Finally--my 1st case of "DVD rot"? (1 Viewer)

[Peter McM]

I've been building a DVD library for almost 10 years. I recently loaned one of my early acquisitions to my mother: Robert Duvall's The Apostle--which I've watched numerous times, though not in quite a while. It would not work on her player, which had just been bought for her. I tried it on three other players, plus the PowerDVD drive in my computer. It won't work in any of them.

I used to read on this forum about this happening a lot more than I do now. Is this still an occurrance with some early discs? How about more recently produced titles?

 

[Mark Zimmer]

If you've watched it a lot, check to see if there is a little crack in the hub; that can often happen with regularly used discs, and it can make the disc unreadable.

 

[Peter McM]

Thanks for the response, Mark. I inspected the disc closely and thoroughly; no sign of physical wear.

 

[Jeff Swindoll]

Had the disc show any oddities the last time you got it to play. My experience with LD rot was that speckles would start to appear and eventually the LD wouldn't play. Just curious.

 

[David_B_K]

I have never seen "DVD Rot" replicate laserdisc rot. As Jeff says, every case I ever had of laserdisc rot manifested itself as colored sparklies in the picture. Sometimes only one side of a disc was affected, and the disc could last for some time, albeit with video noise. Columbia Tri-Star LDs seemed particularly prone to "rot". I even bought a laserdisc on ebay that had "rot". The seller disagreed that the disc was defective "because it still played" which is rubbish.

I've had about 5 DVDs succumb to...something. A couple were completely wiped clean. You could load it, and it was essentially a blank disc. A few others began to play badly, and skip around, which made them unwatchable. 3 were Universal, one was Warner, and one was Criterion.

 

[Peter McM]

No oddities at all, guys. Like I indicated--it's probably been years since I last watched The Apostle, but it was fine the last time I did. It seems to be now what you, David, called essentially a blank disc. I loaded other old Universal titles I hadn't watched in quite some time: Apollo 13 (the original, single-disc issue), Xanadu (ditto), The Red Violin, and Henry & June. All still play just fine.

Seems to be just one of those fluke things.

 

[Joseph Bolus]

It is known that there were a few faulty manufacturing runs of some very early RSDL DVDs. I don't even know if The Apostle was a dual layer disc, but I thought I would throw that out there ...

 

[Frank@N]

I've had the exact same problem with my copy of Boogie Nights (1-disc).

Like many of you, I have a large collection.

Wonder how may other good discs have turned to coasters...?

 

[Cees Alons]

Same for me.
When I got my HD DVD of Spartacus, I decided to compare it to the previous DVD - which wouldn't play anymore. On none of my players, including the drives on my PC's.

How many of those do I have?


Cees

 

[Peter McM]

Perhaps we're being haunted by the ghostly spirit of DIVX...

Revenge for Circuit City's impending demise?

 

[Cees Alons]

Heh, heh, could be it.

But seriously: there was a batch of DVDs in the old days (I think Universal's) that were reported to be susceptible to a form of DVD rot. Something to do with the glue they used.
Apparently air/moist could enter from the outer rim, and the normal way of handling discs carefully (only hold it with your fingers touching the outer rim) could potentially cause the problem.

I don't have the specifics at hand, but it was one specific production plant and the DVDs were identifiable by some number on the center ring.

Would have to look it up to find more detail.


Cees

 

[David_B_K]

Cees, that was one of mine that went bad. It skipped a lot and froze up and jumped around. I replaced it with the Criterion version and later the HD DVD (both of which still play). Other Universal discs that went bad on me: Vertigo-wiped blank. The original non-anamorphic Psycho-would not load on one player and skipped, froze, etc on another. Same thing happened with the Warner Gettysburg. Also, Criterion's A Night to Remember was wiped blank. Criterion replaced that one for me.

I need to take a look at my copy of The Apostle.

 

[Cees Alons]

Mmm. I'm going to check the ones you mentioned.
Haven't been given those a spin for a long time.


Cees

 

[Peter McM]

David--I'll be interested to hear about your copy of Apostle. I'll probably replace mine; should be able to find it for cheap.

 

[David_B_K]

Peter, My APOSTLE plays OK. It's been a long time since I've watched it. I had not realized it was not anamorphic, so I have not watched it since I had an HD TV.

 

[troy evans]

I was thinking about buying the new "Street Fighter" extreme edition Blu-ray. So, I thought I'd see how much I cared to replace it by re-watching the old Universal Collector's Edition from 1998. This thing wouldn't play on any of my four players. I examined the disc and it has these faint lines that go from the outer edge to halfway in towards the hub. They kinda look like scorch marks underneath the plastic. Blu-ish in color, very stange. This is the only disc in a collection of over 2500 dvds that I've had trouble with. No biggie, I'll just buy the Blu. I'm glad I have the option to buy a superior disc in this case. The movie is a guilty pleasure for me, what can I say?

 

[Radioman970]

I bought used a late 1990s edition of MASK (biopic about Rocky Dennis) and it had a line of bubbles circling the circumference of the DVD. I returned it even though it played correctly. $25 is a lot for something that will probably fail soon.

 

[Jeff Swindoll]

You could say that this is the workings of the evil geniuses at Universal to ensure you spend more on Street Fighter now that you're copy is diabolically unplayable. See they even made you pay more for the Blu-ray. I didn't know that Dr. Mabuse was now CEO (Chief Evil Officer) of Universal Home Video.... All hail Bad Horse for getting him the gig.

 

[Stephen_J_H]

My Warner non-anamorphic disc of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers went completely blank. Luckily, it's one of my wife's favourite movies, so she took no issue with having to buy the 2-disc SE, although finding that was a chore in and of itself when it happened.

 

[Matt Hough]

I had the same problem with both Universal's SPARTACUS and VERTIGO. Both had to be replaced (with the Criterion SPARTACUS and the recent Legacy edition of VERTIGO.)