"Disc rot" is caused by minerals in the water used to clean the information layer before the final layer is added, when it rusts it affects the laser reading. I worked at a disc plant in the 90's and they had a machine the size of a truck that did nothing but wash discs with purified water. Rot is still a problem but not the major problem it used to be, mainly from foreign manufacturers
I had some CDs that rotted. They were made using silver instead of aluminium as Philips experimented with this manufacturing technique. The CDs tarnished, and unsurprisingly, Philips decided to use aluminium in the future.
My agents of shield season 4 disc 1 is brown on the edge is is not playing but the rest of the season is fine I keep my in my basement where there is a fire place that goes or air condition will they get disc rot ?
@phantom1122334455films Environmental conditions have nothing to do with disc rot. If the water used to wash the metal part of the disc has minerals they might rust, causing an obstruction to the laser. Where I worked they installed a Hugh washing device that used purified water. The only way to prevent disc rot is to make sure the metal surface is not contaminated. If it is there is nothing to be done but cross your fingers
@reh3884 One actually. The information layer doesn't rust. Minerals deposited from water used to wash this layer do. The only way to stop it is to make sure there is no contamination before you press it.
@@robt.v.8688 actually, it's 33 years old, my mistake. It's a double CD of 'Now that's what I call music 13', released in 1988. I've got a few others dating back to '88 too.
I've got a couple of original run Beatles CD's which are fine, they're from the 80's and I've got an original Nevermind which is 30 this year and still fine..
I’ve had 3 in 30 years. Not a bad ratio, seeing I own over 2,000 Physical discs. However I have transferred my collection to my Zappiti- to prevent the loss of my content.
@@paulcarroll923 The only disc that I can remember that had rot was Reservoir Dogs on Blu-ray. I've also been collecting for numerous years and have had thousands of discs.
@@alexfernandez8083 the token is to register your device , that you own. Not true about the viewing , as you can be off line and still view all your content. You just wouldn’t be able to update any metadata for your library (art work, directors etc etc) if it was off line.
Im a retro video game collector and the ps2 is my absolute favorite piece of hardware. I buy the original format of the games even though they’re free and easy to emulate; because I treasure the experience and physicality. I did begin to worry about disc rot after buying more rare games. This video help me stay confident in collecting.
@Yongo Bazuk Oh, I don't think it is a good idea to store your media outside under a blanket. I think that the ants crawling on them could leave traces of food and dirt on them and I don't think that fungus would be good for them. I would recommend that you take them out of your backyard and store them on a shelf in your house. If not, at least use a dry blanket instead of a damp one.
Haven’t ever had it happen to me either. Whether it’s music CD’s, Games, DVD’s or BluRay, none have had disc rot. And I, ta;long about CD’s from the early to mid 90’s.
Great video. Just a note: there have been articles and forum discussions about the imminent death of laserdiscs for 20+ years. There was even a high-profile, hysterical article calling laser rot “a tragedy.” It’s 2021 and the laserdiscs are fine-almost all of them! They’re fine! I started collecting them a few years ago (like a vulture, I waited until the world had completely forgotten the retro-futuristic media format I always lusted after as a kid-I’ve bought a ton of discs for a dollar each that have ancient $30 price tags on the wrap). Even discs that were clearly stored carelessly and shipped to me in crates without bubble wrap... are all fine. People worry too much. Like the man said: don’t leave your discs out in 100 degree heat in a swamp or freezing temperatures in the Arctic tundra, and you’ll be okay.
My father chose to store his music collection in binder-style cd cases with cloth sleeves back in the 90s. After sitting in them for 20+ years, all 200 of his cds now have mild "oxidization" or cloudiness somewhere within the cds' layers. The cds still work but they don't look as good as cds that have been kept in jewel cases their entire lives. Now I'm transferring them back to jewel cases to hopefully halt the oxidization.
I've been a physical media movie and tv collector for over 26 years since I was 13, I've collected various formats through the years and have never experienced disc rot, never knew it was a thing till now.
Warner Bros HD-DVD discs are notorious for this. I’ve got about a dozen in my collection that are unplayable now. This is unique though, most people don’t even know what HD-DVD was much less collect them like me.
Very accurate. I also have a small collection of hd dvds and my two different copies of the movie 300 do not work due to disc rot from poor manufacturing
I have found this really has only ever affected my discs that are cheaply made. Mostly cdrs. A couple of my laserdiscs as well. Heat is a major enemy of physical media! Of my 10,000 plus discs across all media, less than a dozen have died from media rot. I have CDs from the 80’s that are still perfect. Those dozen or so discs, at least half were cheap cdrs. So out of 9500 factory replicated discs, only about 5 or 6 were bad.
@@suppaduppa personal collection. Started CDs on the 80’s. DVDs late 90’s. And have been collecting ever since. I went back and got into laserdisc after the fact. Since I have a home theatre like Jeff. And have about 300 laserdiscs. But the big majority are dvds. Followed by Blu Ray. Then 4K and Blu Ray 3D. I even have about 10 HD DVDs and a player. The problem as I said before, it is getting harder and harder to find movies I want to spend money to buy. Because I simply had about 85-90% of the movies I always wanted. So I don’t spend more than a buck or two on movies I have never seen. I have purchased, 2,000 plus of the movies at local dollar stores. I also have a big video game collection. Every system Sony has ever released. And nearly 1,000 games to go with them! I am single. Kids raised. So this is one of my hobbies. I do also sell movies part time online. I have been working hard to get my own production studio (Ocean Breeze Media Group) going. And we have multiple small projects coming to do DVD and Blu Ray. We have released a few dozen projects over the years. But not consistently. We have two out of print film restorations currently in the works (Little Shop Of Horrors, original film. With Jack Nicholson). And a couple of our own original projects: horror movie and sci fi movie. It is going slower than I want. But hey, that’s how things are right now. 🤷♂️
@@DangerousDevilOfficial My concern is that by owning a large amounts of movies a majority won't ever be watched. I'm nearing 1000 movies (20 or so are tv series). It would take me at least 3 years to watch all of them if I watched 1 or 2 movies each day. On top of that I still got around 150 movies on my wishlist. It's fun collecting them but at the same time I feel like Im wasting money on goods that are not consumed. Just to chase that temporary high by mass consuming stuff that has no other utility than destraction from reality. What are your thoughts? How do you cope with managing money/physical space/watching your movies?
