Disc problems with TV shows on DVD sets using Scanavo cases (1 Viewer)

[Bert Greene]

I'm pretty convinced it's the cases. No, not every Scanavo is bad. It's just the ones that seem particularly 'oily' to the touch. They have a damp surface residue, which you can pretty much discern, although it's admittedly subtle. Most of these examples seem to date to three or so years ago, and are all from Paramount sets.

 

[Bert Greene]

Oops, now a non-Paramount item ("Addams Family") has been added to the list? That's not good news.

--Just checked my "Addams Family" v.1, and it's okay.

 

[RoyM]

Well, it is possible that the "oily" substance could be coming from the disks as they deteriorate and permeating the cases, rather than vice-versa. I'm not saying that is by any means a certainty, mind you - only that it's possible.

It does seem slightly less likely to me that this phenomena would only be limited to two disk cases, as well, if the cases are indeed the culprit, or even only to Scanavo cases. I'm relatively certain that most manufacturers use more or less the same type of plastic to create these clear DVD cases, and I don't believe there are any "secret formulas" at work in that industry that would explain disparities in materials between one manufacturer and another. Although, I suppose it is possible that there could be some manufacturing defect that could cause one batch of cases to be bad and somehow decay or out-gas some element of the plastic over time.

In any case, I agree that it is more alarming to think that the disks themselves could be going bad. But there are definitely several documented precedents of that phenomena (Vertigo, A Night to Remember, several Anchor Bay disks, etc.). that make it a real possibility.

 

[cherisland]

Gary,
I think you might be right about the double slim-line Scanavo cases being the problem...that would explain how my one Addams Family disc is showing clouding on both sides. The few Scanovo single cases that were used in some of the I Love Lucy sets do not seem to have affected the DVD's at all (thank goodness!)

 

[Gary OS]

And a frightening possibility at that, Roy. Let's hope we aren't seeing the dreaded DVD "rot" that affected those early discs. That would NOT be a good thing.

Todd, the ADDAMS FAMILY disc issues may or may not be the same as the others. It's hard to tell. I'm thinking it's possible that the circular "waves" that you and I see are associated with the fact that these are double-sided discs. I'll have to check some others (maybe some of my Irwin Allen Fox discs) but I believe that may be a different phenomenon that is actually somewhat common and nothing to be too alarmed over. It's just weird that these were Scanavo cases as well. But you are correct that this seems to be a double slim-line issue.

Bert, I think this still may be contained within the Paramount discs while reflecting on the issue some more. So I guess the discussion is still on the table as to whether or not this is a disc issue versus a casing issue. But one thing is certain, there is an oily feel to the cases. Perhaps a chemical on the disc (is there some type of "glue" involved) is evaporating and that is causing the greasy feel?

Gary "this is a strange thing, that's for sure" O.

P.S. I've gone back and edited my first post because after reexamining some of the discs on my list I think some of the defects I've seen are not the same as the obvious ones on sets like HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL. I'm only leaving in the really obvious ones, which makes my list much smaller. Still troublesome, but smaller.

 

[cherisland]

I hope you are right Gary, and that the circular "waves" we both seem to have on our Addams Family discs are only due to the fact they are double sided. That would be a relief. I'll have to check some of my other double sided TV sets as well to see if this is associated with that. I do agree though that it is weird that these discs were also maufactured in the double slim line Scanavo cases...pretty coincidental .

 

[TravisR]

Just going off your description of the waves on the double sided discs, you probably also have those waves on a number of your discs whether they're one sided or multi-disc sets or just a single disc movie.

 

[Gary OS]

Upon reflection, it's entirely possible Travis. But trust me (and Bert, and others) on this one thing: There is a greasy feel to these cases. It may be because the disc is having a substance evaborate and that's causing this residue on the cases. But it's not our imagination that the cases are oily. What I find strange is if this is a dvd issue and not a case issue, why is it only showing up on the dvds housed in the double slim-lines? Weird coincidence for sure.

Gary "the dvds I left up in my first post are really bad, cloudiness wise - but all of them play okay up to this point" O.

 

[DanMel]

I got better photos of Hogan's Heroes Season 2 disc 1. The disc when bought new the day that it was released was cloudy but now it has magnified to what I show below. This is after I used soap and water and hand dried. It is like a paste substance and is not the less severe cloudy effect that I got when they were new. The scanner would not show the intensity of this so I had to take the below pictures of the disc. I am placing all my Wild Wild West and Gomer pyle discs inside a 200 CD album as well as they are perfect right now but don't want to take any chances. Out of all 6 seasons I noticed one spot on HH Season 1 disc 4 and Season 2 Disc 1, disc 3 and disc 4 all look like the below photos. Season 3-6 are all perfect. I know they were not like this when I bought them as I always order from Amazon and send any box set back free of charge where any of the discs have any defects on them. I have sent back at least 10 box sets to amazon for having discs come loose during shipping. I even make backup dvd-r's of all my discs and only watch the dvd-r's and leave all my original discs stored in the cases until now. I have all of HH season 2 on dvd-r and am glad I did this regardless of any freaking copyright laws. So if any of your discs are cloudy right now, I would recommend you take them out of the cases and toss the cases as soon as possible.

