Now the "Disc Rot" Issue Seems to be Affecting My Blu-rays...Can Someone Lend any Assistance? (2 Viewers)

[Brian Hatton]

I've used the same player (Tag Mclaren) for dvds and cds for 20 years and never cleaned the lens or had a problem with a disc. My Blu-ray players have been an Oppo and latterly for Blu-ray/4k discs, a Panasonic and I've still never used a lens cleaner and had a disc that wouldn't play. Occasionally, a smear on the disc surface has received a wipe, that's all.
Some discs have had some hammer and still work - there's no friction against the discs so I don't see why they should 'wear out' and that's certainly been the case so far.
Maybe it's your cleaning regimen that's the common denominator?

 

[Kaskade1309]

I recently attempted to play my bluray of El Cid that played fine when a bought it many years ago and it wouldn't even load in my HTPC's drive. No visible scratches or debris. Multiple attempts, multiple drives, no go.

I took it to my kitchen sink and washed it with Dawn dish detergent and a soft sponge, then dried it with a soft cloth.
Inserted it into the same drive and it loaded and played with no issue.

It's worth a try......

I tried the Dawn dishwashing method (it's actually how I clean vinyl with excellent results) but it never worked with optical media. The discs I mentioned being related to "rot" never played back without issue after such a cleaning.

 

[Kaskade1309]

I've used the same player (Tag Mclaren) for dvds and cds for 20 years and never cleaned the lens or had a problem with a disc. My Blu-ray players have been an Oppo and latterly for Blu-ray/4k discs, a Panasonic and I've still never used a lens cleaner and had a disc that wouldn't play. Occasionally, a smear on the disc surface has received a wipe, that's all.
Some discs have had some hammer and still work - there's no friction against the discs so I don't see why they should 'wear out' and that's certainly been the case so far.
Maybe it's your cleaning regimen that's the common denominator?

If you're referring to me, I never had any issues up until now -- that's more than two decades in the hobby and with collecting DVDs and Blu-rays -- with this problem of the discs freezing up and pixelating. I never had a need to clean the discs because I handle them meticulously, unless I attempted to do so after suspecting there may have been a manufacturing defect (namely with 4K discs).

 

[Vern Dias]

I tried the Dawn dishwashing method (it's actually how I clean vinyl with excellent results) but it never worked with optical media. The discs I mentioned being related to "rot" never played back without issue after such a cleaning.

I suspect there are at least two kinds of "rot". One that is unrecoverable where the "data" layer decomposes, and the one that I apparently encountered which seems to be an almost invisible haze on the surface of the disc.

In the case with my disc, the BD drive would not even recognize the disc enough for it to show up in MakeMKV. It's like it tried to read the volume ID and failed.

I have also encountered discs that have visible marks on them, where it required the use of Novus ultrafine plastic polish to get them to play without errors.

 

[Kaskade1309]

I suspect there are at least two kinds of "rot". One that is unrecoverable where the "data" layer decomposes, and the one that I apparently encountered which seems to be an almost invisible haze on the surface of the disc.

In the case with my disc, the BD drive would not even recognize the disc enough for it to show up in MakeMKV. It's like it tried to read the volume ID and failed.

I have also encountered discs that have visible marks on them, where it required the use of Novus ultrafine plastic polish to get them to play without errors.

Interesting; thanks for sharing.

Ultimately, I suppose I'll never know just what exactly was plaguing these DVDs and Blu-rays which, subsequently, caused them to pixelate and refuse to play past a certain point (save for this last Blu-ray I tried, The Conjuring, being that it ended up playing when I tried it again). I replaced the DVDs that exhibited the issue with Blu-ray counterparts, and I suppose that's all I could do.

 

[Kaskade1309]

Okay....tried The Conjuring again last night and, lo and behold, it froze up in a different spot now -- right after the Ed Warren character is speaking with the Roger Perrin character when Ed is fixing Roger's old classic Chevy. I tried playing from this scene onward three times, and each time the Panasonic froze at the exact same moment, took me to the "anti-piracy" warnings that come at the very end of an authored disc (before the disc boots up again, after the end credits) and then returned me to the startup Warner Bros. logo/music.

Every time I reloaded the disc and tried again, it locked up at that exact spot -- at one point, the disc loaded and began pixelating as soon as the Warner Bros. logo splashed on the screen.