@@suppaduppa well, you are right. I have probably (an educated guess) 3,000 movies I have never watched. And to be honest, at least half may never get watched. But I guess I look at it as, I don’t drink, spend money on booze or cigarettes, partying, gambling, expensive car builds. Anything like that. So it is a hobby to me. Plus, some of these movies, believe it or not, may go out of print. And be super, super rare. So beyond having value there (I have at least 150 titles worth $50-300 each! ) people like me may literally be preserving some of these films that end up lost. Beyond that my main love is music. So I spend a lot of my free time making new music. And releasing that. I have always been fascinated with the video and audio industry. So I am a geek if you will. Money wise, I own all the things I need. And have almost no debt. So I don’t let buying movies destroy me financially. For everyone the answer will be different. Space wise, it does get hard to display the movies. So mine are in disc cases. That hold 540 discs each. I still need nearly 20 of those! I have plenty of room in my house to store the cases away. Pretty big house. Just me. So that doesn’t bother me. You sound like a solid collector. But not a freak about it like me. That’s fine too. Everyone has their limits. So my thoughts are, do what you feel you are comfortable with. And by no means go into debt to collect! I also plan to use part of my collection as my retirement. Not movies so much. But all of my new, sealed Sony gear. 👍
I've been buying DVD's and Blu Rays for about two decades now, and I've only had one disc that entire time that MIGHT have been disc rot. If you take care of them, they should be good for a very long time.
Take care of them doesn't always have anything to do with it. All of mine have sat safely in their cases inside my living room and I still had rot happen. These are typically manufacturing errors. Criterion at least has admitted the problems with one of the plants they no longer use and have offered to replace their discs that are rotting. I ended up losing six Warner DVDs that no longer play. The discs don't even look damaged. They look brand new but will freeze in every player I try them in. It is rare, but it happens.
@@AG-bp3ll I have had only one DVD fail, about a year after I bought it, despite it looking brand new with no signs of damage. Ran it through multiple drives and software to try and recover it (it was expensive and rare) with no luck. It was a WB disc too.
I have DVDs and PS1 games that are over 20 years old that still work today. I even have 30+ year old records that still work today. Blu rays are much more durable as far as disc decay goes. Newer discs probably have a lifespan of 40-50 years. If it can last that long I'm good lol.
I work in medical imaging and one place I worked at in the early 2000s archived their images on DVD-Rs. We had a significant number of them become unreadable after seven or eight years. Having said that commercially made DVDs and Blu-Rays use a totally different method of "burning" the data on the media, and are much more stable than DVD-R media. I have personally never commercially made CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray disk go bad.
I’ve seen how badly some people treat their discs. You see scratches and fingerprints. That’s why I don’t lend my discs to anyone.Fortunately there are streaming services.
It's funny you say that. I remember, every time someone would visit and see my collection, they would want to borrow some. I used to lend until I got to a point of getting so tired chasing them down afterwards that I stopped lending them. I actually liked lending them, but hated having to ask 3 months later. And of course there's always the dreaded, "Oh, Didn't I give it back to you? Yeah, i think I gave it back to you." Then what do you do? It's your friend. So I stopped. However, in the past few years, since streaming, no one cares to borrow discs anymore. Thank goodness. :)
I’ve had a few old DVDs get bad disc rot, but likely because they weren’t taken care of (before I became a collector) and was probably because of exposure to 110°+ Arizona heat while we moved
Yes, be careful when moving. Someone left a box of my discs in hot summer heat because I wasn’t focused on it. They all play fine so I hope they are still ok.
I have only seen rot in my Laserdiscs...fairly frequently even. Some of my oldest DVDs are from the mid-late '90s, and none of them have any rot and I have cds from the '80s that are all fine too.
Disc rot is a serious problem with laser discs. As for CDs-DVDs, I have the feeling that the older ones get along better with it than the newer and cheaper made ones. the best thing you can do is to store them in a cool dry & dark environment ( and make some safety koppies )
My wife and I have been media hoarders since CDs in the mid 80’s. We collect records, CDs, DVD and Bluray including 4K. I have never lost a single disc to rot. I have seen it though, having been thru a million flea mkt and yard sale trips. I’d say about 50% were purchased new, the rest on the secondary market. At this point we have an 11 room house and let me warn everyone, managing a huge collection, well just be careful what you wish for lol. It can take over your house, and your life if you let it. On the flip side of that coin I’ll say I’ve been isolating at home since the virus hit and there are times I feel like a genius, because if I didn’t have my collection to occupy me all this time, I would have gone crazy. I can say we aren’t just hoarders, we truly love physical media and use it every single day. Starting to feel like it wouldn’t be a dumb idea to purchase a few high end players to store away for the future. I have some decent equipment, but the transports and lasers I hear can get scarce years after a model goes out of production. I think right now it’s more a problem with higher end gear by smaller companies that come and go. I’m a worrier, wish I wasn’t. Great video, I agree with everything you said. I’m not concerned about the rot at all. I was aware of it, and I have passed on many second hand CDs that I shopped in person because of it, or being what I call “cheese grated” where it looks like somebody purposely put the underside of the disc on asphalt and just went to town on it. CDs and DVDs are delicate. Even more so than records. I say if you love physical media, let your freak flag fly. A final warning... Do NOT recommend the huge binder books that hold discs. Seems like a wonderful idea, but it wasn’t for me. I’m in the process of making a dedicated movie room, I had 10 of the huge books, just for things I didn’t use much. I also saved every insert card/ title card in a box like 20+ pounds of title cards. I just bought a huge amount of new cases so I could put them back together to display. Even though every book was labeled as a stand alone genre, that was of little help. It was a complete nightmare matching discs to their cards and putting them back together to display now that we have a larger house. Nightmare, complete utter nightmare. I’d rather be raped by Bigfoot then do that again. Those books suck. We did it out of necessity at the time living in a smaller house. Never ever again. I don’t know anyone that ever wants to flip thru those books looking for something to watch. Physical media collections in excess of 10,000 discs are not a lot of fun managing. Yet, mine is still growing because I can’t stop. Truly a curse and a blessing. Take care!
At 47 minutes this video had 1.2k views, that's over 25.5 views every minute and 1 view every 2 seconds if I did my math correctly. Jeff, your channel is kicking ass and I'm so happy to see it :)
True! I'm more worried about the availability of the necessary hardware to play the various physical media and how to get replacement parts for them. What I'm most worried about however that negates all those worries is how shortlived digital media and streaming services can be and how for example even singleplayer games today can't be played in 10 years from now because the servers/service they run on might be shut down and movies and series can be removed because of licensing issues or stupid things like cancel culture. I try to limit my collection of physical media because it will get harder and harder to actually use and play them over time. But the things I really enjoy and care for I must have physical. I don't trust digital media and how it is currently run.
