Early Blu-rays that may have playback issues (Criterion, Well Go USA, etc.)

[bruceames]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

I know disc rot happens once in a great while, but what percentage of discs fail? .001%? If it was that rampant, we would be reading about it in every disc thread. I do understand certain pressings and regions have issues with certain titles, but it's pretty rare to read about it here in the North American section. I have discs that are 9 years old and have no issues. It was similar with DVD.

What percentage of your BD collection has rot at this point in time?

I've only had two myself, but there could be a few others that I'm not aware of. It's certainly not something I worry about. Any rare movie I simply make an ISO backup if it's any kind of concern.

[StingingVelvet]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

I think the odds of disc rot or something happening to the disc is greater than not having at least one of many available servers authenticate the movie for you. Do you really think there would be only one authenticater/server?

There are already all the horror stories you would ever need to hear in the video game world. Companies closing and taking all your games with them, games that have licensing issues losing music or content through a forced patch, game content being removed from a server so only pirates can access it, etc. etc. on down the line.

DRM is defective by design, I could never support it. Especially when a company like Sony could easily be gone in 10-20 years, given their current situation. Especially when licensing agreements have screwed up so many things before. DRM is simply bad for consumers no matter how you slice it and shouldn't be supported by them.

[Buzz201]

So, if I understand correctly, there have been no problems discovered with UK discs yet? Given that French company had a plant in the UK, do we think there's a chance British discs could go too?

[mredman]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

I know disc rot happens once in a great while, but what percentage of discs fail? .001%? If it was that rampant, we would be reading about it in every disc thread. I do understand certain pressings and regions have issues with certain titles, but it's pretty rare to read about it here in the North American section. I have discs that are 9 years old and have no issues. It was similar with DVD.

What percentage of your BD collection has rot at this point in time?

This. I have found 2 or 3 rots on my DVD's. None yet on my blu ray collection if i wanted to watch older titles from my collection. And if i find one i just buy the movie again. Big woop. What is the problem here i certainly don't see any

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by mredman

This. I have found 2 or 3 rots on my DVD's. None yet on my blu ray collection if i wanted to watch older titles from my collection. And if i find one i just buy the movie again. Big woop. What is the problem here i certainly don't see any

it becomes a big whoop when you find almost 40 discs that have failed in your collection in a few month period... which happened to me

[Impossible]

Originally Posted by wormraper

it becomes a big whoop when you find almost 40 discs that have failed in your collection in a few month period... which happened to me

If I had that many I'd be checking my player first!

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by Impossible

If I had that many I'd be checking my player first!

What happens when a good portion of a person's collection is long out of print or "limited edition" discs that can't be bought again?

Anybody with a BD-Rom drive in their pc can easily scan the disc for bad sectors. It will tell you if the disc is readable or not.

I had a DVD fail to play over the holiday season that I watched a couple years ago, and I scanned it in my pc for errors. Sure enough, the disc was now unreadable.

The point is, this news about the French manufacturing company is concerning. This isn't something people are making up. The French company has admitted to manufacturing defects, and the plant is under investigation. If people have to start worrying about their blu-ray collection, it isn't going to help with 4k adoption.

[Dylan34]

Originally Posted by HeavyHitter

I know disc rot happens once in a great while, but what percentage of discs fail? .001%? If it was that rampant, we would be reading about it in every disc thread. I do understand certain pressings and regions have issues with certain titles, but it's pretty rare to read about it here in the North American section. I have discs that are 9 years old and have no issues. It was similar with DVD.

What percentage of your BD collection has rot at this point in time?

Damn, this news about disc failure sucks man! I'm going to have to check all of my discs now just to see if i have any bad ones. Hopefully none will turn up!

[HeavyHitter]

I have never encountered a bad disc and I own about 325 or so Blus. I've also rented a ton - no issues.

[wormraper]

Originally Posted by Impossible

If I had that many I'd be checking my player first!

somehow I doubt that my 4 players all refuse to play the same disc at the same time... and somehow magically turn them bronze too

[StingingVelvet]

I've been buying DVDs since 1999 and only had two discs rot on me, both of them ER season set discs oddly enough. It does happen but it is not that common. A professionally pressed DVD should theoretically last a lifetime, and a BD is supposed to be stronger than that.

