I recently received Roots: The Complete Collection from amazon.com. The packaging was a disappointment as the discs are placed inside cardboard sleeves. In addition the structure of the packaging is such that these double sided DVDs come into contact with one another when the front and back side of the cardboard folders are together. Then there is the also issue of getting the discs out while trying to prevent even further scratching, although a few of them were already dislodged in transit.

While the discs appear to play fine so far from just trying them out and doing a spot check, I decided that I should play the one that has the most scratches (episode 6) from beginning to end. The problem that I saw was in the last third of the episode where the subtitles would appear for a short while and then go away for awhile, only to come back again for another short period of time. This continues until the end of the episode. That was on my main player which is a Panasonic, but the subtitles do not appear when I play the disc on my computer or on a cheaper Cyber Home unit (at least in the spots where they were consistently appearing on the Panasonic). Therefore I am lead to think that this is really as issue of disc compatibility among various machines as opposed to a problem with my own individual disc. Aside from that issue, the disc plays fine and I seriously doubt that scratching would cause such a problem anyhow. I even checked the disc with Nero CD-DVD Speed and it indicated that there were no damaged or bad sectors. Apparently at least one other person has had the same problem from reading his review over at amazon.com. Has anyone else experienced this?

Despite using the syndicated version for the original series, this would still have been an outstanding set if it were not for the packaging to hold the discs in. I now have each of them stored in slim jewel cases.