Back in 2018 I backed up a whole bunch of movies on to DVDs. Instead of cases l used DVD sleeves made to store in 3 ring binders. These are basically clear plastic envelope type sleeves that has a paper type lining on the inside. Each is designed to hold 4 dvds. Now that HD space is so cheap I decided to copy all of the DVDs on to my HD for storage. When I tried to copy them over I found that I had trouble with reading many of DVDs. When I took a closer look at the DVDs, I found many had light smudges on them that kind of look a group of little spots. These smudges were on the small part of the DVD that touch the plastic part of the sleeve due to the way the sleeve was designed Has anyone experienced this? Recommendations on how to clean these? Most will wipe off more or less. Some are harder to clean.

CD collectors know of the issue. Basically what happens is that gases are slowly released over time from the plastic that deteriorate the media discs. Happens to both CDs and DVDs. DVD-Rs are even more susceptible to the problem than pressed media. There are high-quality plastic sleeve without the issue, but cheaper binders almost always used the degrading stuff.

Many people that threw out cases and stored their collections in plastic sleeves/binders for long periods of time saw discs get corrupted. The hard-to-clean discs may be unrecoverable, unfortunately.