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...eroesDisc1.jpg

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...oesDisc1_2.jpg

 

[Jonathan Peterson]

Great, this topic has made me nervous now. I will check my discs when I get home from work. Are there any good online sites to buy replacement cases?

 

[Kevin L McCorry]

Certain of my Brady Bunch discs are affected by this phenomenon. I noticed a few spots on a couple of them awhile back and just concluded that it was a manufacture quirk not affecting playback, but on inspecting the discs again now, I found the affected discs look worse.

In the old Alpha and Amaray cases, disc surfaces are elevated so as not to make contact with the case while in storage, but in these thinpak cases, the disc surfaces are in constant contact with the plastics of the case. Looks like chemical reactions are taking place. Why couldn't the companies have just stuck with the tried and true Amaray and Alpha cases and not left us with ticking time bombs in our collections?

 

[redbird]

After reading about this problem I checked out my DVD collection. All of the DVD's looked fine except season 4 of "Brady Bunch"- dreaded cloudiness appeared. I played one episode on the worst looking disc and it played fine. I'll be watching all the eps just to be safe and I tossed all the offending cases out. Thank God for this site-I'd hate to think what sort of mess I'd be looking at in a year or so!

 

[Doug^Ch]

I just ordered some double slimline cases from a internet site called Shop4tech or something to that effect. Customers on the site are raving about these cases. They are $23/100. They have not arrived yet so I have not looked at them myself. They are black rather than clear, and I don't know who the manufacturer is.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Doug,

Thanks for the info on the DVD cases. I'm looking into getting some of these recently and that's a great price. For anyone else that's interested, here's the link to the site that Doug mentioned:

http://www.shop4tech.com/item2869.html

Regarding the "clouding" DVD issue: I just completed viewing the Hogan's Heroes S2 set after it's been on the shelf since Sept '05. I didn't have any viewing issues but after looking at the DVD's a few minutes ago I also see some "clouding" spots that have appeared. I don't remember seeing this when they arrived from Amazon. Disc 5 is the worst of my set but there weren't any picture issues when viewing the disc. Question is, will this condition worsen over time and will it ever cause any viewing problems? I may need more info before changing out all of the Scanavo cases in my collection.

 

[Doug^Ch]

Boy, this really is a distressing issue. I have yet to examine any of my sets for this dreaded condition, because none of the sets mentioned have yet even been opened. They have sat on my shelves since release day. When people say the the offending cases are "oily" does that mean the entire case even on the outside or just the inside near the discs. If it is only on the inside, it would lead me to believe that it may be defective discs causing the problems. If many or most of these thin-pak cases cause a chemical reaction over time, because of touching the discs, it may be the most prudent to remove every disc from every thin-pak in our collection and put them into albums, leaving the box and cases on the shelf for display purposes with a code in them as to what album the discs are now located in. I like others who have posted here have hundreds of TV on dvd sets and this would be a huge undertaking, and I hope that it does not come to that.

 

[Gary OS]

I may be wrong, but I believe the only solid documentation we have for mass disc failures across the board are with the infamous HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL Season 3 sets that Amazon.com was selling at a reduced price. These sets had a different UPC code from the original HGWT Season 3 sets, and they were housed in the oily Scanavo cases. People on another forum discussed this issue at length and the consensus was overwhelmingly clear: the discs from this set were cloudy and did not always work in every player (sometimes they would work, sometimes not), even after some attempts to clean them and such. The one constant was that every disc housed in a double slim-line case was clouded considerably. And the clincher was that disc 7 of this set, housed in a single disc slipcase not made by Scanavo, was never clouded. It was this situation that led to our current concerns about these cases.

But it looks like none of us here have actually reported discs that wouldn't play, although many of us are seeing the cloudiness on certain sets. The big question, of course, is whether or not the condition will worsen with time and if the condition will lead to the discs one day not working. And the second question, which we've broached here, is whether or not the issue is with the discs themselves, or the cases they are housed in. If we could get just one report about clouded discs that were NOT housed in Scanavo cases, we could pretty much definitively prove it was a bad batch of discs (probably from Paramount). Until we get that "evidence", the speculation will continue.

Gary "we need Charlie Chan to solve this mystery" O.

 

[Brian Himes]

Well, after reading this yesterday I went home and checked my Brady Bunch sets. All of my sets are fine. No cloudiness or spots on the discs. However, it should be noted that only my season 4 and 5 were in the type of cases that has been mentioned. All of my other sets were in a generic two disc slim cases.

I do have replacement cases already so just to be safe, I may just switch them out.

I haven't checked my Wild Wild West sets yet but I will.

 

[Jonathan Peterson]

After checking my cases last night, only season 4 of Brady Bunch, disc 2 had some cloudiness on the disc. I will start watching these ASAP to see that they are okay.

Some further sets in my collection with the Scanavo cases are:

Ren & Stimpy
Alien Nation (TV Series - 20th Century Fox)
Alien Nation (Movie Collection)

You may want to check these if you have them.

 

[John H Ross]

This is wonderful. As if we didn't have enough crappy DVD manufacturing issues to worry about, now we have to worry about the CASES...

How does one know that one has a Scanavo case? Is the name embossed in the plastic?

Are any of the Mission: Impossible sets affected?

 

[Steve_Pannell]

Yes. Mine are embossed on the inside.