be recognized by our player at all for whatever reason...)

Bowser

'Wonderland' is the only one I can recall giving me problems. Tried playing it one night, and for some reason my player read it as a DVD-ROM and unplayable. Tried it on another player and same thing. Never had a problem before, not even a skipping issue, but that night it was essentially a dead disc...

TomOpus

I know it's been a while but I always started my records on the outside

orangerunner

I also wonder if discs that have been dropped on their edge at one time may cause this to happen even though they don't appear to be damaged.