Most of my WB 2006/2008 DVDs have gone bad (1 Viewer)

[RafaelPires]

I am a classic movie collector and have bought mostly everything classic released by studios on dvd (pressed discs).
Last month I started to revisit some of my WB discs and was very upset in finding out that most of my discs released between 2006/2008 are not working properly.
Some of them do not even begin to play, some others freeze in the middle of the film, while double feautures tend to read only one movie.
Important to notice that WB discs released prior to 2006 are still working fine, as well as discs from other studios.
And all of them have been properly stored and a lot of them only viewd once.
Here is a list of my defective dvds, so far:
Roberta (from Astaire and Rogers Collection)
Film Noir vol 4 (just 2 films are working)
Esther Williams collection vol 1
William Powell and Myrna Loy Collection
Forbidden Hollywood Volume 1 (only Waterloo Bridge is saved)
Streetcar Named Desire
Cat on a hot tin roof
Madame Curie
Miracle in the Rain
Presenting Lilly Mars
Literary Classics (only Madame Bovary and 3 Musketeers are saved)
Midsummer Night's Dream
Romeo and Juliet
By the Light of the silvery Moon
On moonlight bay
The clock
Du Barry was a lady
Executive suit
To please a lady / jeopardy
The great lie
watch on the rhine
I'll cry tomorrow
West point story
The Fountainhead
The wreck of the mary deare
the Pirate
Royal wedding
That midnight kiss
Errol Flynn Collection volume 2 (except for the Adventures of Don Juan and Dawn Patrol)
Tarzan Collection volume 2
Classic musicals from the dream factory volume 3 (except for Hit the deck, the broadway melodies, two weeks with love and Nancy goes to Rio )
Without reservations
Big Jim mclain
Judy Garland and Mickeu Rooney Collection
Joan Crawford Collection volume 2 (except for A woman's face and Flamingo Road)
Forbidden Hollywood volume 2 (except for Night Nurse and Female)
I did not have the time yet to check Humprhrey Bogart collection volume 2, Burt Lancaster Collection, World War 2 collection volume and Ronald Reagan collection, but you can see that this is an impressive number for bad pressed dvds. I am really devasted since I spent a substantial amount of money on these.
Can you please verify if the same is happening with the same discs in your collection? Thanks!

 

[Robin9]

You've been unlucky - exceptionally so. So far, none of my DVDs has gone bad.
However, as you ask, I will tomorrow quickly test some of those you have listed as I haven't played them for a long time. I will report back.

 

[Colin McGuigan]

I did a spot check - jumping around various points on all the Film Noir 4 titles and they all play fine, the same with The Fountainhead. Are you sure it's not player related? Have you tried your discs in other machines?

 

[Robert Crawford]

Do you store your DVDs in a climate controlled environment?
Crawdaddy

 

[schan1269]

If isn't unfathomable for discs to "go bad"...
This quick, now that is odd.
I do think you need to try a different player, or take the top off of this one and blow it out with some compressed air.
By the way, I have about 10 of the ones you have listed. Whether or not mine are the "exact" as yours, I have no idea as I tend to buy my DVDs used. I make a weekly pilgrimage to FYE where the manager knows me and culls a collection for me every Friday.
I do run across some discs that don't play on one...but play fine in other players. (oddly, maybe not...it seems they have issues in BD players, but in DVD players they work fine...my Sony BDP-S350 being the one player most likely to have an allergic reaction to playing a DVD...)

 

[Thomas T]

How funny you should bring this up! Just yesterday, I put on Babes In Arms from the Mickey/Judy set and it wouldn't play at all. I put in Strike Up The Band from the same set and it started skipping until finally freezing. And yes, I put them in a different player and they still wouldn't play.
Two weeks ago, I watched Roberta and it played fine.
Now, I'll have to spot check all those titles.

 

[RafaelPires]

Robert, they are all very properly stored. Strangely, none of my Fox, MGM, Universal, Paramount or Criterion dvds have presented any problems. Nor even my older WB discs (2001/2005).
I have tried them in 3 different players and they do show the same problems.
But if you are all saying your discs haven't presented any problem I am encourgaed to buy them all over again.
I was afraid it was some kind of cheap media issue and that new dvds would only tend to present the same problems once the years went by.

 

[Nebiroth]

Don't buy them. Write to Warner first. Whatever their other shortcomings migh tbe - they have a solid reputation for customer service.
It really seems quite extraordinary that so many pressed discs should fail, and all apparently a specific type.

