Scratch resistance ?

Blu-Ray has its own coating to help resist scratching more since the data is only 0.1 mm from the surface of the disc. Because the data is only 0.1 mm from the surface Blu-Ray was originally intended to be a caddie format but that was decided against since it was believed that it would have dissuaded customers. Although a coating called "Durabis" could have been used they chose to have their own developed since the cost of Durabis was prohibitive.

HD DVD on the other hand has the same coating as standard DVD since the data is 0.6 mm from the surface of the disc, the same as standard DVD. Though Blu-Ray has a more resistant coating they will still scratch, and if the scratch is 0.1 mm deep or more then there is serious risk of permanently damaging the data. A scratch on an HD DVD will need to be six times deeper before the data is at serious risk of being damaged.

From personal experience renting both (and lets be clear, rental disks *are* the ones with the problem, anyone taking care of thier disks will not suffer any ill effects from scratches), I will say that I've never encountered a blu-ray disk that will skip or suffer any ill effect from scratches. HD DVD's on the other hand, do suffer a problem on occasion and need to be cleaned. Verify this by reading the blu-ray and hd dvd software areas and you will see that hd dvd owners frequently have to clean rental disks with scratches but this is not the case with blu-ray.

As a matter of fact, has anyone at all had a problem with scratches on a blu-ray rental disk?....It's possible they have, but I've never heard of any such occurance.

All my blu-ray discs come with just fingerprints on them, if that. My HD-DVD discs always have scratches on them, and are usually way more beat up then BD.

I have not seen one scratch on any of the BD titles I have rented from Netflix.

I have never had one problem playing HD DVD or BD from Blockbuster...But I do clean them everytime before putting them any of my players.

Think the poster you are quoting was talking about Rental discs rather than purchases, and in my experience of rental DVDs, scratching is an issue.

In the UK amazon ship their rental DVDs in a much slimmer case, that doesn't really allow the disc inside to be dis-lodged, presumably to avoid scratching during shipping? (Downside is you don't get to read the original sleeve blurb) I've only had one Amazon rental DVD that has been so scratched as to be unplayable on all my DVD devices.

Midnight, why do you think it is so many more owners are having issues with HD-DVD getting scratched and not playing as compared to Blu-ray? That Durabis coating must be pheonominal.

Here is a story I have already told once, but I will tell again. When I first got my PS3 I bought X3. My wife and I watched it that night and enjoyed the film very much. At our house we like to use CD-R discs as coasters on our coffee tables, don't ask why, it just looks good with our furniture, etc.

Anyway I went to play the X3 disc in my basement theater a week or so a go and I could not find it. I searched everywhere!! Finally I sat down to watch some football on the couch and realized one of the coasters was X3!!

So I immeadiatley popped it in the PS3 to test it and sure enough it played without a hitch!!

That disc had been used as a coaster for several weeks without even the smallest of scratches on it. We had two dinner parties in that time frame and combined with the normal daily wear and tear I was pleasantly surprised to see how tough these Blu-ray discs are

~Josh

I doubt you'll find any scientific results on the matter. The real bottom line is no one on the blu-ray side complains of scratches, because it's a non-issue with the anti-scratch coating present on all blu-ray disks.

I don't want to be getting flamed for this but do you think this could be that not to many people are renting Blu-Ray?

HD-DVD has the market for people who don't want to spend as much and are more willing to care less about the player / disk than someone who just dished out $1,000 on a player?

At least I look at it that way. Someone who spends more is more willing to protect the investment over someone who did not.

First, there have been relatively few people renting Blu-Ray movies compared to HD DVD. Secondly, I would surmise that most of those who have rented Blu-Ray are early adopters who are aware of the 0.1 mm depth of the data and ensure that they take extra care when handling the disc. Third, yes I have read here where a Blu-Ray renter recieved a disc that was scratched and would not play (if I find the post I'll put up a link to it). Bottom line, you may not be coming across scratches now, but a resistant coating is only that -- a resistant. Scratches can and will happen.

By the way, Blu-Ray discs do not use Durabis. They use their own coating.

If you want to know about BD hard coating, do a search, there is a lot of info available.

Though I could not find the exact post I was referring to, someone here had their Blu-Ray disc dropped on the floor which ended up getting scratched pretty badly after hitting a toy or two. The thread discusses a quote by the CEO Don Diotte of Venmill Industries (found in The Winnipeg Free Press, Page E5, Nov 15, 2006), which performs resurfacing and/or repairing of scratched DVDs, among other things:

"Blu-Ray may hold more data than HD-DVD disks, but there is a trade-off. To fit more information on the disk, Sony had to reduce the thickness of the protective coating. Consequently, the discs are much more vulnerable to scratches, if left lying around the table for example.... In the USA there's a billion dollar buy-sell industry around computer games. I do not know how they're going to face the reality that Blu-Ray is an unrepairable format."

He affirms that if Blu-Ray discs are not properly taken care of, they will end up getting scratched, which may prove to be a big problem for the disc owner. We don't know the long-term consequence of prolonged use of Blu-Ray media, but from doing a few searches you'll find that the discs do indeed scratch, even with the scratch resistant coating. And these are only from early adopters.

