Do Blu-Ray Discs Degrade Over Time?

[Blu-Curry]

So here's what happened:

I wanted to watch my blu-ray copy of Face/Off last night. It released May 2008 and I bought it right away, only ever watching it once on my original 60GB PS3. I put it in my 120GB Slim PS3 (got it 2011/2012) and it recognized the disc, but was unable to read it: ERROR 80029940 "This video cannot be played".

I was suprised, so I took the blu-ray next to it (Enter The Dragon - the 2007 release) and put it into my PS3. This too I only watched once back in the day on my 60GB PS3. This time, the Slim PS3 didn't even recognize it.

I wondered if the PS3 was damaging the discs upon insertion or the discs themselves were somehow defected. Face/Off looked to have a small hairline "fracture"/slight disruption on the underside by the hole. Enter The Dragon looked clean.

I did some more tests. I took the blu-ray on the left on my shelf of those 2 (District 9) and the one on the right (GI Joe: Rise of Cobra). Both worked on my PS3. I decided to try other old blu-ray films of mine. Total Recall (2006 release) which did look a bit dirty/scratched on the underside (watched it total 2 times, probably once on each PS3) and this time the PS3 didn't recognize it. I put in The Untouchables (2007 release) which I bought the same day as Face/Off and only watched once on 60GB PS3... it worked!

I tried Face/Off on PS4 ("Cannot play the disc" ERROR CE-35485-5), while Enter The Dragon and Total Recall were not recognized and instead ejected. I tried Face/Off and Enter The Dragon on an older LG blu-ray player, which didn't play them either.

So at the end of this all, I'm just really baffled how 3 older blu-rays out of 4 chosen from my collection from pre-2009 no longer work. Especially since I watched them only once about 10 or more years ago. It makes me question how the rest of my library is holding up. On one hand, I guess it gives me an excuse to get 4K UHD versions but on the other it's disheartening that these blu-rays I paid for so long ago no longer work.

Does anyone have any insight regarding this?

Edit: I had also tested the last blu-ray movie I watched (Independence Day 20th Anniversary). Still worked on PS3, and then worked on PS4.

[Vilya]

It isn't that blu-rays degrade over time, but rather that, like with anything, some defective discs were made.

Some blu-rays that were made during the early years of the format, particularly from Paramount, Lionsgate, and even Criterion developed playback problems, but these are the exception and not the rule.

In some cases, sending an email to the studio, or licensee in the case of Criterion, with the details of your problem will result in them sending you a free replacement disc. Criterion is particularly good about this and Paramount usually will, but they take a long time to respond, especially now due to the pandemic. Lionsgate is hit or miss, but worth trying.

As Face/Off is a Paramount disc, you can write to them here: PHE_CustomerService@paramount.com Explain the problem and include a picture or something to show that you own the blu-ray. Response time is taking 2-3 weeks, so be patient.

Disney is the only studio that I know of that flat out will not help with a defective disc, but then I have very rarely had to contact them with such problems.

There is a thread about such blu-rays, too, titled:

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

https://forum.blu-ray.com/showthread...49210&page=145

[CV19]

Vilya is correct regarding a few defective discs being made in the early years of the format. We saw exactly the same thing (at least here in the UK) with DVD's too quite early on.

I recall MGM having problems with their Silence Of The Lambs and The Terminator releases back in the year 2001 - they were both released at the same time. There were lots of reports about this in the various AV and DVD magazines as they were probably MGM's biggest titles to be released on DVD at that time. However to be fair, MGM set up a replacement scheme where you simply returned your discs to them and they exchanged them.

I bought these two titles myself back then, and after a year or so they developed a kind of sticky residue on the playing surface. There were one or two other more lower profile MGM titles released around the same time (or very shortly after) which suffered with similar problems too, although I can't remember which ones they were.

[bruceames]

Some players have better error sampling than others as well. I have several defective HD DVD discs that won't play on the Toshiba player, but some will on the LG player and even more still on the HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360. I have at least one HD DVD that will only play on the add-on player.

The Warner HD DVD discs are notorious for playback problems and when I watch a movie I'll just automatically put it in the add-on player to reduce the odds of the movie freezing up during playback.

[oddbox83]

I've had the cloudy disc issue with several DVDs (like the UK Silence/Terminator), but they seem to wash off with mild soapy water. Also some defective on first play (DVDs and HD-DVDs, not so much Blu-rays).

Touch wood, it's very rare for me to pluck a title off my shelf and find something wrong with it.

DVD-R on the other hand, countless faulty discs after a period of time, yet other old ones will still play. Utterly random, and the bad discs have totally unrecoverable areas which make them coasters. So much so I won't touch burned media with a bargepole these days, I'd rather go for download if I can't have a pressed disc. Downloads can be easily backed up without any effort by storing on a RAID formatted home server.