Always someone who can repair a dvd/blu ray or 4k player. Even ebay sellers offer services. A lot of radio enthusiasts can repair extremely complex radios that are 100 years old and they can replace any part from tubes to boards to electrics. Worry ye not. And blu ray disks will last about 150 years and people are still paying hundreds of pounds for old bollywood vhs and betamax and on some horror films even though the film degrades badly and the picture is atrocious. I think blu ray and 4k will become obsolete accept for newer titles the decline between 2009-2018 was nearly 80 percent and its gone down even faster since. There's a possibility blu ray 2k will still stay about but at 5 thousand pound to restore a movie from 2k to 4k lots of 4k titles will never be released. Watership down has just been pulled from 4k production even though the artwork was completed and pre sales had been sold. Also factor in for 4k that not all original film footage can be restored to 4k level because the master copy has deteriorated , you can't polish and turd as the saying goes. 😀
All of my cds are fine, including the first ones I bought in 1984. Store and handle properly...no high heat , water humidity, and keep them in plastic (not paper) cases...and don't loan them to anyone.
I have DVDs that are 24 years old and look as new now as when I bought them. As long as they’re kept in room temperature you have nothing to worry about.
None of my 5 inch optical media collection (BD, CD, etc.) has ever developed any rot that I've seen. However, rotting has affected some of my LaserDisc collection (Laser rot). That's because in the 80s and 90s, certain LD manufacturing facilities had quality control issues that weren't properly addressed. Thankfully, those problems have MOSTLY been corrected, since the days of LaserDisc (a format I still have and enjoy).
@@christopherbrown5023 Mine either in 27 years I call bs on this fear. Store them vertically in their case in dark er areas temp controlled and handle them from edges they should last a lifetime.
Discs are though. You almost have to go out of your way to harm them. If your CD or DVD inner sleeves are being mishapped or warped by humidity, then you should be concerned about disc rot later down the line.
The only disc rot I've experienced has been from burned discs in the early days of CD-Rs and some low quality bootlegs that turned bronze (still played). It can certainly happen but as long as you take care of your discs and there isn't a manufacturing problem, there isn't much to worry about much like the video discusses.
@@paul8926 It’s not really a rare issue with LaserDiscs. Whether it significantly affects you really just depends on movies you have in your collection and the manufacturers who made them.
so when i lived in texas, my family put my DVD collection in the attic where heat was really bad... i got that collection back and well... most of it works except for one box set of Aqua teen hunger force :< buuuuttt my blurays have been fine, it takes while for them to rot.
I used to burn thousands of DVDs, and disc rot was a concern because the layers that are burned are chemicals. Retail Blu-rays and DVDs are pressed like you said. You don't have to worry about the chemicals breaking down due to age, light, normal heat, etc. It really depends on how the manufacturers make them. You expect them to be hermetically sealed, but you still shouldn't wash them. Only a little alcohol (not dry wipe cloths which scratch the plastic surface).
I’ve got one blu ray that’s rotting presumably due to faulty manufacturing. I’ve never had a CD or DVD rot. I’ve got quite a few cds from the 80s and they play perfectly even with scratches. Scratches in a CD aren’t nearly as bad as scratches on dvds.
My odest CD album is since 1990 it's the Dave Weckl's < Master Plan > and one year later his 2nd CD album < Heads Up > and since then i have bought many CD albums all of them are in perfect condition , Also my oldest DVDs are since 2000 also without any problem and DVD-ROM videogames and CD-Rs / DVD-Rs too no problem but never had any Blu-ray . I'm pretty much sure it depends from the quality of the materials in factories they build the CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs , normally they all can last if they be in a good care for more than 100 years and i say that because i've read that in hi-fi audio video magazines in late 90s .
I have an album from the 90s looked bronzed that I bought from Music Magpie they refurbish all DVDs 📀 or CDs 💿 people sell to them. The album plays just fine, in case you wanted to know which album it is it’s “Rocking all over the years” by Status Quo 🙂
I have a CD collection I started 30 years ago, DVD collection I started 20 years ago, the first Playstation discs, Blu-Rays. And I've never even heard of this issue.
It's rare to find a DVD, BD, or CD that has rot. But back in the laserdisc era, I've had MANY titles that either had rot (colored speckling in the picture, not to be confused with "inclusion" which early DoscoVision titles suffered from) when brand new, or developed it with time. I recall back in 1984 or so going through 5 copies of Never Say Never Again at a Crazy Eddies store. ALL 5 had ROT on various sides!
@@thegrimyeaper not ALL titles had rot. I've never had a 3M pressing go bad. Technidisc was the worst. But at the time, Laserdisc was the best looking and sounding video format available to consumers. Of course, when DVD came along, that was the beginning of the end for LD.
Excellent video. Thank you. I heard about discs deteriorating way back in the '90s that worried me. I have CD's that are over 30 years old and DVDs that are over 20 years old and none of them have any deterioration. Let alone rot that renders them unplayable. It's not something I give much, if any, thought to. Your comments regarding media device obsolescence, on the other hand, is something I've thought about many times and it does cause me concern.
My DVD copy of the grim adventures of Billy and Mandy and zathura both fell victims to disc rot for no apparent reason and good luck trying to find Billy and Mandy now it's over $100 for that set
All my dad’s CDs from 30 years ago still work fine. Disc rot is supposedly much more rare for new formats including blu rays and 4K blu rays because of better manufacturing techniques.
@@Beansrdone Those flipper discs have always been shit. Regardless of what combination of formats is on either side, they always stop working very soon after you get them. I’m frankly dreading picking up the box set of Gone With The Wind because the special features are on a flipper disc.
I have CDs from 1983. Still play perfectly. Keep your fingers off disc surfaces . Never clean as it scratches the surfaces . I’d be more worried about finding a blu ray player in a few years from now .... Many Disney Touchstone laserdiscs had laser rot . The Japanese laserdiscs I have - the complete Lost In Space , still play perfectly . That’s quality . I’ve never cleaned any of my discs . If you keep your fingers off the data side they should play for years . Yes, sometimes there are manufacturing grit problems with mainly covers . Inspect discs when you buy them . I hold every disc under a light and look for dirt etc . But NEVER wipe the disc surface as it causes minute scratches on the surface no matter how good the cleaning cloth . Dust and manufacturing grit can easily be blown off . NEVER ever rotate discs in their clamps . I see so many people unboxing blu rays and the first thing they do is rotate the discs in the covers - or worse , lay them on display on a dusty table lol
This is an interesting topic. Im a collector myself. I got a humble collection of physical games between N64, gba, NDS, UMD, ps2, ps3 and ps4. The think is that at least you live in the New England Region. Just imagine living in a hot, humid country like myself in the tropics. Here is even more difficult to try to preserve for a long term physical media. Humidity and hot weather here is 24/7 all year round. Temperatures between 78 F and 95 F. Even the clothing rots here because of this weather (of course washing have to do something with it as well)
The very first DVD I bought over twenty years ago still plays fine. Even the first CD I bought thirty-five years ago still sounds great. The only issue I've had with disc rot is with recordable media, especially with burned CDs that were left in the car.
adorkability Yes , burned stuff is a good point. I made backups in the past of some Playstation 1 games and the half of it started to rot , but the original games are still good and play perfect.
