Show Us Your Scratches, A Thread of Damaged Discs

[MrGarmonbozia]

Originally Posted by Matt89

I still need to email Criterion regarding my scratched discs for Devil in a Blue Dress. Both discs are completely f*cked.

Might not be John who writes back directly. I had two other Criterion staff write who did seem to legit care that the scratches were making me double think purchases from them. They were very polite and helpful.

They will probably ask you to write the name and/or date on the discs with a Sharpie and send them pictures of the fronts of them but certainly doesn't hurt to send an initial pic of the damage you are seeing.

[Matt89]

Originally Posted by MrGarmonbozia

Might not be John who writes back directly. I had two other Criterion staff write who did seem to legit care that the scratches were making me double think purchases from them. They were very polite and helpful.

They will probably ask you to write the name and/or date on the discs with a Sharpie and send them pictures of the fronts of them but certainly doesn't hurt to send an initial pic of the damage you are seeing.

Oh yeah it's almost always somebody else who handles these requests in my experience.

But yeah I've requested replacement discs from Criterion several times now, almost every time I've placed a flash sale order over the past couple years I've needed replacements for the discs that were scratched. It's unfortunately become standard practice at this point. At least they've always been really good about it and offer their apologies for the inconvenience.

As long as you're polite in the email (which I always am) they're very helpful. Same with Shout Factory tbh, I've never had them tell me that they can't send me replacements or asked for proof that they skip, etc. As long as you don't go in with guns blazing and instead simply ask for a replacement with proof of purchase and a pic of the damage, they've been pretty good so far.

[shadowdrive]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

Are people returning discs multiple times without even checking to see if they work?

I don't check discs for scratches but this isn't something I worry about at all. The majority of the photos of "scratches" I've seen online are of circular marks, which suggests the marks are perhaps created during the manufacturing process and not by careless individuals. Maybe there's something pressing down too hard during the replication process. Whatever the case may be, the marks don't seem to affect playback. I've had pristine discs not play (Paramount 4Ks are particularly problematic) so I don't think these light hairline marks are actually a problem.

Even a small scratch on a Blu-ray can be problematic if it hits the data side i learned that the hard way with one i kept sealed for a year.

[stvn1974]

I wonder what it is about BD and UHDs that make them so easy to lock up because of scratches? I have 20 year old DVDs that look like they were sitting on gravel and then run over by a semi and they still play.

[sfmarine]

Originally Posted by Matt89

I still need to email Criterion regarding my scratched discs for Devil in a Blue Dress. Both discs are completely f*cked.

Shout and Criterion are by far the worst offenders for me. Sony is getting bad too. I had to exchange Sony's Air Force One UHD steelbook 3 times and still couldn't get a set that wasn't scratched. I had to settle for one that was LESS scratched. The discs play through at least, and Amazon completely refunded my money and told me to keep it. I seem to have slightly better luck with Kino, although I've had to exchange several of their UHDs as well.

Anyway, this is total bullshit and it's made me seriously scale back my purchases of US discs. Buying a disc pressed in Mexico these days is a total crapshoot.

Yup…total crapshoot these days. I had a similar experience with a recent Sony release (Men in Black), which took 3 times before I got a good set.

My recent pickup of Inception was trashed and I got a replacement today. 4K is good but Blu-ray is rough but that’s ok as I really only care about the 4K and I’ve got the original release. The newer re-issues from WB (without codes), were all pressed in Mexico.

[KubrickKurasawa]

Fool me once, you can't fool me again!

[HarcourtMudd]

Well, eventually something's gotta give. Currently, there are only two sources I feel confident with buying titles: Paramount, and Arrow. Paramount because most of their A-list stuff comes from a German plant - all of my Star Trek movies and Dragonslayer (and hopefully the upcoming D&D flick) were pressed in Germany, and all were pristine. As for Arrow, I had read somewhere that they don't use the Mexico plant either, and all of my Arrow titles have been likewise pristine. I have indefinitely suspended all other purchases (unless I feel like gambling) on purchases from anybody else (Scream/Shout, anyone?), although I might take a gamble on The Flash.

One would hope that, with the ever increasing volume of damaged product coming from he Mexico plant, additional plants would come back online, if anything, just to stem the tide of returns... I know, probably not, but I can hope (even a fool's hope)...

[jess1581]

Everybody up in here, looking like....

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by MrGarmonbozia

I've gone one coming so I'll let you know. Certainly, Shout was a bit harder to get replacements from as they have a rule on how large the scratches must be. Criterion, after the first pic I sent of the scratched disc, didn't even ask to see the other 6.