[Vilya]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

I've had the cloudy disc issue with several DVDs (like the UK Silence/Terminator), but they seem to wash off with mild soapy water. Also some defective on first play (DVDs and HD-DVDs, not so much Blu-rays).

Touch wood, it's very rare for me to pluck a title off my shelf and find something wrong with it.

DVD-R on the other hand, countless faulty discs after a period of time, yet other old ones will still play. Utterly random, and the bad discs have totally unrecoverable areas which make them coasters. So much so I won't touch burned media with a bargepole these days, I'd rather go for download if I can't have a pressed disc. Downloads can be easily backed up without any effort by storing on a RAID formatted home server.

A little rubbing alcohol and a micro fiber cloth will also remove that cloudy haze on DVDs.

As for burned media, my experience has been the opposite of yours. I have been burning discs from CD media to BD media since at least 2005 and very few of these discs have failed on me. Of those that did, most were from one brand of media, namely Philips. Not one of my Verbatim brand discs have failed. The brand of media seems to be a factor. I backed up my laserdiscs to DVD media with great success and endurance. I also always make my burns at the slowest burn speed; a software engineer that I know recommended doing it that way.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

DVD-R on the other hand, countless faulty discs after a period of time, yet other old ones will still play. Utterly random, and the bad discs have totally unrecoverable areas which make them coasters. So much so I won't touch burned media with a bargepole these days, I'd rather go for download if I can't have a pressed disc.

I have to be honest with you, I first bought a DVD recorder back in 2004 and have only ever used three brands of discs - Sony, Verbatim and Taiyo Yuden, and none of them have ever failed me so far.

I do recall a discussion on an AV forum many years ago which also mentioned manufacturing plants in some countries which had questionable quality control processes.

Taiyo Yuden's always came out on top. They were generally the most expensive to buy, but all of their discs were manufactured in Japan - they were superb DVD-R's. Verbatim originally had plants in Singapore and Taiwan - these were the ones to go for (which are the Verbartim's I have myself) - again, excellent discs. However in later years Verbatim began to manufacture in India and China too, and discs from these countries apparently had many issues despite the fact they were still branded as Verbatim's.

All the Sony's I have were made in Taiwan, and they are all still in perfect working order.....or at least the ones I recently played.

For what it's worth, I gather Taiyo Yuden stopped manufacturing discs only a few years ago and are now made by a firm called CMC - but I don't know where their manufacturing plant is located.

[Blu-Curry]

Thanks everyone for the insight! I had no idea that some early BDs or DVDs had issues, but that makes sense. I'll definitely take a look at that early blu-ray thread, and see if any studio may offer a replacement.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

I've had the cloudy disc issue with several DVDs (like the UK Silence/Terminator), but they seem to wash off with mild soapy water.

I can't remember if MGM ever got to the bottom of what caused the problem, but one suggestion that was made at the time was possibly the ink used on the label side somehow causing a reaction on the disc. I don't know if that was the case or not.

[oddbox83]

I didn't stick to just one brand, but I do recall buying a lot of Rytek in the mid-00s (Taiyo Yuden dye) and Verbatim. Some of the failures were also shop-bought TDK discs I bought early in the game, but ditched pretty quick as some would fail on recording.

Some of what has gone was burned on a Panasonic DVD recorder. Some burned in a computer has gone as well, it's rarer but these are also the younger discs. I know about burning at slower speeds, but a recorder didn't give you any choice.

Most of them you couldn't physically see anything wrong with the disc, and they would load, they would just have unrecoverable sectors which prevented them from copying when I was transferring them all over to my server. I've tried recovery software to begin with, but the resulting files would corrupt (video and audio out of sync, etc) from the damaged point so I gave up even trying.

At a rough guess I'd say one in every 10 DVD-R disc I tried was bad, most from DVD recorders. I had 2, a Panasonic then later a Sony. I've probably had a higher failure rate from the Panasonic recorded discs than both the Sony and burned on a PC, but to be fair the Panasonic discs are the oldest. Most of the failures have also passed the 15 year mark. The youngest known failure was a bought DVD-R release, probably on cheap media and burnt at fast speed.

So based on my own experience, I would say you can't trust organic-dye based DVD-R as an archival medium. The better manufacturers and other steps to take do help, but you can't do anything about age-related degradation. I haven't used the newer inorganic layers like from M-disc that are supposed to last longer so can't speak for those, since I just use HDDs now.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

Some of what has gone was burned on a Panasonic DVD recorder. Some burned in a computer has gone as well, it's rarer but these are also the younger discs. I know about burning at slower speeds, but a recorder didn't give you any choice.