 

[Thomas T]

Spot checked the following:
Roberta (from Astaire and Rogers Collection): played fine
Streetcar Named Desire: played fine
Cat on a hot tin roof: played fine
Madame Curie: played fine
Miracle in the Rain: played fine
Midsummer Night's Dream: played fine
Romeo and Juliet: played fine
By the Light of the silvery Moon: played fine
On moonlight bay: played fine
The clock: froze at chapter 15 but played thru when I tried again.
Du Barry was a lady: played fine
Executive suite: played fine
Will test more titles later.

 

[WadeM]

Wow, that's scary. I'll have to check on some of those films.

 

[Randy Korstick]

Yep pressed discs do go bad but usually only occassionaly. I've only had about 10 go bad, mostly DVD-9's out of a very large collection. Never had a Warner Archive disc go bad out of over 200 and people still worry about a quality DVD-R. Bottom line DVD-R's can be scrathched much easier than pressed but no discs are guaranteed to last forever and there are no other proven differences, the rest is all urban legend or poor media used.

 

[Nebiroth]

DVDR's are also quite a bit more vulnerable to a bad environment. They are by their very nature less stable, because they are made with a dye that has to be able to change state when it is zapped by the write laser.
Certainly, leaving a DVDR play surface exposed to strong sunlight will do it no good at all.
For both type sof disc the basic technology is sound, usually failures are down to either manufacturing problems (including the use of cheap/shoddy materials, bad quality control, etc) or bad storage.
If it's down to storage, then pressed DVD's have to be really maltreated because they are really very resistant.
The old laserdiscs were not - the clear plastic protective layer used different materials to that of DVD, and it was a lot more permeable to moisture and so on.

 

[SilverWook]

I've seen playable LD's with scratches that would murder a DVD though. Discs that went bad were usually not properly made to begin with.
Could these titles have been pressed at the same plant responsible for all those Warner HD-DVD's that have been going bad?

 

[mdnitoil]

My goodness, that has to be the longest single list of bad pressed discs in one collection I've ever read. I'm sure there's nothing you're doing wrong, but it's hard not to initially think environmental factors. Honestly, a list that long is unprecedented in all my time reading DVD forums. The closest thing I can remember was a rash of Anchor Bay titles, particularly some Hammer discs, that had issues.

 

[JoHud]

The only one I've had that were bad were bad to begin with, like a couple Universal flippers.
I've been watching a fair amount of Warner DVDs the past few months and cannot say any went bad. I'm not denying it's possible, but so many different titles at once is quite unheard of and I can't personally echo any similar problems with my Warner discs.

 

[mdnitoil]

On a more constructive note, I checked my Tarzan volume 2 set. Three discs, double features. All six movies started and played fine through the credits sequence. Additionally, I checked my database and I purchased the set within 2 weeks of the release date, so my set is certainly an original pressing. I didn't run all the discs through to the end. I made the assumption that since you listed the entire set as being bad, I would encounter a problem somewhere right out of the gate.

 

[Marcel H.]

Did a quick check on the Film Noir Vol. 4 titles, the Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 1 titles, the Errol Flynn Vol. 2 titles and my Cat on a Hot Tin Roof DVD from the Tennessee Williams Coll.: all played fine. I jumped through the chapters, no problems at all.
Edit: Popped in the Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 2 titles as well, again no problems at all.

 

[Pete York]

Prompted by your warning Rafael I checked on whatever of these titles I could. ROBERTA, Film Noir V.4, STREETCAR, MADAME CURIE, all of Literary Classics, THE CLOCK, EXECUTIVE SUITE, TO PLEASE A LADY/JEOPARDY, THE GREAT LIE, WATCH ON THE RHINE, WEST POINT STORY, THE FOUNTAINHEAD, THE WRECK OF MARY DEARE, Errol Flynn V.2 and Bogart V.2 as well, all clear.

However, THE DIVORCEE/A FREE SOUL disc from Forbidden Hollywood 2 was a total shitshow, freezing up a player and being just flat out rejected by two others. Sure enough, there was visible, extreme blotchiness on the read side of the disc. So, thanks, I guess, lol.

 

[mdnitoil]

So far, all this is confirming that I need to move full speed ahead with my personal project of ripping all my discs to iso files onto a NAS. I've already done all the DV-18s in my collection because they seemed the most vulnerable. Looks like this might be the next order of priority.

 

[Thomas T]

Watched Wreck Of The Mary Deare in its entirety yesterday. Played fine.
Watched The West Point Story also played fine.