Since day 1, I have always kept discs away from windows and areas like near the bathroom or a kitchen for example, keeping it away from moisture is key to its longevity
I’ve seen this before. It usually happens with games that are left in the elements in a garage, flea market or basement. It’s just moisture getting between the layers of the disc and peeling them up
I just discovered your channel. I really appreciate the video. I'm a movie collector but I don't have a large collection. It's nice to know how to take some precautions to discourage disc rot. Keep up the great work on your videos.
Great video Jeff. Disc rot is the oxidation of the disc's silver data layer. It was a big issue for the Laser Disc format (laser rot). It greatly affected Laser Discs manufactured in Mexico, presumably due to the humid salty environment, while discs pressed in the US and Japan especially had fewer instances of laser rot. Discs released by Columbia/Tri-Star Home video had a higher rate of rot (manufactured in Mexico) but technically discs by any studio or manufacturer could be affected, even brand new shrink wrapped discs. I remember holding my breath while spinning up a new disc side waiting to see whether I would be rewarded with a pristine image or an image covered with the dreaded white or colored speckling resulting from laser rot (there were rarely any visible signs of rot on the discs themselves). Laser Disc was an analog video format and the discs were much larger (12" platters), so the chances of manufacturing issues was much greater when compared with the smaller 5" platters of subsequent digital discs. Digital disc players (CD/DVD/BluRay/UltraHD) all include error correction so they are to a certain extent able to recover from errors introduced by manufacturing defects and disc rot.... there are of course limits, heavily damaged discs will be unplayable.
I have 400 laserdisc’s from the ‘90’s. They cost $29 to $129. Way over 90% have rot. I stored them in the house, in custom shelves, on their edge, disc’s have envelopes, jackets have envelopes. It’s now a useless collection. My huge collection of CD’s (1500) , DVD’s (3000) and Blu-rays (couple hundred) have no issues at all. Rot sucks.
Laserdiscs were WAY WAY more susceptible to rot, because of the materials used: for example, the plastic was polyvinyl whic is relatively porous to moisture and oxygen. DVD/CD?BD are made of polycarbonate, which isn't.
I’ve been buying/collecting dvds and blu rays since they first came out and have never come across disc rot, obviously if you take care of you physical media in my opinion you have nothing to worry about.
I have a large optical disc collection starting with the first CD i bought back in 1988, witch is fine. My first DVD i bought way back in 1999 Titanic and that is still going strong with no sighs of deterioration. But recently i decided to play my 2001 DVD copy of Terminator and discovered that the playing serfice had clouded over in places and that the artwork on the disc is breaking down. I am also a watch collector and used a substance called Poly Watch to restore the playing surface. Polly watch is a fine abrasive pasted used to remove scratches from plastic watch crystals found on Omega Vostok watches. I finished off with a light clean with a micro fibber cloth cleaning from the centre to the edge of the disc. That seemed to do the trick. So far this is the only disc that i have had problems with. Fingers crossed!
Well Jeff. Long time viewer, first time commenting. I would certainly put out there to people that Disc rot isn't as common as it was with the likes of Laser disc and early DVD. The coating is different today. I agree with you on the advances of technology out dating the format. I myself, last month had to buy a new blu ray player after the one I had for 11 years had become out dated by newly released blu ray titles. The likes being distributed by Indicator and Eureka. You couldn't get picture, only the main menu with the sound of the film. The companies describe the discs as. "High bit rate discs". It's likely as well that T.V.s won't have HDMI or 4K outputs in the Future, much like scart. I would say this is where the real risk is with a vast collection. I can't justify signing up to every streaming service as they don't have everything you want and it's likely to be taken down at some point. Putting into consideration of the cost of these services as well. Once they get enough subscribers they increase the price annually. It's like paying for a film that you already have 10 times over. Don't worry people, disc rot is the least of your worries here.
Me personally I have not had any problems with CD's that I have owned since CD's first came out. Again, like you said storing them is what you need to look out for. I am not worried and I own around 2,000 DVD's, blu rays, 4K, laser discs, etc. Again, you might see some manufacture problems occur, but nothing to be worried about. Great video!!
I’ve been collecting movies on DVD since they first launched about 20 years ago and I have well over 1000 movies across DVD Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray, I have only experienced one DVD not working correctly anymore. The odds of this happening Are ridiculously low
I live in the upper midwest, about 70 miles west of Chicago ..... our winters are unbelievably, bitterly cold and dry (wind chills of -35 in January) .... and our summers are horribly hot and hella-humid; for instance, today is July 27, and it's going to get up to about 96 degrees today, with very High humidity. My point is that we have horrible heat and humidity, in summer, and I have been collecting (and, therefore, storing) CDs for 34 years, now, and I've never had a CD with disc rot. Ever. Most of my music CDs are stored inside large, closed plastic tubs, as I have cats, and .... as I say, I've never experienced disc rot .... if anyone cares lol
Great video! Love your channel. My own discs of various formats have been absolutely fine. I also recently was gifted old AOL and old computer CDs from the early to late 90s that were kept in a garage since they were obtained. They were all still in their protective sleeves and or cases and still all in perfect condition. Keep your discs in their case or a case of some kind and you will MOSTLY be fine.
Wow that's crazy I have never seen this. This is why I need to invest in a Zappiti so I can back them up as well. I would die if my disk started doing that. Thanks for video....
Relax. The disc rot thing is total bullshit. It was mainly traced back to a plant long ago that made crappy cds that were not stable. I HAVE THOUSANDS of hem and not one has ever rotted some 28 years old. NOT ONE!
Great video bud! I've got over 5000 discs and i've had 5 or less have this issue so far. The last 2 were "Left Behind" and "The New Daughter" UK releases. There are no signs of disc rot on them. They just refuse to playback. Disc rot is of course and issue but as long as your sensible and don't mistreat them, you shouldn't have any issues.
Thank you for this important information you and I have large collections and I have discs from years back and don't want to loose any of them. Stay safe.
