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

I decided to start a new thread on this topic because I noticed many people are talking about these problems in individual series threads, but there is no individual thread dealing with this topic specifically so people might not be aware of this problem that is destroying people's TV on DVD collections, and it concerns tv dvd sets.

Some TV on DVD series set used Scanavo slimline packaging. If you do a search of "Have Gun Will Travel" or "Andy Griffith Show" or "Scanavo" in this forum, you will find messages from consumers who have disc rot apparently caused by the oily surface of the cases.

Apparently, amazon is selling the Have Gun Will Travel Season 3 set for a remarkably low price because of this. Read the reviews there.

The purpose of this thread is to document all TV shows on dvd sets that use Scanavo cases.

It's not just a Paramount problem. For example, my season 3 of Fox's "Lost in Space" uses Scanavo cases. Luckily, I don't see any damage. Nevertheless, I flipped the discs over so that the label side faces the case, so that the shiny side doesn't come in contact with the case to be on the safe side.

UPDATE: The word, Scanavo, is embossed in the plastic case. It is located inside when you open the case, at the bottom, close to the center spine.

Hogan's Heroes seasons 1, 2 & 3

I looked at my 3rd season HGWT and they are all a mess. What are the companies doing about this? Are they offering exchanges? I didn't check Hogan's Heroes yet but how widespread is this issue? I really think TVShowsondvd as well as HTF need to get behind this issue and try to get some answers.

I was thinking the same thing yesterday Hank. I almost sent an email to Gord or Dave asking that they look into this on behalf of the consumer. It looks like Paramount sets are going to be the ones most in jeopardy. Here's my list of problem sets thus far (ones with the Scanavo oily casing and cloudy discs):

HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL - Seasons 1 and 3 (most are cloudy)
ANDY GRIFFITH - Season 4 (cloudy)
BRADY BUNCH - Seasons 2 (discs 1 & 2 very cloudy), 4

Interestingly enough, none of my GUNSMOKE 50TH ANNIVERSARY cases are Scanavo, yet Bert Greene reported on another thread that he had issues with that set too.

I still haven't checked everything out, but if I find more I'll post it here as an edit to the list above. Unfortunately, Paramount has used this company with many of their sets. That's not to say they are to blame, just that they seem to have used these particular cases more than other companies. It appears the main culprit isn't even Scanavo single cases, but just the double slim-line cases. Also, I've found that not all of the Scanavo double slim-lines cause the cloudiness on the dvds. Some are fine, but others are not. So it's a real mystery to me. But it does appear to be a consistent issue on certain sets, the HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL Season 3 being the most infamous thus far.

Gary "this is potentially a very, very big problem" O.

I just checked over all six seasons of Hogan's Heroes and all the seasons are alright except for season 2. Several of the discs for that season have horrible disc rot on them. Season's 1 and 3 seem to have escaped it with just minor spots on one of the discs from season 1. Season 2 is not minor at all as there are spots spattered all over some of the discs that were not there when I bought the season. I am not taking any chances though as I have placed all of my Paramount discs into a cd album and won't be buying anymore Paramount box sets. Here's a scan but the damage looks much more severe than what the scanner would pick up. Interesting enough season 3 discs are all perfect and will stay that way in the cd album I placed them in. Season one to HH does not have the Scanavo logo anywhere on the case but the case does have an oil like film on it.

http://i202.photobucket.com/albums/a...pfan/HHDVD.jpg

I also checked out my wild wild west box sets and all of those along with Gomer Pyle all are perfect so far.

I recently bought the entire series of The Pretender and they are in the slim/double Scanavo cases. I didn't have any disc damage but there was one broken hub and the disc flies off when I open the case. I may re-package them in Slim-Pak cases just to be safe.

Edit: I meant to say Thin-Pak not Slim-Pak.

My Hogan's Heroes season 2 is clouding. I went through and trashed all the boxes. Rather not keep exposing the DVD to the Scanavo slimline.

After reading the post re the Andy Griffith Show disks going bad yesterday, I did an extensive check of every TV DVD set I own with clear slim case packaging. The following series were the ones I found that used Scanavo cases:

The Andy Griffith Show
Hogan's Heroes
The Brady Bunch
The Wild, Wild West
Millennium
21 Jump Street
Kolchak: The Night Stalker
St. Elsewhere

Not all of these used double disk cases; some were single disk type cases. And there some sets that used one or two Scanavo cases, mixed in with generic unmarked cases. So there seems to be a certain amount of randomness as to the use of the Scanavo cases.

Checking for damaged disks, I only found that a few of the Brady Bunch disks showed some notable smudging. These are brand new sets that I just received within the last few weeks and I just opened yesterday, so there is no telling how long the smudging had been there, or what the exact cause of it was. I couldn't detect any direct relationship to the condition of the cases, as they seemed to be clean.

I carefully washed the disks with soap and a little water, and buffed them gently with a cotton ball and tissue, which seemed to remove most of the residue. The disks I checked seemed to play fine, although I didn't watch every episode on each disk, but just spot checked them.

So it may be possible to clean and remove the offending residue, assuming that is indeed what was happening with the disks I checked. I can't speak for more advanced instances of this, but it is worth it to try if the disks aren't too far gone.

