Blu-ray Discs Rotting?? - Page 2

Bumping this thread as I believe that, unfortunately, this may be an ongoing affair. There's another thread re: Fox titles rotting - does it make sense to combine them?

Anyway, I checked the Lionsgate titles Basic Instinct and The Descent, along with WB's Superman and the Fox titles Speed, Master and Commander, and Kingdom of Heaven.

All purchased in 2007-2008 and played on multiple Panasonic Blu-ray players and the 80 gb PS3 from 2007-2008. All stored in ideal conditions and are in immaculate condition.

Basic Instinct does not play. The others are fine. I've sent off an email to Lionsgate via this link requesting a replacement disc. Lets see how that goes...

Just a question that seemed to be an issue with LaserDisc. I am also wondering if this could happen to DVD's? Does it matter how much you watch each disc? I would like keep (and expand) my bluray's with the idea that I'll have them burried with me in my casket Some blu's I'll have burried with my enemies, LOL

Likely a very few pressing will eventually exhibit "rot" of varying degrees. Most- the vast majority- will not. The procedures used in the manufacture of Blu-ray discs has come a long way since the days when DADC USA and PDO churned out batches of pre-oxidized platters. Most disc that may potentially be affected should show signs within two to three years. As far as watching your discs, by all means do. There is no link between "rot"- caused either by debris or faulty adhesive between layers resulting in oxidization- and spinning the disc.

There was a faulty pressing of "The Prestige" (and a replacement program):

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=857067
http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=92750

What percentage of laser discs ended up rotting?

http://www.mindspring.com/~laserguru/askjosh.htm

I had over 300 Laserdiscs and did not experience rot on a single one.

Mark

A very small percentage. I don't think anyone could come up with an accurate number but it's got be maybe 2 - 3 percent at the worst. There was a pretty significant run of dozens of mostly Sony TrisStar LD titles in the late '90's pressed at one particular plant that had a very high percentage of discs quickly rot and become unplayable within a year or so of manufacture notably Starship Troopers and Contact.

I still have a fairly decent LD collection of about 400 titles, some going back to the formats' beginning including the original Criterion CAV box sets of King Kong and Citizen Kane originally bought with my first player in early '85 to one of the last LD's released, The Matrix in '99 and I think I've lost maybe 2 titles to rot over the years.

I've had a few dvds rot on me too. "Kentucky Fried Movie" comes to mind.

T.B.

I have found 3 DVD's in my collection that no longer play. These are all early production DVD's. Supposedly whatever issue was causing the laser rot is now fixed but I am not so sure it really ever was. It will be years before we know for sure.

So far the 3 DVD's I have tried that no longer play are Boogie Nights, The Matrix and The Jackal staring Richard Gere. All known offenders for laser rot. I bet I have a few more early produced disc that no longer work but have not got around to watching them yet. Luckily replacements are dirt cheap.

I would say unfortunately history might repeat itself and I see some Blu Ray's especially early releases will eventually stop working. I have not had any go bad yet but at least a few will likely go bad I am sure. I have recently heard a few HD-DVD's especially from Warner have recently given issues to those that own them. So much for modern pressings being more reliable.

I also have a sizable collection of laserdisc. I don't play them often these days but I know several are rotted. Alien and Aliens and Abyss Special Edition to name a few. It was awful feeling when I found out these disc no longer work but I had replaced most of them on DVD and Blu Ray when I found out so it ended up being more of a chuckle and a comment saying "So much for laserdisc being a timeless format".

I can only guess but I suspect by the time most of my DVD's and Blu Ray's are coasters most films will be available through high quality streaming. I have enjoyed collecting films on various formats over the years but when it takes several minutes to find a particular film I want to watch it gets kind of old after a while. I could free up a lot of space if I no longer need a physical piece of media to enjoy my films. We are already halfway there with services like Netflix but not there just yet. One thing that concerns me about streaming is you no longer have control over the content. So movies in your streaming library could be pulled at anytime and you are SOL. This is a different topic for another day though.

Aside from "The Prestige" Full Moon's second pressing first "Puppet Master" BD all went bad. Some sort of replication issue. Mind you the first pressing were all faulty in a different way- as they lacked the advertised DD 5.1 track.


Threads like these flare my neurotic Jewish tendencies to grossly stereotypical levels. I hope your all happy.

There also is just more space and material to have gone wrong with a Laserdisc than with a CD DVD BD sized one.

With Blu-ray all the data layers is on the tippy top of the disc with the hardcoat on top so its easier to test and less to go wrong over time.

I had two, if you avoid Sony USA discs you were normally fine.

I've never seen a laserdisc go so bad as to be unplayable, except maybe a few early DiscoVision releases which were faultily manufactured to begin with- I have some that have a ton of video noise and audio so noisy you can barely hear it. The rotted Sony USA discs I have show a lot of white sparkles on the screen, but they at least still play without skipping or stopping.

Haven't run into a bad Blu-Ray disc yet, but have gotten more than 20 bad HD-DVDs.

Where can I get a Blu-Ray Humidor?

Well - my third Blu-ray title has now died!!! Went to watch The Ninth Gate last night and even though it played fine last year - it will not load any of my players (Oppo - PS3 or Panny). In fact, I get the "No Disc" reading from my Oppo and the PS3 just spins and spins and then gives up trying to read the disc. Lionsgate disc rot has struck again!!! (previous Lionsgate title that rotted on me were the first versions of Total Recall & Stargate). Sigh

Anyone else experiencing problems with bluray or dvd titles not playing, when they originally did?

So far none of my bluray but have had them only since December '12.....but am going back through all of my Universal Monster Legacy dvd18's, aka flipper discs to see if they still work, after the Son of Dracula title from Dracula Legacy set now freezes and skips on both my new Panasonic BDT320, or my older reliable Sony NS77H dvd player.

Contacted Univ about it and they are sending a copy of the double feature, single disc, Son of Dracula/Dracula's Daughter as a replacement.

I told them that it may take some time, but am reviewing every Legacy and Lugosi Collection flipper discs to see if they still play ok.

With the history of trouble with the flipper discs, and the fact that Legacy sets are out of stock, the only replacementnts are the dvd-9, single disc double feature titles....except if your Invisible Man Legacy set goes bad, there are no double feature disc replacements, as these sequels have only been put in the Legacy series....same for House of Dracula.

I see these edge nicks on some discs, they are somewhat common.

Will they lead to rot?

DVDs and Laserdiscs rotted because those discs were constructed by gluing two thin layers together. CDs and BDs just use one thick layer; no glue. So, there should be no rotting on those. However, BDs have a scratch protective coating on them, so perhaps that's what's causing the rotting???? Very odd how BDs can go bad, especially since the format is new and still in its infancy stage.