I have CDs over 30 years old that still look brand new. And DVD'S, like the Star Wars prequel trilogy, like look brand new and play perfectly and are still nice and clear on a 4K TV. And cds still sound new. As well as blurays. I think it's all the way you take care of your things.
You have a good point that the bigger thing to worry about it players not been freely available in 30 years (I’ll be almost 70 by then and may not worry about it - but I like to think I will). Best solution to that; buy a few spare players now and keep them in storage and hope that they don’t change HDMI to something else - even then adaptors will be available I’m sure.
I worked for HMV records. We rarely had returns for this but it did happen a few times even if the title was fairly new. Back in the day, there were (Toll-free) 1-800 numbers from the manufacturer for quality control if there were issues. However, we were loose on the return policy and usually exchanged it for the customers. With time, we had fewer and fewer issues. ( PS , HMV is no more in the US .)
Only times I have encountered any forms of "Disc Rot" has been with used media discs I came across that had been improperly stored and or handled. Mostly it has been CD and DVD media discs that had been exposed to either or both high temperatures or direct sunlight. A friend of mine at turn of the century literally stored his DVDs in the trunk of his car, and I recall him having issues with some them turning dark colors and becoming unreadable, this for the very reasons provided in your excellent video.
Thats why, amongst my other collectibles, Its important to have storage in a dry, temp controlled, smoke free room. Extreme heat and cold (slightly better cold than heat) is bad but what takes the cake and should not be overlooked is humidity. I live in el paso tx where thats never a problem for the most part, but to avoid the heat I have refrigerated air around the upper 60's.
Yeah I have a copy of it's a wonderful life that I bought about over 20 years ago. I watched it last Christmas it's still fine. Never encountered this problem but still thank you very much alerting me of this problem. I'll keep this in mind and keep my eye out
I have been collecting Optical media for about 25 years, and have only lost about 6 discs. I have had more problems with new media being factory bad then I have had with media dying over time. On that, I would recommend that if you are still buying physical media, that you should use a ripping program to create a backup copy, and confirm your media. I have found that about 1% of media is factory bad over the years of ripping discs when I buy them. It isn't media specific, I have had DVD, BD, and 4K discs be bad out of the package. I will admit that it appears that country of manufacture has an affect on this. It does appear that movies made in Mexico have higher failure rates then ones that are not labeled that way. This is nothing against those movies, or the production process, it is just an observation that can hopefully help. Keep up the great content.
I keep lossing dvds and games. Over 30 in the last 5 years. They are stored in my living room. No strong change in heat or humidity. I dont buy anymore. This keeps happening. Just mention some of the ones I have lost, Shogun miniseries( 3 out of 4 discs) original back to the future DVD release. All 3 discs. Inherit the wind, fly boys, Tucker, over the top, the order, equilibrium, date night, tango & cash, Battlestar Galactica razor. In PS3 games mini ninjas, iron man and Gundam destiny warriors 2. This is real. No freaking joke.
I have been collecting movies for decades now, and when it comes to disc formats, the only format with really bad rot problems was the laserdisc. I live in Germany and imported many US laserdiscs in the 90s - for a ridiculous amount of money. Some day I read about the problem of "laser rot" in Doug Pratts "The Laser Disc Newsletter" (is that still around?) - and was really scared. I started checking my collection and found quite a lot of discs with picture drop outs caused by "laser rot". That was a horrifying experience, as I now feared that *all* my very expensive laserdiscs might deteriorate over time and be worthless. Another effect of my massive disc - checking was that my player broke down due to the excessive up- and downspeeding of the player. So I had to have my player repaired just because I checked if my laserdiscs were ok... 🙄 I have no idea how many of my laserdiscs are still playable, they have been sitting on their shelves now for the last 20 years or so without being watched. I should check if my two laserdisc players are even working anymore... At least laserdiscs have great LP-sized covers that can be nicely displayed on the wall in LP cover frames. So even if the movie can't be played anymore, you can use the covers for decoration. As for dvds and blu-rays, I have not experienced disc rot, but to be honest, I collected so madly for years, I haven't even opened the shrink wrap of most movies, so who knows... I remember two German releases that had problems with discs that developed a sticky foggy layer on the data side of the discs, but that was because of some issues with stuff coming out of the printing color of the cardboard cases they had ("Silence of the lambs" and a silver box of "Lethal Weapon").
I’ve only had two instances of disc rot in over twenty years of collecting movies on disc. One was a public domain copy of a Flash Gorden serial from a small company. The second was Steven King’s The Stand on DVD for some reason messed up after several years. We used to have a lot more problems with rot when music CDs first came out back in the eighties. Love the channel Jeff.
I think it is best to store them in a wooden cabinet with wooden doors; if it has glass doors, cover it with nice wrapping paper. This way, they will not be exposed to light, dust or temperature changes because wood is a material that itself adjusts its temperature.
I have around 550 cds. Most of those are at least 20 years old. Some are closer to 30 years old. There was even a period where I had them in a storage shed for a year - extreme heat and extreme cold. Not one of them has got disc rot. I did use to burn cdrs to listen on the car deck. Now those have seen a high rate of disc rot. There's several reasons for that. One, car decks typically have a slot to put discs in. Slot style decks can scratch cds. Secondly, though I try to be careful, you're in a car so sometimes discs would sit bare on the seat until I can safely put it away. Sun gets to them. Stuff happens. Basicly abuse. But, that's why I used cdrs in the first place. In a home setting, as long as you handle discs by the edges. Put them away when you're done instead of leaving them sit in the open. Disc rot should be quite rare.
I never experienced disk rot like in those examples but I did experience my disks getting this sticky, matt film on them, almost like a dried up layer of grease, that caused the disks to become unplayable. I had it only on some How I met your Mother box set disks to the point I rebought those seasons and a few months later that same problem happened. Other movies and tv-shows on dvd and Blu-ray were spared so far, but it was very weird to have that happen twice on the same DVD’s.
I have about 500 cds, 500 Dvds, 300 Dvd boxsets, 800 Blurays and 4ks and 300 Blu rays boxsets and luckily I have only ever had one case of cd rot and that is in a very damp UK. However I do agree that the future of media and whether you will be able to watch these films decades from now is a little worrying. I still have a couple of hundred video tapes but still have three VCR machines, not that I have used or even had them plumbed in for some while. I think it is worth buying spare machines in the future, just to make sure you will be able to watch your collections. Happy collecting everyone.
Learned the hard way ...back around 2003 I decided to store all my Dreamcast duplicates which was over 100+ titles up in the attic in a storage bin ...then year's later went to check on them and they appeared to be fine for case artwork looked great still but as I opened the case's in horror I found that all the disc had disc rot 😭 , but as a collecter of game's and movies with a collection well over 3,000 titles that I store in a climate controlled environment I've still had a few items develop disc rot.
