Do you obsess about slight scratches on Blu-ray discs?

[DaniRyder23]

Originally Posted by joonskeezle

I've sort of come to terms with the fact that most scratches don't affect playback whatsoever.

Obviously if it's a traumatic scratch, it goes back. But I tolerate minor scratches now that gave me unending anxiety back in the day.

This is reassuring to read, as I've only started chancing secondhand discs recently (the 24 month warranty that CeX provides certainly helps), but as a vinyl collector as well it's kinda ingrained in me to freak out when I see a scratch - even just a minor one. Of course with a record I can just pop it on the platter and play that song, or that part of the record, to test it out. With optical media I have no idea how the data is stacked, so it means watching the whole disc to be sure that the scratch won't be an issue. In the case of a barebones film, it's not too bad - put the film on in the background for 2-3 hours and keep an eye on it. When it's a multidisc TV series, or a loaded special edition set, it's a bit more worrying as I don't know when I'll get the chance to watch everything on the disc...even watching one disc's worth of episodes can take 4-5 hours. Then I remind myself that, actually, I've never had a BD disc give me issues up till now...and maybe these "scratches" I'm seeing are just surface scratches on top of the protective layer. I do trust BDs more than DVDs, in that respect...

Originally Posted by joonskeezle

Honestly if you can only see the scratch under specific light, you're probably fine.

And then there's this - I can only see these scratches when I hold it up to a lamp at an angle, they're basically invisible in the general room light, so I think I'm probably just looking at them under the worse light possible - but of course when they are held at that specific angle, under that specific light, they look bloody awful

Originally Posted by joonskeezle

I've just never understood how people damage their discs that way. Like, it must take effort. Are they just tossing the discs read-side-down onto dusty coffee tables? Dropping them on a dirty cement floor and then accidentally stepping on them?

I've actually thought about this. And I don't know how they do it.

I have a theory on this, which I only really thought about today as I was swapping discs in my BD player...I ejected the last one before turning the player on, went to grab the disc as it popped out, and then heard all the whirring of the machine trying to feed the disc in as I was pulling it out.

The reason: I watch BDs on my Xbox Series X, and before that an Xbox One. I believe it's the same kind of system on a PS4 and PS5 as well (although I remember there being a slim PS3 that allowed you to place the disc straight on the spindle, the original ones also had that slit style drive on them. Though ironically - the Xbox 360 didn't, but it didn't have a BD player built in either).

If I remember to turn the Xbox on before ejecting the disc, it's usually fine - or if I hit eject and grab the disc as soon as it comes out, it's fine, but if you hit eject, and wait just half a second before grabbing the disc, then the Xbox tries to feed the disc in as part of its booting up process. I can imagine this would cause some of the scratches I've found - but if that is the case then I don't think those kinds of scratches would necessarily go deep enough to actually damage the disc. I suppose those could be considered fairly normal "wear and tear".

I don't think those slit style drives are great for discs, never have, but until I can justify the cost of a decent BD player it's all I have atm (and have had for years). I'm sure there are still plenty of people who buy BDs, watch them on their games console, and then trade them in for more BDs or (even more likely) used games. Ironically, I've gone all-digital with games since I got an XboxOne, so I've only ever used those drives for BDs and the occasional CD...

But that's one theory I have for the light surface scratches, at least - and they tend to be more common on TV box sets because (I imagine) people will be swapping those discs more often - unless they're the type to binge a whole disc at a time before putting something else on (of course with a games console, people are more likely to watch an episode, replace it with a game disc, go back to the show they were watching, maybe swap it for a CD, then another game disc, then back to the show etc - being a multimedia player, I would imagine that the discs spend more time going in and out of the machine than they would in a dedicated BD player that can be left dormant while the user does other things)