Do scratches on the DVD affect play?? (1 Viewer)

[Larry P]

I recieved another DVD through the mail that had come loose inside the keepcase. It really only has one large scratch on it and was marked up by something else which I was able to wipe off.

I recieved another DVD that had several scratches on it but it plays fine. But I don't have a huge home theater system like most people here so I might be missing some minor glitches.

Do scratches affect the quality of the DVD? If it doesn't seem to affect it now, will it over time?

And, I bought it from Deep Discount DVD, just wondering how is their return policy, do they cover the cost of you shipping it back to them?

Thanks for listening.

 

[Scott Shanks]

It really depends on the severity of the scratch and your players sensitivy to scratches.

I rented a Tarzan DVD from Blockbuster (eek) that was scratched so severely it would not play. But, I have played other discs on my player with minor scratches with no problems.

I've bought a few discs from DDDVD, but have never had to return anything I already opened.

 

[WesleyHester]

Unfortunately Larry, loose discs in factory sealed cases seem to be found more and more lately. I've seen in mentioned on other forums and I've experienced it myself too many times for my liking.

I find it more in special edition 2-disc sets. The extra features disc in the back is secure but the movie disc in the front is loose and scatched during transport. I've noticed alot of times there are promotional papers tucked in with most of the loose discs too.

I've had to return countless discs because of this. I hate it. One time I purchased the Tron special edition at the local Wal-Mart which had about 20-30 copies. I couldn't return the scratched disc until the following day. When I arrived at the store ALL 20-30 copies were gone and I later found out several people had returned their copies too - some multiple times just to find a securely packaged "mint" disc.

I just got the Atlantis special edition set from Amazon and it had a loose disc. I played the entire movie through with Dolby Digital and then DTS without problems and I've decided not to return it. The scratches (all in one place) look severe to me but both my DVD players handle it and I guess they can both "see through" the scatches and still get the information they need.

A month or so ago, I returned The French Connection special edition 2-disc set to Wal-Mart 5 times before getting a disc that wasn't scratched AS BAD as the others. It too played through OK.

I've only had two disc freeze up on me. One was Simon Sez. It appears to not have any scratches but the actual "information layer" underneath the plastic outer layer seems distorted. The other was Mansfield Park. It has what appears to be the "footprint" of the device that handles the disc wafers as they are being manufactured.

Anyway, be careful ordering 2-disc special editions over the internet and if you can buy it in a store, do the "shake test". (With promotional material inside too though the shake test can sometimes be unreliable).

 

[Jeff Howard]

If you contact DeepDiscountDvd they will mail you a prepaid shipping label for you to return the dvd.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Larry,

One of the first things I learned about

DVD is that the content is recorded much

closer to the disc's surface than a music

CD.

For that reason, DVDs are more highly prone

to playback problems when scratches are present.

 

[Ike]

Is there a good way to remove scratches?

 

[Kevin McCorry]

Ordered the Planet of the Apes TV series from

Amazon. It arrived with the first disc off its

hub, floating, and scratched. So, I requested a

replacement. And it arrived too with the first

disc as a floater, but somehow it wasn't scratched,

though disc two has a scratch-like mark around the

centre hole.

Saw M*A*S*H Season 1 at the local Zellers. I give

the two boxes on the shelf the shake test and

hear multiple discs moving in the cases. Conclusion:

FOX's multi-disc Alpha case is a dud. To all companies:

please release TV series with each disc in its own

Amaray case like A & E does.

I had more Twilight Zone DVDs arrive as floaters

than Rod Serling has cigarettes. Those accursed

Scanavo "grip-of-death" DVD cases whose spindles

are brittle and prone to breakage, and discs

floating on those are inevitably scratched.

All of these discs played fine, although I have a

R2 Doctor Who- Caves of Androzani disc that arrived

as a scratched floater and one of the menu options

doesn't work. That may not be scratch-related,

though.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

It can. I know that when I rent discs from Hollywood Video, half the time I'll have to exchange copies because some asshole scratched it up somewhere down the rental chain. Still, one or two scratches (unless they're somewhat deep) shouldn't affect playback.

 

[David Lambert]

Here's what Jim Taylor's "Official DVD FAQ" has to say on the subject:

Most scratches will cause minor channel data errors that are easily corrected. That is, data is stored on DVDs using powerful error correction techniques that can recover from scratches as big as 6 millimeters with no loss of data. A common misperception is that a scratch will be worse on a DVD than on a CD because of higher storage density and because video is heavily compressed. DVD data density (say that fast ten times!) is physically four times that of CD-ROM, so it's true that a scratch will affect more data. But DVD error correction is at least ten times better than CD-ROM error correction and more than makes up for the density increase. It's also important to realize that MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital compression are partly based on removal or reduction of imperceptible information, so decompression doesn't expand the data as much as might be assumed. Major scratches may cause uncorrectable errors that will produce an I/O error on a computer or show up as a momentary glitch in DVD-Video picture. Paradoxically, sometimes the smallest scratches can cause the worst errors (because of the particular orientation and refraction of the scratch). There are many schemes for concealing errors in MPEG video, which may be used in future players.
See 1.39 for information on care and cleaning of DVDs.
The DVD computer advisory group specifically requested no mandatory caddies or other protective carriers. Consider that laserdiscs, music CDs, and CD-ROMs are likewise subject to scratches, but many video stores and libraries rent them. Major chains such as Blockbuster and West Coast Entertainment rent DVDs in many locations. So far most reports of rental disc performance are positive. A nice list of DVD rental outlets is at home.earthlink.net/~tlfordham/rental.html.

 

[Craig_T]

One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that since data is arranged and read circularly on a disc, radial scratches (one between the hub and the rim) will cross more error correction blocks and be LESS harmful than a scratch that is circular and "follows the data."