It’s a known issue with a lot of WB classic films on dvd. I remember losing “Meet Me In St. Louis,” “Forbidden Hollywood” box set, a stack of old gangster and film noir stuff, “Jailhouse Rock,” and “ National Lampoon’s Vacation,” just to name the ones I remember. The discs played perfectly at first, but failed over the years. Depressing stuff.
Good Video. At first I was worried, but I still have VHS tapes from 25-30 years ago that still play perfect. I guess I’ll have to get the CDs out of my car though.
5 years or so ago, I digitized all of my cds. I found 5 discs that had rotted. 3 of them were Brian Eno cds from the Editions EG series released in the late 80's early 90's. These were the ones I found, there may have been more I just haven't played them yet. Don't get me started on the Criterion Collection's blu-ray discs and their "recall" of rotting discs. What a mess that is.
The thing to watch out for is recordable media. Cd-R, DVD-R, etc. they are rotting away as we speak due to the data being burned in an organic dye layer. Pressed CDs are generally not gonna have an issue with rot, though discs manufactured by PDO UK in the mid-80s to early 90’s tend to be very problematic. Basically guaranteed to be rotten. Dual layer DVDs (or those horrible double sided DVDs that were common in the early days of the format) can delaminate over time, but I really don’t know anyone who cares about anything on dvd, everything’s on Blu ray these days...
"Disc rot" is caused by minerals in the water used to clean the information layer before the final layer is added, when it rusts it affects the laser reading. I worked at a disc plant in the 90's and they had a machine the size of a truck that did nothing but wash discs with purified water. Rot is still a problem but not the major problem it used to be, mainly from foreign manufacturers
I had some CDs that rotted. They were made using silver instead of aluminium as Philips experimented with this manufacturing technique. The CDs tarnished, and unsurprisingly, Philips decided to use aluminium in the future.
My agents of shield season 4 disc 1 is brown on the edge is is not playing but the rest of the season is fine
I keep my in my basement where there is a fire place that goes or air condition will they get disc rot ?
@phantom1122334455films Environmental conditions have nothing to do with disc rot. If the water used to wash the metal part of the disc has minerals they might rust, causing an obstruction to the laser. Where I worked they installed a Hugh washing device that used purified water. The only way to prevent disc rot is to make sure the metal surface is not contaminated. If it is there is nothing to be done but cross your fingers
Disc rot is caused my many different things, not just one.
@reh3884 One actually. The information layer doesn't rust. Minerals deposited from water used to wash this layer do. The only way to stop it is to make sure there is no contamination before you press it.
The oldest CD I have is 34 years old and it still looks perfect and plays perfectly.
What is it?
@@robt.v.8688 actually, it's 33 years old, my mistake.
It's a double CD of 'Now that's what I call music 13', released in 1988. I've got a few others dating back to '88 too.
Yep, I have several early CDs and they're all still rot-free. An example is Animotion's debut, pressed in 1984 (37 years old).
is it ok to put my music cd collection in storage box...?
I've got a couple of original run Beatles CD's which are fine, they're from the 80's and I've got an original Nevermind which is 30 this year and still fine..
I have not had a single CD, DVD, or blu-ray fall victim to disc rot in over 31 years of physical media collecting.
Agreed. I’ve never seen this.
Lol yeah never. Messages about it? Ridiculous.
I’ve had 3 in 30 years. Not a bad ratio, seeing I own over 2,000 Physical discs. However I have transferred my collection to my Zappiti- to prevent the loss of my content.
@@paulcarroll923 The only disc that I can remember that had rot was Reservoir Dogs on Blu-ray. I've also been collecting for numerous years and have had thousands of discs.
@@alexfernandez8083 the token is to register your device , that you own.
Not true about the viewing , as you can be off line and still view all your content. You just wouldn’t be able to update any metadata for your library (art work, directors etc etc) if it was off line.
Im a retro video game collector and the ps2 is my absolute favorite piece of hardware. I buy the original format of the games even though they’re free and easy to emulate; because I treasure the experience and physicality. I did begin to worry about disc rot after buying more rare games. This video help me stay confident in collecting.
Those will all rot. Ps2 games always rot like out of date fruit. You must sell them to me immediately for 1/10th of their true value. 👍
Yeah emulators are good for new machines but nothing quite reflects original game son original hardware
STORE in a cool dry place.
Like a mummy in a tomb.
Preservation.
@Yongo Bazuk 🤣😂🤣😂
@Yongo Bazuk Oh, I don't think it is a good idea to store your media outside under a blanket. I think that the ants crawling on them could leave traces of food and dirt on them and I don't think that fungus would be good for them.
I would recommend that you take them out of your backyard and store them on a shelf in your house. If not, at least use a dry blanket instead of a damp one.
Never had a disc rot on me, in fact until now I've never heard of this.
I've had it happen with burned CDs but haven't seen it with commercial releases.
Haven’t ever had it happen to me either. Whether it’s music CD’s, Games, DVD’s or BluRay, none have had disc rot. And I, ta;long about CD’s from the early to mid 90’s.
Yeah well consider yourself lucky.
@@ghiggs8389 That is in fact common for burned CDs to be much more vulnerable.
Great video.
Just a note: there have been articles and forum discussions about the imminent death of laserdiscs for 20+ years. There was even a high-profile, hysterical article calling laser rot “a tragedy.”
It’s 2021 and the laserdiscs are fine-almost all of them! They’re fine!
I started collecting them a few years ago (like a vulture, I waited until the world had completely forgotten the retro-futuristic media format I always lusted after as a kid-I’ve bought a ton of discs for a dollar each that have ancient $30 price tags on the wrap). Even discs that were clearly stored carelessly and shipped to me in crates without bubble wrap... are all fine.
People worry too much. Like the man said: don’t leave your discs out in 100 degree heat in a swamp or freezing temperatures in the Arctic tundra, and you’ll be okay.
I have a laserdisc copy of 2001 space oddessey and star wars no way to play them but I keep them for posterity and future generations.😅
Very well stated! 8-)
The number one fear of physical media collectors 😱
How the hell did you end up with screen name “Rakim”?!?
(Good shit)
@@Psycopatit's my name 🤷♂️
@Rakim tell your parents PsycoPat says they’re AWESOME!!!
👏🤟👌✌️👍✊
@@Psycopat 😂 ✌️
It's like the "Glass fungus" fear for Photographers.