At this point, I'm not sure if what's going on is due to widespread disc rot throughout my collection or the UB9000, because, as I said, with some discs (like Selena and American History X), the exact same trouble spots popped up when I played them in a different Panasonic in the bedroom. I will continue to point out that all of these titles, save for freezing/pixelating that occurs on the Bad Boys for Life UHD from Sony, are Warner Bros. releases (some under the New Line Cinema guise).

 

[roxy1927]

My Lg 4k player stopped playing 4k MFL completely and had 4k A Charlie Brown Christmas jumping all over the place which I've already written about.

I bought a Sony 4k player. Now though it plays both films through I am still having sound problems with MFL. Crackling in certain spots and sound going in and out. It's driving me nuts. And this is my second MFL 4k disc. At this point I doubt Amazon is going to allow me a third. But it is very strange. It seems like I'm the only person to have this sound problem with this disc. How could it have the same problem on two completely different players?
There is some spirit in my apartment that does not like this movie. Probably of a long dead theater queen who has not gotten over Audrey playing the role instead of Julie who he had seen in the original Broadway production.
It is so unfortunate because it is one of my favorite movies and looks splendid on my 86" TV.

 

[David Norman]

Interesting; thanks for sharing.

Ultimately, I suppose I'll never know just what exactly was plaguing these DVDs and Blu-rays which, subsequently, caused them to pixelate and refuse to play past a certain point (save for this last Blu-ray I tried, The Conjuring, being that it ended up playing when I tried it again). I replaced the DVDs that exhibited the issue with Blu-ray counterparts, and I suppose that's all I could do.

Not widespread disc rot.. 99.99%

 

[willyTass]

anyone who wants to "clean " a BD player should watch the tonnes of videos on UTube. A guy by the name of 12VOLTS is a seasoned repairer and hes got tonnes of good videos on the subject. The "lens" that those discs with tiny brushes supposedly clean is just one part in the optical pathway that needs to be cleaned. Disassembly is required.

 

[Kaskade1309]

Now this is downright odd.

My wife attempted to "clean" the Conjuring disc without any liquids, just rubbing with a cloth (don't even ask; she didn't consult with me regarding how to rub the disc from the inner hub to the outer edge, and instead did it in circular motions as you'd clean vinyl....and not even with a cloth that wasn't colored or patterned!), and the disc worked the next time I tried it. Played fine from that lockup point onward. She claimed that, under light, she was definitely able to see some stuff on the playing surface, but I simply can't explain that because I've been meticulous with my discs. Is there ANY possible way something is getting on these discs from the inside mechanisms of the Panasonic?

Yet ANOTHER disc, after that, started to freeze and pixelate, and this was one that NEVER gave me any issues in the past and one I didn't watch nearly as much as The Conjuring, the Scream Factory Blu-ray of a little horror gem by Renny Harlin from 1988 called Prison. At one point, the disc started to do that colored pixelation thing and I couldn't get past that part; when my wife rubbed the disc, again (this time doing it correctly), the disc played with no issue.

At this point, I'm inclined to think that the UB9000's laser is just REALLY really sensitive to any kind of imperfection on the playing side of Blu-rays and UHD Blu-rays....

 

[willyTass]

i threw my 9000 away long ago . ruined my viewing experience always worrying when a disc would freeze or pixelate . with Oppo players life has been a dream .

 

[Kaskade1309]

i threw my 9000 away long ago . ruined my viewing experience always worrying when a disc would freeze or pixelate . with Oppo players life has been a dream .

Was yours that bad?

I wish we could have gotten a UDP-203, but I wasn't paying what they were asking on the open used market. I could put the Cambridge CXUHD, which is basically a 203 clone, back into the system, but it exhibits a nasty noise when playing DVDs that I would like to avoid.

 

[Kaskade1309]

anyone who wants to "clean " a BD player should watch the tonnes of videos on UTube. A guy by the name of 12VOLTS is a seasoned repairer and hes got tonnes of good videos on the subject. The "lens" that those discs with tiny brushes supposedly clean is just one part in the optical pathway that needs to be cleaned. Disassembly is required.

Also, Willy -- with regard to your comment about the brushes on the cleaners: the cleaning disc I used didn't have brushes, rather utilized a "wind funnel" system that supposedly blew the dust off the laser area.

