The clue that leads me to place the blame on the plastic cases is that notorious "Have Gun Will Travel" s-3 set. The first six discs are housed in double-sided slimpacks, and their surfaces are all clouded. The 7th disc is in a lone single-sided slimpack, and everyone reports this last disc has remained looking pristine. That single-sided pack also feels more 'dry' to the touch.
So far, I've noted 5 dvd-sets that I own to have gotten this 'cloudy' surface problem. Most I've caught early, and have managed to clean up rather well. It's been restricted to sets housed in that semi-flexible, less-translucent style of clear-plastic slimpacks, it seems. I don't think anyone has reported otherwise. I've certainly never encountered any of this on any of my numerous movie discs. Anyway, I have no idea as to how much worse this affliction can get with time, nor if it will affect playback. All I know is that I've paid a pretty penny for my tv-dvd collection, and I'm going to change out any suspect cases, and continue to monitor this.
ALL 8 seasons of my Andy Griffith Show are totally cover with the sticky water/gooey damage! EVERY DISC! I cleaned them with 97% Alcohol and they seem to be cleaned up to a acceptable level! Not pristine...
I AM FUCKING FLAMINGLY PISSED!
Also Have Gun Will Travel, Hazel, I Dream Of Jeannie, Bewitched have random DVD's that have it!
In what has to be the strangest thing, on my disc 5 of Hogan's Heroes season 2 it is doing more than clouding. I can now read the words "Set Up Disc" written in a circle around the DVD. The disc still plays when I put it in the computer DVD drive. But it is just weird.
Hmmm what a massive bummer, well I honest wasnt going to get season 3 of Have Gun Will travel on a blind buy (unless used at a cheap price like 20.00 or less) because I was very unhappy with the low grade grainy video quailty on the second half of S2 which made allot of the night scences almost un watchable. I'll have to find s3 used or somewhere with a very liberal return policy so I can check out the disks before I buy or open up right a way and return if the disks are Fook'd up:frowning:
I haven't even opened one of my Andy Griffith sets yet - all bought on release day. Now I'm afraid to. Chas, what are the conditions like in your storage area? Is there excessive humidity in the Summer? I'm wondering because my humidity can get up to as high as 70% for a few months of the year. I'm wondering if the humidity in conjunction with these particular cases touching the discs are causing the problem. The double slimline cases that I mentioned earlier in this thread bought from Shop4tech feel like a totally different type of material. I guess I'm going to systematically start opening my sets and change out the cases to these new ones. Also, possibly flipping over the discs shiny side out could be helpful.
I told a friend of mine about this. He looked, and had problems with a Hogan's Heros set. He said it wiped off. It came in the Scanavo case. I just checked my Andy Griffith season 1, the only season i own, its fine. So are all of my other Paramount discs, from Mission: Impossible to Perry Mason, all fine. None are in Scanavo cases. They are all in the same type of double disc slim case with the interlocking "spike" hubs. All my single discs go into Nexpak slim cases as needed, never found a place that sells double slims. The ones i find online are a bit thicker.
Far as humidity goes - I have AC in the house. I'm not keeping the DVDs in a hotbox.
This is turning into the Vinegar Syndrome for DVDs - except it's not destroying the picture (so far). It would be nice if the studio or a case maker chimed in on this issue - but if they admit it is widespread, they'll have a major DVD swap on their hands. They're better off just dealing with it on a one customer at a time basis.
Humidity can still be high in a house with air conditioning. If you don't believe me go out and buy something like Damp Rid and see how much water it sucks out of the air.
I still think humidity could be causing part of the problem.
But again, has anyone seen a cloudy disc go bad? So far, this is all a cosmetic issue. Just because a disc is cloudy doesn't mean it is unplayable, or will be in the near future.
Check all your other DVDs stored in other cases. I'm sure you'll notice many of them being cloudy as well.
I've got hundreds of DVDs that I bought at the same time. They are not suffering from the same issue. I'm only finding the clouding on the DVDs stored in clear slimline case. Maybe humidity is causing these clear plastic DVD cases to breakdown and cause the clouding on the discs. That still means that these cases are defective. They manufacturers did not include notice that if we don't keep these things at 25 percent humidity or less, they will break down and mess up your discs.
I wonder if this would affect ANY slimcases? Remember those threads where members here were actually converting their entire collections over to slimline cases in order to save shelf space?
Not really a bad practice in general, really with ANY DVDs (always good to avoid any plastics in constant contact for long periods as much as possible) Most of the Scanavo cases look like they have pretty high hubs, so doing this will certainly add more space between the case and the DVD playing surface.
I'm wondering if this might be a reaction with the case and only certain DVD substances. Anyways something to keep our eyes on.
My Brady Bunch S4 Discs 1 and 2 are so badly corrupted that wiping the stains off is impossible. They've become part of the surface of the discs, which have altered their smooth texture as a tissue now drags when wiping it. A finger mark on the disc near the edge has also become impossible to remove.
I also somehow scratched the heck out of Hawaii Five-O S2 Disc 1 as I removed some of the stains.
Moreover, Space Academy is another in the affected list of titles. I found the same stains on my discs of that.
I've seen some of the "clouding" in certain sets that I have, one being disc 5 of Hogan's Heroes S2. This is the disc that's in the single non-Scanavo case (I didn't see any brand name on this case). The disc played without any problems.
I examined my IDOJ (B/W) S1 set that's been on the shelf since its release. No cloudy disc problems. That set was cased in unknown brand clear cases.
It would seem that we're seeing a lot of different visual issues with our discs but not necessarily a lot of comonalities? ie same sets with issues....maybe with Have Gun/Travel sets? I don't own any of that series.
I had the same thing on one disk in my Brady Bunch season 4 set. So far, the only really bad examples of this phenomena that I've found on any of my TV box sets is on the Brady Bunch season 3 and 4 sets, which seem to be some of the most common problem sets. I just received these from Columbia House over the last month, and they are sending replacements. Interested to see the condition of the new sets, and perhaps that might indicate how pervasive the problem is, at least with the Brady Bunch releases.
And the disk with the visible printing on the substrate still plays fine for me, too...
As for the general hysteria about this, I think some people still might be confusing the common "coffee-ring" or swirling effect which occurs on many disks as a result of glue dispersal on the substrate, with the surface "smudging" (for lack of a better term) which seems to be occurring with these Paramount sets.
I've also noticed it is pretty common for oily fingerprints or other harmless smudges to show up on the surface of many disks, as the disks are commonly handled during manufacture or packaging. So I would be sure that you aren't just seeing some easily removed fingerprints, scuffs or smudges on the surface of your disks before going into a full blown panic that every disk you inspect is going bad.