Also, has anyone really verified whether this is only occurring with the double disk cases? I find it hard to believe that Scanavo used a different plastic for double disk cases than the single disk ones.

And is it really the cases that are the problem, and not some mis-manufactured disks? As far as I've heard, it seems limited to Paramount sets (so far), many of which presumably came from the same manufacturing plant(s).

That's what I was thinking. It could certainly be the cases but, to me, it seems just as likely that it could be a problem on Paramount's manufacturing end (a la Universal's DVD-18s) rather than the cases.

I Love Lucy is another series that used Scanavo cases, but only the single disc type.

I did run across a single Scanavo case in Andy Griffith S1 that had a film on it, but the DVD looked fine.

Sounds to me like a poorly made batch of plastic. I suspect that a plasticizer is leeching out of the case.

No problems with any of the discs in my "Phil Silvers Show: 50th Anniversary Edition" (aka Sgt. Bilko).

Mine has just a very, very slight cloudiness to it, but it plays fine. In fact, even the worst ones (BRADY BUNCH Season 2) play fine.

Having said that, I'm fairly certain this is a Scanavo case issue and not a Paramount disc issue. The reason I say this is that I've yet to encounter a cloudy disc that wasn't in the Scanavo casing. There is an oily feel to these cases in the worst examples.

The only documented cases that seem related are the HAVE GUN, WILL TRAVEL Season 3 sets that Amazon.com was selling at a reduced price. There were multiple reports on another site of those discs being extremely cloudy and not playing/loading right. And all of them had the oily Scanavo cases. Other than that set, I've not heard of anything across the board that actually has resulted in discs that will not play at all. There are apparent issues with cloudiness that we can agree on, but it doesn't appear to go any further than that.

Gary "I'm still replacing all the cases I can" O.

I have the discs in sleeves, no problems it appears. Some were stored in those type of cases for a while though.

while the clouded DVDs seem to play now, it seems that further exposure to being inside the Scanavo boxes might put them in a critical state.

To me, that still just indicates a bad batch of discs. And since it's also suspected in other Paramount discs, it would seem to indicate that those discs also came from the same 'bad' plant. Why or how would oil that could damage a disc get into a case for just Paramount DVDs? Many companies use Scanavo cases but Paramount is the only one that people are reporting problems with. That points to the problem being with the plant manufacturing Paramount's DVDs more than the cases that they put them in.

Once again, I'm not saying that it's not possible that the Scanavo cases are causing the problems, I just think that it's much more likely a problem in the manufacturing since it seems limited to one company.

Not trying to argue, but couldn't we turn the point around and ask the following question: Why would a batch of discs spontaneously go cloudy and cease playing? It only makes sense that something has to cause this problem, and the majority of us that investigated our HGWT dvds noticed a distinctive oily feeling to the Scanavo cases that we haven't noticed on other cases.

Hey, I have no idea what's going on. It might be a batch of bad discs, although the thought of those discs spontaneously going cloudy and bad on their own is actually a worse thought to me because it means it can happen to other discs that right now show no sign of problems. At least with the thought that the casing is the problem we can create a quick solution. All we have to do is change them out. But if the problem is solely with the discs it's a scarier thought, IMHO.

Gary "I'm still changing out the Scanavo cases - better safe than sorry" O.

Another thing I found interesting while reading some of the amazon reviews about the "Have Gun Will Travel" sets is that the only disc in the set that was bright and shiny was disc 7, which was the only disc in a single-disc slimcase. The ones with the problems were in double slim-line cases.

So if it was a disc manufacturing problem, then disc 7 should be rotted too.

Just checked all 3 sets of my Addams Family dvd's and much to my dismay, the 3rd disc on the Volume 1 has a cloudy circle radiating from the centre on one side and again the 3rd disc on Volume 2 also has a cloudy circle though not as wide as the other one. Disc two on Volume 2 has a cloudy circle on BOTH sides of the disc and is the worst of the bunch. One side actually has "waves" of different circles clouding over the disc. Fortunately my volume 3 discs all seem to be fine. I have immediately taken all the discs out of the Scanovo cases and placed them in sleeves for the time being.
I am going to check and see how the "Clouded" discs play in my players and if I can possibly clean them.
This is extremely upsetting...i bought each set as it was released and have long ago lost the original receipts for the first two volumes. I am hoping that they still play fine but i guess my big concern and worry is, will these "clouded" discs worsen with time?

This is a virtual nightmare as I own hundreds of TV DVD box sets. I checked all my I Love Lucy sets as well. I found that seasons 2 & 3 did use some Scanovo cases in the package (not all of them though) and a few more scattered in later seasons. Fortunately all these discs seem to be fine, but I'm wondering now if I should also take all of them out and place them in sleeves...just in case?

Todd, I too found the ADDAMS FAMILY sets used the Scanavo double slim-line cases and that one of the discs was indeed beginning to show signs of cloudiness. And I guess this latest info tends to lend support to the theory that the issue is with the cases, and not the discs themselves. And on top of that, I've yet to find the Scanavo single cases to be a real problem. It's mostly the double slim-line cases that seem to be the culprits.

Gary "I don't want to be an alarmist, but this really is becoming an issue" O.