I just tried playing a DVD that I haven't watched for many years. It has no scratches whatsoever but, for some reason, it is no longer playable. Granted it was one of those free DVDs that Universal mailed through one of their Buy 3 Get 1 Free Offers a number of years back, I know it was playable when I first received it.

I was wondering if DVDs, the way they are manufactured, can suddenly stop working over time?

Over the past year my DVDs of Psycho, Vertigo, & Hammer's The Witches have all gone dead.

Some DVDs have a history of going dead, I have no idea why this happens, but it must be due to faulty manufacturing.

So far, no for me, though it's not like I've watched any of my older discs recently.

Same thing happened to us a while back. We went to plug in Soul Food one day and it was unplayable. No scratches, or anything. It's only been watched a couple of times so I don't know what the deal is. I've tried it in all my DVD players. Guess it will have to go in the trash.

Same here, with Species 2. Just freezes halfway and dies. Disc looks fine, no scratches or bubbles or anything like that. Speaking of bubbles, one of my Chris Rock DVDs, one of the stand-up titles, developed tiny bubbles on the surface of the disc and also died.

My copy of 'Heathers' went dead after a year or so of working fine. I bought a second one and it seems to be doing okay, so far.

My copy of Bowie's 'Serious Moonlight' was dead right out of the case. Wouldn't even load the menu.

Yes, this has happened on some of my Universal DVD's, one of them "Dracula".
Tried on 2 players, same problem.

that's "had"...

My copy of The Crow plays for about an hour then it just stops. No scratches or marks at all.

Nope,

Of course now that I have posted this I will find one...

Like many others have noted, the only dvds I have that have ever had problems playing were very old Universal titles.

My Dragonheart (CE) wouldn't play at all though I tried it on four different dvd players. I have yet to replace it as I'm awaiting the HD-DVD release.

Tomorrow Never Dies.

Criterion's Titanic. Criterion did replace it for free.

My OOP of Nightmare Before Christmas won't work anymore. No scratches and remember only watching it once. Tried multiple DVD drives and I get nuthin.

I had this happen on my copy of Dances with Wolves SE. It is a flipper. It dies about halfway through the second side. It is in mint condition....not fun.

It's happened twice with me; once on Bad Santa, the other on Blues Brothers 2000. Neither had any scratches whatsoever. I just ended up re-buying copies of each, although I didn't like it.

Was this a laserdisc?

Fortunately, my copy of Tomb Raider: Cradle of Life doesn't play any more. As does my copy of Stigmata.

It's called "DVD Rot" and appears to be caused by a manufacturing defect.

What likely happens is that, while being manufactured, the DVDs aren't completely sealed allowing air and/or moisture to get into the data area of the DVD. Over time it will oxidize the playing surface and render the DVD unplayable.

Certain titles/runs/manufacturers are more prone to this than others. I know of a whole run of Anchor Bay DVDs that have the rot problem (Wicker Man, Kentucky Fried Movie, Heathers, Frankenstein Created Woman, and The Witches being the worst offenders) as well as the aforementioned Vertigo and Psycho.

It can, however, effect any DVD. Early dual-layer DVDs (as well as DVD-14s and DVD-18s) are also prone to this.

i have only had one (but many have yet to be watched) out of my 700+ DVD's. it was the 1st disc of the 2-disc "Unbreakable". i tried it on all DVD players in the house and it froze and read "disc is dirty" on all of them. i didn't see any rot and there were no marks to justify a bad disc. i feel lucky that it is just the one thus far and i re-bought it at CC for like $5.99 or something.

A lot of copies of the mentioned AB titles wouldn't work from the get go either.

Kentucky Fried Movie and Heathers were the two bad ones I had. My understanding of that case of "DVD Rot" was that Anchor Bay used two different plants to press the DVDs. They used different kinds of glue to adhere the two layers and one of the factories used bad glue that caused the layers to come apart after a while. Heather's was particularly a bad one to deal with because I got the special edition tin and the artwork on the DVD was different from the regular DVDs. While I was able to exchange the DVD out at the store and keep my tin, having a DVD with different art in it just isn't the same.

But for others, sometimes I watch old movies and am happy when they work. No other problems yet....but who knows what DVDs I have that have layers coming apart. I guess I will deal with it when I discover it.

Street Fighter: The Movie for me.

SE of "Valley Girl" died on me.

My original Devil's Advocate stopped working a few years ago. I listed it on ebay saying that it didn't work after the layer change and someone still payed $20 for it.