BD scratch resistance is awesome; kmlm13 - worry not. It's frankly downright impressive how resistant they are. If there's ever a thread on the matter, it's a thread of praise - I'm not sure I've seen a single thread on the topic of an unplayable BD.

And just for clarity, Durabis is a hardcoat technology developed for Blu-ray by TDK (and it's incredible), but the Blu-ray pressed discs we get use different hardcoat methods. TDK is using Durabis for their writable BD's though.

BD's have excellent resistance to medium-to-light scratches but are still vunerable to heavy scratches. The big downside with BD's is that if one does get a big scratch on it, that scratch is permanent and unlike CD's, DVD's and HD-DVD's, it cannot be removed using any kind of DiscDoctor or any other type of disc resurfacer. But it takes quite the "violent action" to mortaly wound a BD! Plus, I love how you can wipe fingerprints right off them using just your breath and a t-shirt and it doesn't leave a single feather scratch. Try doing that with a regular disc!

There are opposing views on this. DVD's have withstood the test of time in terms of their playability with scratches, and HD DVD just follows this. It is a time-proven effective technology. It is NOT as a general principle a good idea to have to design something new in order to accomodate a short-coming. The short-coming in Blu-ray discs is that the data is extremely vulnerable to scratches and special measures (in the form of a scratch-resistant coating) had to be taken to make it viable. While this may in fact appeal to people because the discs don't get scratches in normal wear, this is in fact NOT a desirable path to take when designing something. You normally try to leverage your proven technology as much as possible (which is what HD DVD did) in order to minimize the risk of both short-term or long-term failure, and to keep costs low. However, since the new scratch-resistance technology employed by Blu-ray is out here, hopefully it is a good long-term solution and is cost-effective.

Nothing is stopping HD-DVD from adopting a hard coat either. It's a good idea all around, especially for rental markets. Oh, that's right, if they added one then the manufacturing cost would probably be more in line with Blu-Ray.

Dan

what in the world are you talking about? Reason BD's are a lot more scratch resistant than HD-DVD's is that they use far superior coating. BD camp has marketed that you can go over the BD disc with an car and nothing would happen. Lifetime expectancy of BD disc is around 100 years.

On the other hand, HD-DVD's are just like DVD's, which means not durable at all. I apologize to Jeff, but to say that DVD's have withstood test of fine is ridicilous - they certainly have not!

Can you please take a few moments to put your Blu-Ray discs on the pavement (find the smoothest place you can if you like), then take your car and run over it. Then, take the same BD and play it for us. Record the whole thing and post it on YouTube.

I check every disc I get. I've seen one extremely fine 1cm scratch on the dozen or so discs I've gotten since joining a Netflix-like service last month (Zip.ca). All the others were absolutely pristine.

At some point the rental companies will have to make a decision.

Gary

If only there were a crappy freebie that people could repurchase for $5 on eBay.

The free TN should be used as a test disc for such things.

Gary

People who own both formats on AVS report BD's are much more resilient than HD-DVD's.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=770776
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=781836
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=781312

Of course in each of these threads you'll see MidnightWatcher complete with "HD DVD Wins" sig running damage control.

At our house it is a common tradition to use CD-R's or DVD-R's as coasters if the burn went bad.

Well for the past 10 or so days I could not find my Blu-ray of, "Gone In 60 Seconds." Then yesterday while watching football, I happened to flip one of the two coasters over on the coffee table and sure enough there was my copy of, "Gone In 60 Seconds."

I was of course surprised to see this and I immediately threw it in my PS3. To my pleasure it played all the way through without a problem.

This shows the durability of the Blu-ray discs. This thing litterally has had many, many abrasive surfaces in contact with it over the past 10 days and it did no damage whatsoever.

~Josh



[b][i]Yeah ok guy

What? Even my DVDs won't play if I drag it across paved sidewalk, that's a bit extreme isn't it? Even CDs would skip if you do that. How can that be a valid test?

I actually might do that :-). Let me just watch Taladega movie and see if it is really that bad.

I know for sure though, that my BD discs have already withstood a lot of use that would leave DVD scratched... I can honestly say that as long as I look hard at the DVD, at least one scratch will develop. On the other hand, my BD's laying around (dont have cases for them , long story) only get dirty and once you clean them, they are all still perfectly nice. I cant remember when I saw an DVD without an scratch last time, even if minor one.

TDK is marketing their HD's as able to withstand "cleaning" with steel wool, with hard coating.

There is a thread and a post here about some who are renting Blu-Ray discs from Netflix for example that have cracked on the outer edges. Apparently some of these are unplayable. Not sure if there is an inherent issue with Blu-Ray media or not, but it should certainly be a cause for concern I think.

Blu-Ray does not use Durabis.

Do not know about Blu-Ray but Blu-ray disc with Durabis® are readily available from Newegg.

Do some testing of your own to prove how fragile BD are compared to HD-DVD. Some wood blocks, felt, lab weights, sandpaper and steel wool should do the trick.