Shout also seems to have more of a baglog in replacements, at least from their email. At any rate, unlike Criterion stating the replacement discs are inspected for scratches before shipped, Shout made no mention of this.

Hopefully, that Street Fighter disc is clean.

I have about 5-8 other scratched Shout discs (though not as bad as Street Fighter) that I have to eventually get to to see if they play or freeze up like Street Fighter did.

Also, I have that 11 film Shaw set from them, 3 disc Tiger Cage and 3 other Shout discs on the way. With 17 discs to come, I am sure others are going to have issue.

It sucks that you kinda' gotta dread getting releases from these guys these days.

Shout told me in an email once within the last year or two that they do check replacement discs before shipping them out. This was after I sent them an email showing their replacement disc being worse than the first disc. They claimed somehow they must have missed the damage. I don't see how anybody could look at some of their replacement discs and not see the scratches, especially when you're sending them to a customer that has already complained about scratches. They must check them under candlelight.

They also told me once that the scratched 4k replacement disc they sent me was the only one they had lying around the office. Why is Shout sending people replacement discs that are just floating loose around the office? Sounds like they didn't want to send me a new disc so they looked around and found one sitting somewhere.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by stvn1974

I wonder what it is about BD and UHDs that make them so easy to lock up because of scratches? I have 20 year old DVDs that look like they were sitting on gravel and then run over by a semi and they still play.

More data packed closer together, since the same size discs hold more data, so a scratch damages more data. That's also why circular scratches are the worst - more sequential data is damaged that way. A scratch on a UHD potentially damages far more data than the same exact scratch would damage on a blu-ray or DVD. A DVD could hold about 4.7GB per layer max, or about 9 GB if it's a dual-layer. Blu-rays can hold 25Gb per layer, and UHDs can hold up to 100GB if it's a triple layer - that's a lot of data packed together that can be scratched.

[mar3o]

Originally Posted by HarcourtMudd

One would hope that, with the ever increasing volume of damaged product coming from he Mexico plant, additional plants would come back online, if anything, just to stem the tide of returns... I know, probably not, but I can hope (even a fool's hope)...

What I don't get is instead of giving customers a hard time, why don't labels join together and demand higher quality control from that Mexican plant? Or have they tried and it just falls on deaf ears?

[rdodolak]

Originally Posted by mar3o

What I don't get is instead of giving customers a hard time, why don't labels join together and demand higher quality control from that Mexican plant? Or have they tried and it just falls on deaf ears?

That would be nice. If we had more than one plant on the continent we'd at least have competition and if the labels went somewhere else then Vantiva would have impetus to either fix the issues or lose business.

I wish someone else would stand up a plant thus taking business away from this plant, but it's likely cost prohibitive so unlikely any company is willing to do that at this point.

[MrGarmonbozia]

Well, when I thought Criterion wasn't replying I asked Amazon to send a replacement for the Once Upon a Time in China set. Good thing Criterion got back and are sending clean discs because Amazon's replacement arrived today and, you guessed it, those discs are scratched too.

[Goemon77]

Criterion sent me 2 scratched blu ray replacements for the same disc recently..so they definitely don’t check their discs closely. It’s weird how it’s become a complete collectors market, but collectors don’t want damaged shit. The scratched disc thing is out of hand, and really squashes the fun out of the fact that we’re in a golden era of riches when it comes to these releases. Some people tend to freak out when their flimsy slipcover has minor damage but don’t care if their disc is swamped with scratches.

[Jobla]

My copies of PRIVATE PARTS (1972) and THE STRANGLER (1964) arrived from Shout without scratches.

[MrGarmonbozia]

Originally Posted by Goemon77

Criterion sent me 2 scratched blu ray replacements for the same disc recently..so they definitely don’t check their discs closely. It’s weird how it’s become a complete collectors market, but collectors don’t want damaged shit. The scratched disc thing is out of hand, and really squashes the fun out of the fact that we’re in a golden era of riches when it comes to these releases. Some people tend to freak out when their flimsy slipcover has minor damage but don’t care if their disc is swamped with scratches.

Oh joy. Well, I WAS wondering where they were getting their discs from as I figured it was the same as the rest of us and Criterion didn't have a presser at their office . . . but, still, it was nice to hope that they send scratch free discs. (They did for Barry Lyndon)

They said the customary it may take a few weeks but what you said has me wondering if they just, in this instance, get a whole bunch of Once Upon a Time in China and Police Story discs sent to their office and some interns go through them all until they find clean discs to send out.