My father chose to store his music collection in binder-style cd cases with cloth sleeves back in the 90s. After sitting in them for 20+ years, all 200 of his cds now have mild "oxidization" or cloudiness somewhere within the cds' layers. The cds still work but they don't look as good as cds that have been kept in jewel cases their entire lives. Now I'm transferring them back to jewel cases to hopefully halt the oxidization.
Really? I thought sealed folders were better than jewel cases because less air? Good to know.
I've been a physical media movie and tv collector for over 26 years since I was 13, I've collected various formats through the years and have never experienced disc rot, never knew it was a thing till now.
Warner Bros HD-DVD discs are notorious for this. I’ve got about a dozen in my collection that are unplayable now. This is unique though, most people don’t even know what HD-DVD was much less collect them like me.
Very accurate. I also have a small collection of hd dvds and my two different copies of the movie 300 do not work due to disc rot from poor manufacturing
I have found this really has only ever affected my discs that are cheaply made. Mostly cdrs. A couple of my laserdiscs as well. Heat is a major enemy of physical media! Of my 10,000 plus discs across all media, less than a dozen have died from media rot. I have CDs from the 80’s that are still perfect. Those dozen or so discs, at least half were cheap cdrs. So out of 9500 factory replicated discs, only about 5 or 6 were bad.
Same here, I have cds from the late 80's & early 90's that are still in great shape.
10k disks?! Holy shite! Are you a collector or reseller?
@@suppaduppa personal collection. Started CDs on the 80’s. DVDs late 90’s. And have been collecting ever since. I went back and got into laserdisc after the fact. Since I have a home theatre like Jeff. And have about 300 laserdiscs. But the big majority are dvds. Followed by Blu Ray. Then 4K and Blu Ray 3D. I even have about 10 HD DVDs and a player.
The problem as I said before, it is getting harder and harder to find movies I want to spend money to buy. Because I simply had about 85-90% of the movies I always wanted. So I don’t spend more than a buck or two on movies I have never seen. I have purchased, 2,000 plus of the movies at local dollar stores.
I also have a big video game collection. Every system Sony has ever released. And nearly 1,000 games to go with them! I am single. Kids raised. So this is one of my hobbies.
I do also sell movies part time online. I have been working hard to get my own production studio (Ocean Breeze Media Group) going. And we have multiple small projects coming to do DVD and Blu Ray. We have released a few dozen projects over the years. But not consistently. We have two out of print film restorations currently in the works (Little Shop Of Horrors, original film. With Jack Nicholson). And a couple of our own original projects: horror movie and sci fi movie. It is going slower than I want. But hey, that’s how things are right now. 🤷♂️
@@DangerousDevilOfficial My concern is that by owning a large amounts of movies a majority won't ever be watched. I'm nearing 1000 movies (20 or so are tv series). It would take me at least 3 years to watch all of them if I watched 1 or 2 movies each day. On top of that I still got around 150 movies on my wishlist. It's fun collecting them but at the same time I feel like Im wasting money on goods that are not consumed. Just to chase that temporary high by mass consuming stuff that has no other utility than destraction from reality. What are your thoughts? How do you cope with managing money/physical space/watching your movies?
@@suppaduppa well, you are right. I have probably (an educated guess) 3,000 movies I have never watched. And to be honest, at least half may never get watched. But I guess I look at it as, I don’t drink, spend money on booze or cigarettes, partying, gambling, expensive car builds. Anything like that. So it is a hobby to me. Plus, some of these movies, believe it or not, may go out of print. And be super, super rare. So beyond having value there (I have at least 150 titles worth $50-300 each! ) people like me may literally be preserving some of these films that end up lost. Beyond that my main love is music. So I spend a lot of my free time making new music. And releasing that. I have always been fascinated with the video and audio industry. So I am a geek if you will. Money wise, I own all the things I need. And have almost no debt. So I don’t let buying movies destroy me financially. For everyone the answer will be different.
Space wise, it does get hard to display the movies. So mine are in disc cases. That hold 540 discs each. I still need nearly 20 of those! I have plenty of room in my house to store the cases away. Pretty big house. Just me. So that doesn’t bother me.
You sound like a solid collector. But not a freak about it like me. That’s fine too. Everyone has their limits. So my thoughts are, do what you feel you are comfortable with. And by no means go into debt to collect!
I also plan to use part of my collection as my retirement. Not movies so much. But all of my new, sealed Sony gear. 👍
I've been buying DVD's and Blu Rays for about two decades now, and I've only had one disc that entire time that MIGHT have been disc rot. If you take care of them, they should be good for a very long time.
Take care of them doesn't always have anything to do with it. All of mine have sat safely in their cases inside my living room and I still had rot happen. These are typically manufacturing errors. Criterion at least has admitted the problems with one of the plants they no longer use and have offered to replace their discs that are rotting. I ended up losing six Warner DVDs that no longer play. The discs don't even look damaged. They look brand new but will freeze in every player I try them in. It is rare, but it happens.
@@AG-bp3ll I have had only one DVD fail, about a year after I bought it, despite it looking brand new with no signs of damage. Ran it through multiple drives and software to try and recover it (it was expensive and rare) with no luck. It was a WB disc too.
I have DVDs and PS1 games that are over 20 years old that still work today.
I even have 30+ year old records that still work today.
Blu rays are much more durable as far as disc decay goes. Newer discs probably have a lifespan of 40-50 years.
If it can last that long I'm good lol.
I have a Fleetwood Mac CD of 1988 and it still works perfectly.
I work in medical imaging and one place I worked at in the early 2000s archived their images on DVD-Rs. We had a significant number of them become unreadable after seven or eight years. Having said that commercially made DVDs and Blu-Rays use a totally different method of "burning" the data on the media, and are much more stable than DVD-R media. I have personally never commercially made CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray disk go bad.
I’ve seen how badly some people treat their discs. You see scratches and fingerprints. That’s why I don’t lend my discs to anyone.Fortunately there are streaming services.
Just say no. Let them destroy their own physical media.
It's funny you say that. I remember, every time someone would visit and see my collection, they would want to borrow some. I used to lend until I got to a point of getting so tired chasing them down afterwards that I stopped lending them. I actually liked lending them, but hated having to ask 3 months later. And of course there's always the dreaded, "Oh, Didn't I give it back to you? Yeah, i think I gave it back to you." Then what do you do? It's your friend. So I stopped. However, in the past few years, since streaming, no one cares to borrow discs anymore. Thank goodness. :)
I’m a devout dvd collector and this has always been my fear. I even check all my discs regularly for any signs of damage
Grainy footage. Time to upgrade to betamax mate.