I do think it would make sense for all of us to do backups though. I will when HDD prices drop a bit lower.

[HD Goofnut]

Originally Posted by StingingVelvet

I've been buying DVDs since 1999 and only had two discs rot on me, both of them ER season set discs oddly enough. It does happen but it is not that common. A professionally pressed DVD should theoretically last a lifetime, and a BD is supposed to be stronger than that.

I do think it would make sense for all of us to do backups though. I will when HDD prices drop a bit lower.

I had the 1998 DVD of Apollo 13 and it kept locking up at the layer change about 45 minutes into the movie. I never could get that disc to play correctly. That's about the only DVD I can recall that crapped out on me.

[Impossible]

Originally Posted by wormraper

somehow I doubt that my 4 players all refuse to play the same disc at the same time... and somehow magically turn them bronze too

Silly me I knew you had 4 players

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by wormraper

it becomes a big whoop when you find almost 40 discs that have failed in your collection in a few month period... which happened to me

That seems to be a "you" problem though.

[Clark Kent]

If you were a heavy Blu-ray buyer between 2006 and 2010, multiple BDs have already failed. Those are facts, unfortunately. They are mostly limited to specific pressings or certain manufacturers. Remember that half of all HD DVDs don't even play anymore. It would have been a disaster for Hollywood if that format had won the format war.

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by bruceames.

I've only had two myself, but there could be a few others that I'm not aware of. It's certainly not something I worry about. Any rare movie I simply make an ISO backup if it's any kind of concern.

I was a bit freaked out by the Criterion/Well go thread, since then I doubled my efforts for rewatching my old blu-rays (which is something it was time for me to do anyway). But I've sort of made it a point to watch those blu-rays that I've owned the longest or haven't re-watched in the longest time, and even doing that for literally a hundred or more movies in the last few months (and going through many sets of extras for the first time ever), I still haven't encountered a single playback issue that developed while a movie was in my possession. Not even one.

Every disc I've ever had go bad, happened right out of the shrinkwrap - and it's probably been at least a year since I've had that happen (where a disc outright wouldn't play, or had skipping/freezing issue). It's really only happened to me on about 3 different releases, one of them being Ten Commandments gift set where ALL THREE discs were faulty and loaded with errors. So that makes about 5 blu-ray discs total that were either "rotted" or otherwise defective from the plant.

[AgentOrange]

Originally Posted by Clark Kent

If you were a heavy Blu-ray buyer between 2006 and 2010, multiple BDs have already failed. Those are facts, unfortunately. They are mostly limited to specific pressings or certain manufacturers. Remember that half of all HD DVDs don't even play anymore. It would have been a disaster for Hollywood if that format had won the format war.

Define multiple? If you are saying I have 5 more bad discs out of 1000 that are "unknown to me" at this time, I would say that is quite possible. If you are suggesting that there is a substantially higher number, like 25 or 50 or 100. I think it's a huge stretch based on my sampling of discs so far.

Like I said I've sampled about 100 of my earliest discs ever since these issues started cropping up (purchased in 2008, but the discs might be older) - and I haven't found any new failures at all. Not a single one. 100 discs is actually a valid sample size - so it's fair to say that the blu-ray failure rate is exceptionally low at 7 years out, like 1% or lower. Possibly MUCH lower if we are talking failure of discs that were originally manufactured properly and excluding those that were possibly bad right out of the plant.

[JoeDeM]

Every time this issue comes up, I get scared. I lost quite a few discs in the Laser Disc days.

[mredman]

if i come up upon one that i some day wanna watch that i can't play then i will just buy it again. I see no big deal in this. But as of now i have not come up upon one of my Blu Ray's that can't play

Which French studio had this issue of many failing discs ?

[jscoggins]

Originally Posted by Impossible

If I had that many I'd be checking my player first!

You need to stop trolling. Defective discs are a serious and acknowledged problem.