How to determine a DVD is bad? (1 Viewer)

[DanielW]

I hope this is the correct forum to post this question, but I was wondering if there was a way to determine that a DVD is "bad." For example, I recently bought all of the Evil Dead movies online. I was watching the first one (the one presented in 1.85:1 w/ dts encoding) and the DVD bombed out at about the 1 hour 10 minute mark. As the DVD was new, I assumed that my DVD player (Sony DVP-NS315)might be having trouble reading the disk. So, I threw the disk into the PlayStation 2, which had problems in the same spot.

When I took the disk out to look for any scratches, the back looked unblemished, but there was no fine demarcation between data and "blank" space. In fact, there was a wavy line that almost looks like water damage.

I'm pretty resigned to the fact that this disk is bad. But, Evil Dead 2, and to a certain extent the Army of Darkness - Boomstick Edition, look similar. I haven't gotten around to checking those movies yet, but I'm afraid they are bad too.

So, I'm asking for any sure-fire way to determine whether a disk is bad or not. For all I know, these DVD's can be read on better DVD players, and the latter two movies may work fine on my player. Is there a bad batch of Evil Dead DVD's? Anybody else had this problem?

Thanks in advance.

 

[SvenS]

The only way to determine if a DVD is bad is to play it and if it doesn't work try it in another DVD player. If it still doesn't work it's a 99% chance the DVD is bad.

As to the "water mark" spots you see that is perfectly normal on many DVD's and will not cause any playback problem at all.

 

[Jake Johnson]

If the dvd's are made by companies that go by the name(s) of "Universal" or "Artisan" you can generally assume that they will be bad.

 

[Paul D G]

That's a pretty unfair thing to say, especially to a new member. While it's true there have been a few titles with issues, the implication that if it's by these two studios you will have problems is untrue. Just because most people don't like the forced trailers at the start of many Universal titles doesn't mean the discs are bad, just the studio's policies. And, as far as Universal goes, at least they own up to their mistakes and redo the problem discs.

-paul

 

[Cagri]

This is a very difficult question, and I often experience similar problems with different discs. I haven't been able to tell if it's the discs or my player(s) that is bad.

My last experience was with Chocolate DVD which I'd bought online. The film freezes at one point and does not accept any command. I tried it on my PC where I can watch copy DVDs without problems (my main player is an old Pioneer which has problems reading bootlegs). It stopped at the same exact point, and I sent the disc back to get a replacement. Same thing happens at the same exact scene in both of my players. I took the disc to my local blockbuster and it played perfectly on their player.

My guess is, the disc is actually faulty, but it is a fault which can be overread by some players....

 

[DanielW]

Yeah, I'm pretty certain the disk itself is bad. I tried another DVD player and it froze *almost* in the same spot. It actually played fine for another minute, and then started skipping/pixelating.

Ok, so then, Cagri, if you sent the Chocolate disk back and got a replacement, my next question is: did the replacement disk play fine? One of my bigger fears is that, like you said, it's a defect on the disk that some players can read fine...maybe it's a manufacturing defect?

Oh, well, I'll send Evil Dead back definately, and I still have about two weeks in which I can check Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness.

I was kind of hoping that there was some program that would check the whole DVD to see if each sector can be successfully read.

Thanks for your help guys.