The machine I bought back in 2004 was the Sony RDR HX-900 DVD Recorder which had a built-in hard drive. I recorded everything onto the hard drive and I'd then dub them over to the disc if I wanted to keep the recordings. When dubbing, I always did it in 'real time' rather than high-speed dubbing. I'm not familiar with your Panasonic recorder, but the Sony was a belter of a machine - worked for years and was very reliable.

As for DVD-R's, I never tried Rytek, but yes I do remember hearing mixed reviews about TDK's discs - most of them weren't very positive.

By coincidence, I'm just going through some recordings I made on both Sony and Verbatim discs made at the end of 2004 and during 2005. They are programmes I recorded from a Spanish channel called TVE International when it used to broadcast on the Sky network - so far I've watched about 40 discs and they all played fine (still have a few more to watch). However if I had a recording I really treasured, I'd want to make multiple copies of it just in case.

[oddbox83]

Both my Sony and Panasonic didn't have HDDs so just recorded straight onto disc. I suppose that was "real time". I did notice, with a recorder disc as opposed to a burnt in a computer that the recorded area had a banded look, not a consistent shade.

[alchav21]

I just used Verbatim for DVD and BD Backup, and still play fine. I have several hundred Backups, and they should all still play. I stopped burning around 2015, and started to build my Digital Collection. The last one I recall playing was Surrogates a couple of years ago, it played good. I watch all my Movies and TV Shows Streaming now.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by oddbox83

Both my Sony and Panasonic didn't have HDDs so just recorded straight onto disc.

I don't think Sony make any blu-ray recorders with a built-in hard drive any more - I mean the ones which allow you to dub over onto a disc like my old machine could do. The only recorder I'm aware of that comes closest to having this is a Panasonic model - DMR-BWT850, which I recently saw at my local AV shop. I didn't really look at all the details, but it certainly was a nice looking machine.

[alchav21]

I only have a few 25Gb BD-R's, but I use to buy them on eBay from Japan. When I started burning I did try other media, but found Verbatim to be the most consistent in good burns so I stuck with them.

[CV19]

Originally Posted by alchav21

I only have a few 25Gb BD-R's, but I use to buy them on eBay from Japan. When I started burning I did try other media, but found Verbatim to be the most consistent in good burns so I stuck with them.

Yes, that's fair enough. I don't have any BD-R's at the moment that I've burnt myself, but as I never had any problems with Verbatim in regards to their DVD-R's (either burning or playback), I would certainly be happy to use them for blu-rays too.

[Bugg]

My finding with pressed disc media over the years is that they either go bad within 2 or 3 years, or they never go bad (not counting mistreatment or storing in a moldy basement) I've lost a few Laserdiscs due to laser-rot and it was always within a year or two of buying it. Last time I went through my pile of LDs, not a single one of them that was fine 20 years ago had developed any problems since. Same thing with a lot of the dual layered dvds, they either stopped working in a couple of years or are still fine to this day. Granted I haven't rewatched every single disc to know for 100% certain but I have never had a problem with any CD, LD, DVD or BluRay that was fine after around 3 years.

[PhysicalMediaNut]

Blu ray discs are pretty hearty. You almost have to go out of your way to damage them. They also last a very long time in the right conditions. I’ve seen defective discs and picky players though..

[stonesfan129]

They do degrade but it takes a very long time. Commercial discs pretty much last forever if made right and taken care of. Burned discs (I think the LTH type, can't remember) that have the dye will degrade faster. I have yet to have a Blu-ray disc go bad. I have had a couple that were defective out of the box that I had exchanged.

[mdo7]

As everyone on this thread said, I think you got a case of a defective discs (that's the problem with the early days of BD). So just follow direction on how to get it replaced.

Also BD don't seem to have disc rot problem, although one article from last year talked about disc rot, and this got my attention:

Is Blu-ray Safe from Disc Rot?

It seems less prevalent than for CD, DVD and LaserDisc, but it would be unwise to rule out Blu-ray disc rot. There are a few reports of disc rot on Blu-ray which has been described as ‘small mould blooms’ below the surface, rendering the disc unplayable.

So please keep an eye out on your BD in your collection if you see any sign of disc rot or degradation.

Vice News in 2017 had an article about disc rot and why it's a big concern for archivists. Blu-ray is not talked about in the article, but there's a reason why a lot of movies that got DVD release, but no 2K/4K scan restoration blu-ray release is a big concern for DVD owners. Your movie in your DVD collection, keep checking them periodically from time to time to see if they don't show sign of disc rot/degradation.

So far as of now, it doesn't look like BD have any major disc rot problem. But keep checking your BD disc in your collection to make sure from time to time to make sure the disc doesn't show any sign of disc rot.