 

[willyTass]

actually , cut your loses with panasonic . Ive seen people have their lasers replaced by panasonic only to fail again within 6 months . Get a second hand oppo 203 while u can . It was the same with Toshibas first generation HD-DVD player. Lots of nonsensical theories about washing discs etc to prevent freezing and pixelating . Turns out none of tyhese problems happened with Toshibas 2nd gen players . Turns out the fault was teh garbage NEC optical drives toshiba used in their first gen player

I just bought a new in Box oppo 205 and have played hundreds of movies in teh last 8 weeks - not one has frozen or pixelated .

That nasty noise u mentioned is an easy fix with cleaning and re-greasing rails by the way. See the 12volts dude's videos on you tube

The Music Room Ohio is a excellent seller through audiogon for second hand Oppos. He's even sent them to me to melbourne australia and they arrive perfect . Sometimes he gets new oppos in for sale too at much better prices than Ebay .

 

[Dick]

I have an LG Blu-ray player that began showing symptoms such as you describe. Now (after about five years), most Blu-rays and even a few DVD's freeze up, typically where a layer change occurs. The player need thorough cleaning and probably realignment.

 

[Kaskade1309]

actually , cut your loses with panasonic . Ive seen people have their lasers replaced by panasonic only to fail again within 6 months . Get a second hand oppo 203 while u can . It was the same with Toshibas first generation HD-DVD player. Lots of nonsensical theories about washing discs etc to prevent freezing and pixelating . Turns out none of tyhese problems happened with Toshibas 2nd gen players . Turns out the fault was teh garbage NEC optical drives toshiba used in their first gen player

I just bought a new in Box oppo 205 and have played hundreds of movies in teh last 8 weeks - not one has frozen or pixelated .

That nasty noise u mentioned is an easy fix with cleaning and re-greasing rails by the way. See the 12volts dude's videos on you tube

The Music Room Ohio is a excellent seller through audiogon for second hand Oppos. He's even sent them to me to melbourne australia and they arrive perfect . Sometimes he gets new oppos in for sale too at much better prices than Ebay .

The noise I am experiencing with the Cambridge isn't going to be fixed by cleaning and de-greasing any rails -- it's definitely a defect because it only affects DVD media and sounds like a weird "ticking/grinding." When I sent it in for service three times under warranty, they couldn't replicate the problem, even when I sent them DVDs that were supposedly acting up, but when I got it home it started again. Originally I thought it was the glass shelf the player sits on because Cambridge didn't give this unit puck-like feet underneath like other units typically come with, but when we moved it upstairs to our bedroom and tried it there, it made the same noise -- again, only with DVDs.

We definitely got a lemon.

 

[Kaskade1309]

I have an LG Blu-ray player that began showing symptoms such as you describe. Now (after about five years), most Blu-rays and even a few DVD's freeze up, typically where a layer change occurs. The player need thorough cleaning and probably realignment.

The discs played fine after my wife gave them a bit of a rub down with a cloth (as I mentioned a couple of posts up); I suspect the Panasonic's laser is VERY sensitive to the slightest imperfection on the playing surface or any kind of debris that may be sitting on it.

 

[Ed Lachmann]

Disc Rot or not Disk Rot? I'm game to try anything once. A Youtube video prompted me to buy the cloths today and try the method the collector advised. I've problems with my beloved The Egyptian, The Robe, Sunset Boulevard, El Cid and several others. The face of all these discs is pristine. Will report on whether this method works for me. As for disassembling my Oppo and taking an alcohol swab to the lens, I may have to consider this potentially dangerous.

 

[Kaskade1309]

Would be curious to know how you made out with the cloths...

 

[Ed Lachmann]

Would be curious to know how you made out with the cloths...

Not so well, sadly. Didn't fix the skipping and freezing problems on discs like my WB DVD of Band of Angels. Did nothing to help open up the menu of my unplayable Spellbound blu-ray either. Did a test to see whether either would play on my OWC Mercury Pro blu-ray burner. No luck there either, so I imagine the discs themselves are dying or dead. Odd because the surface of the discs are really pristine, no aberrations at all. Thought to try cleaning the lens of the Oppo, which I will try with the Oppo recommended Maxall "wind funnel" Lens Cleaner I just bought on Ebay. But, if the newer OWC can't play them then probably nothing will. Bit scared to find how many of my collection are "fakakta".