Serious concerns about off-gassing in cases - Blu-ray Forum

mar3o · 01-14-2021, 05:00 AM

I've been concerned about this for years, but I rarely see it mentioned. Some brands of cases, like Viva Elite, seem to off-gas, from what I've been able to learn about it. Over time an oily residue or coating builds up on the inside of the case, and even accumulates on the disc surface itself. Sometimes I see it on brand-new releases. Some cases/brands don't seem to have an issue with it.

As I'm buying more UHDs I'm seeing this more and more. I don't know if that's because it's an even bigger problem with UHD cases, or maybe just because they are black so it's much easier to see the residue as opposed to blu-ray cases. I've seen lots of my blu-ray cases develop this issue over time too, and I fear this will cause the discs to deteriorate over time. It takes a good 10-15 minutes at least to fully clean off a case inside, using a microfiber cloth to absorb it all, trying to cover all the nooks and crannies in there, all of which are coated to various degrees. But it's not feasible to clean them all. And I've cleaned some UHD cases just to see a few months later it's already starting to build back up. There's no way I can go through all my cases every few months and clean them all again. That's unrealistic.

Here's a couple pictures I took of the inside of Peter Jackson's King Kong UHD this evening. This one has it real bad, and though not all my cases look this bad, many do have a noticeable coating inside. I can run my finger across them and it leaves a streak. I bought this one sometime in 2019 I think.

Why don't we hear more about this? I've seen a couple comments in the UHD threads saying when they have playback issues they clean their discs off and they can see a film on them sometimes. Why are people accepting this? I don't ever remember having issues like this with DVD cases. I still have lots of empty blank DVD cases from long ago and they still look fine inside even today. Are people just not noticing this? Why is it acceptable that these cases are made of a material that build up this oily residue that ends up on the discs? As you can see it's also nasty to look at and I have no idea how toxic that oily substance is to touch. My apartment has plastic items all over everywhere and they don't have this off-gassing issue. What is it about these cases that makes this happen?

It's stuff like this that keeps me up at night. I've been planning to go through all my UHD cases to clean them, but it's an overwhelming amount of work, and it will likely just come back anyways.

I'm very concerned about this. There's no way this oily substance is good for the discs long-term.

01-14-2021, 05:00 AM	#1
mar3o Banned Member since:Dec 2011 Blu-ray reviews: 1 Trading Score:2	Serious concerns about off-gassing in cases I've been concerned about this for years, but I rarely see it mentioned. Some brands of cases, like Viva Elite, seem to off-gas, from what I've been able to learn about it. Over time an oily residue or coating builds up on the inside of the case, and even accumulates on the disc surface itself. Sometimes I see it on brand-new releases. Some cases/brands don't seem to have an issue with it. As I'm buying more UHDs I'm seeing this more and more. I don't know if that's because it's an even bigger problem with UHD cases, or maybe just because they are black so it's much easier to see the residue as opposed to blu-ray cases. I've seen lots of my blu-ray cases develop this issue over time too, and I fear this will cause the discs to deteriorate over time. It takes a good 10-15 minutes at least to fully clean off a case inside, using a microfiber cloth to absorb it all, trying to cover all the nooks and crannies in there, all of which are coated to various degrees. But it's not feasible to clean them all. And I've cleaned some UHD cases just to see a few months later it's already starting to build back up. There's no way I can go through all my cases every few months and clean them all again. That's unrealistic. Here's a couple pictures I took of the inside of Peter Jackson's King Kong UHD this evening. This one has it real bad, and though not all my cases look this bad, many do have a noticeable coating inside. I can run my finger across them and it leaves a streak. I bought this one sometime in 2019 I think. Why don't we hear more about this? I've seen a couple comments in the UHD threads saying when they have playback issues they clean their discs off and they can see a film on them sometimes. Why are people accepting this? I don't ever remember having issues like this with DVD cases. I still have lots of empty blank DVD cases from long ago and they still look fine inside even today. Are people just not noticing this? Why is it acceptable that these cases are made of a material that build up this oily residue that ends up on the discs? As you can see it's also nasty to look at and I have no idea how toxic that oily substance is to touch. My apartment has plastic items all over everywhere and they don't have this off-gassing issue. What is it about these cases that makes this happen? It's stuff like this that keeps me up at night. I've been planning to go through all my UHD cases to clean them, but it's an overwhelming amount of work, and it will likely just come back anyways. I'm very concerned about this. There's no way this oily substance is good for the discs long-term.

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