Part me likes to think that if this keeps happening and they now have to inspect more closely replacements that, yeah, something will be done.

[AxeYou]

Thank you, OP, for making this thread! Checking my photos, I found 39 pictures of scratches discs I took since last summer. I've uploaded them to: https://imgur.com/a/EVoGtLn

I'll mostly echo a few excellent points from upthread:

1. Scratches affect every North American studio/label, except Paramount (because they've been pressing in Germany) and maybe Vinegar Syndrome (not sure: I've only bought a few of their partner label releases, but so far all came pristine).

2. It is mighty hard to capture scratches on a shiny surface with a phone! It becomes a huge waste of my time and energy to deal with scratches, from documenting the evidence to following through the replacement process.

3. I personally estimate at least 30% of the US discs I receive are scratched. This is likely a conservative estimate. And, as others have remarked, simple laws of probability dictate that boxsets are a giant gamble because of this.

4. This has definitely reshaped my purchasing behavior as well. I rarely buy US releases now. Shifting mostly to UK boutiques.

5. I recently contacted Shout for replacements, and they also told me they were "working from a big backlog of replacements." While I do not wish ill on anybody, I do hope these labels get inundated with replacements that they'd do the logical thing next—turn to the Mexican plant for reimbursement. I fear that may be the only way we consumers can influence this crappy situation.

6. Every time I email a US studio/label for replacement, I've tried to respectfully bring the scale of this issue to their attention and ask them to bring this up with the Mexican plant. So far:
- Sony, Shout, and Arbelos ignored me.
- Kino said they'd pass relevant info to their manufacturer.
- Criterion, on the other hand, denied scratches were a widespread issue (this was Nov 2022): "Please note, this is not a widespread issue, and our discs are fairly resilient and scratch resistant [...]"

7. I've also tried to bring this up with Amazon's customer service when I initiate replacements there. Their reps have been helpful and said they'd relay my messages, although I'm doubtful they'd follow through or that anything would come out of it.

8. When I ask for a replacement, I would also politely ask the labels to inspect the replacement discs before sending them out. However, I've still received obviously scratched replacements from Sony, Criterion, and Arbelos. Note that, instead of sending a brand new sealed product like a retailer does, they send individual loose discs, so there really is no excuse not to visually check the discs.

9. While European imports have mostly arrived in pristine condition, the "disease" does appear to be spreading. My recent order from the UK contained quite a few scratched discs, including a few StudioCanal 4Ks and Second Sight's Picnic from Hanging Rock 4K. I've also previously received several scratched discs from Plaion (Germany)'s Miami Vice boxset. And I find the multiple scratch reports on recent Curzon 4Ks worrying.

[a priori]

Originally Posted by AxeYou

9. While European imports have mostly arrived in pristine condition, the "disease" does appear to be spreading. My recent order from the UK contained quite a few scratched discs, including a few StudioCanal 4Ks and Second Sight's Picnic from Hanging Rock 4K. I've also previously received several scratched discs from Plaion (Germany)'s Miami Vice boxset. And I find the multiple scratch reports on recent Curzon 4Ks worrying.

So far this year, I've purchased 48 non-U.S. discs (UK, France, Germany, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong), and only Curzon discs had scratches (2 4Ks:
3 Colours-Red, and Double Life of Veronique).

[Member-222782]

Well, it's finally happened. Amazon will start charging for Returns, according to a News headline I spotted while playing with my phone this morning. I didn't read the article because I was pressed for time so I don't know when this will begin but this was bound to happen sooner or later. I guess they're getting a sh!t ton of people returning stuff for petty reasons and they've had enough. They're a huge conglomerate with deep pockets but even big corporations get tired of people taking advantage of generous policies. Some of you folks who love returning stuff for dents or minor scratches will have to take a moment to consider whether it'll be worth it or not

[MifuneFan]

Originally Posted by Cinema84

Well, it's finally happened. Amazon will start charging for Returns, according to a News headline I spotted while playing with my phone this morning. I didn't read the article because I was pressed for time so I don't know when this will begin but this was bound to happen sooner or later. I guess they're getting a sh!t ton of people returning stuff for petty reasons and they've had enough. They're a huge conglomerate with deep pockets but even big corporations get tired of people taking advantage of generous policies. Some of you folks who love returning stuff for dents or minor scratches will have to take a moment to consider whether it'll be worth it or not

Before writing all that, you should have read/skimmed the article, which takes all of 20 seconds..They are only charging a $1 service fee if you return something to a UPS store when there is a Whole Foods, Amazon Fresh Store, or Kohls that is closer. Those other options are all still completely free.