I’ve had a few old DVDs get bad disc rot, but likely because they weren’t taken care of (before I became a collector) and was probably because of exposure to 110°+ Arizona heat while we moved
Yes, be careful when moving. Someone left a box of my discs in hot summer heat because I wasn’t focused on it. They all play fine so I hope they are still ok.
I have only seen rot in my Laserdiscs...fairly frequently even. Some of my oldest DVDs are from the mid-late '90s, and none of them have any rot and I have cds from the '80s that are all fine too.
That's called quality
Disc rot is a serious problem with laser discs.
As for CDs-DVDs, I have the feeling that the older ones get along better with it than the newer and cheaper made ones.
the best thing you can do is to store them in a cool dry & dark environment ( and make some safety koppies )
My wife and I have been media hoarders since CDs in the mid 80’s. We collect records, CDs, DVD and Bluray including 4K. I have never lost a single disc to rot. I have seen it though, having been thru a million flea mkt and yard sale trips. I’d say about 50% were purchased new, the rest on the secondary market. At this point we have an 11 room house and let me warn everyone, managing a huge collection, well just be careful what you wish for lol. It can take over your house, and your life if you let it. On the flip side of that coin I’ll say I’ve been isolating at home since the virus hit and there are times I feel like a genius, because if I didn’t have my collection to occupy me all this time, I would have gone crazy. I can say we aren’t just hoarders, we truly love physical media and use it every single day. Starting to feel like it wouldn’t be a dumb idea to purchase a few high end players to store away for the future. I have some decent equipment, but the transports and lasers I hear can get scarce years after a model goes out of production. I think right now it’s more a problem with higher end gear by smaller companies that come and go. I’m a worrier, wish I wasn’t. Great video, I agree with everything you said. I’m not concerned about the rot at all. I was aware of it, and I have passed on many second hand CDs that I shopped in person because of it, or being what I call “cheese grated” where it looks like somebody purposely put the underside of the disc on asphalt and just went to town on it. CDs and DVDs are delicate. Even more so than records. I say if you love physical media, let your freak flag fly. A final warning... Do NOT recommend the huge binder books that hold discs. Seems like a wonderful idea, but it wasn’t for me. I’m in the process of making a dedicated movie room, I had 10 of the huge books, just for things I didn’t use much. I also saved every insert card/ title card in a box like 20+ pounds of title cards. I just bought a huge amount of new cases so I could put them back together to display. Even though every book was labeled as a stand alone genre, that was of little help. It was a complete nightmare matching discs to their cards and putting them back together to display now that we have a larger house. Nightmare, complete utter nightmare. I’d rather be raped by Bigfoot then do that again. Those books suck. We did it out of necessity at the time living in a smaller house. Never ever again. I don’t know anyone that ever wants to flip thru those books looking for something to watch. Physical media collections in excess of 10,000 discs are not a lot of fun managing. Yet, mine is still growing because I can’t stop. Truly a curse and a blessing. Take care!
At 47 minutes this video had 1.2k views, that's over 25.5 views every minute and 1 view every 2 seconds if I did my math correctly. Jeff, your channel is kicking ass and I'm so happy to see it :)
Thanks man. I’m so happy for all the support
True! I'm more worried about the availability of the necessary hardware to play the various physical media and how to get replacement parts for them. What I'm most worried about however that negates all those worries is how shortlived digital media and streaming services can be and how for example even singleplayer games today can't be played in 10 years from now because the servers/service they run on might be shut down and movies and series can be removed because of licensing issues or stupid things like cancel culture.
I try to limit my collection of physical media because it will get harder and harder to actually use and play them over time. But the things I really enjoy and care for I must have physical. I don't trust digital media and how it is currently run.
Always someone who can repair a dvd/blu ray or 4k player. Even ebay sellers offer services. A lot of radio enthusiasts can repair extremely complex radios that are 100 years old and they can replace any part from tubes to boards to electrics. Worry ye not. And blu ray disks will last about 150 years and people are still paying hundreds of pounds for old bollywood vhs and betamax and on some horror films even though the film degrades badly and the picture is atrocious. I think blu ray and 4k will become obsolete accept for newer titles the decline between 2009-2018 was nearly 80 percent and its gone down even faster since. There's a possibility blu ray 2k will still stay about but at 5 thousand pound to restore a movie from 2k to 4k lots of 4k titles will never be released. Watership down has just been pulled from 4k production even though the artwork was completed and pre sales had been sold. Also factor in for 4k that not all original film footage can be restored to 4k level because the master copy has deteriorated , you can't polish and turd as the saying goes. 😀
All of my cds are fine, including the first ones I bought in 1984. Store and handle properly...no high heat , water humidity, and keep them in plastic (not paper) cases...and don't loan them to anyone.
I have DVDs that are 24 years old and look as new now as when I bought them. As long as they’re kept in room temperature you have nothing to worry about.
What's the best room temperature? I have some DVDs that have this problem
I know this exists, but I haven't had this happen at all, in 30 years of collecting CDs, DVDs, and Blu Rays. But,i have always stored them well.
None of my 5 inch optical media collection (BD, CD, etc.) has ever developed any rot that I've seen.
However, rotting has affected some of my LaserDisc collection (Laser rot). That's because in the 80s and 90s, certain LD manufacturing facilities had quality control issues that weren't properly addressed.
Thankfully, those problems have MOSTLY been corrected, since the days of LaserDisc (a format I still have and enjoy).
@@christopherbrown5023 Mine either in 27 years I call bs on this fear. Store them vertically in their case in dark er areas temp controlled and handle them from edges they should last a lifetime.
@@anthonymartino9917 I wouldn't call it bs, but I believe rotting would be a very very isolated and remote problem, these days.
Discs are though. You almost have to go out of your way to harm them. If your CD or DVD inner sleeves are being mishapped or warped by humidity, then you should be concerned about disc rot later down the line.
@@robertlakay88 I agree.
The only disc rot I've experienced has been from burned discs in the early days of CD-Rs and some low quality bootlegs that turned bronze (still played). It can certainly happen but as long as you take care of your discs and there isn't a manufacturing problem, there isn't much to worry about much like the video discusses.
I melted some CD's in my car one time. Luckily, they were just CD-R's, so nothing was really lost. I did learn that direct sunlight does destroy 'em.
I've seen couple of bootleg discs that have this issue would happen to it! My oldest blu-ray is from 2007, and still works perfectly!
Yes, definitely on bootleg discs. I’ve experienced laser rot on a couple of my laserdiscs, and a few on my DVDs, but it’s very rare.
@@paul8926 It’s not really a rare issue with LaserDiscs. Whether it significantly affects you really just depends on movies you have in your collection and the manufacturers who made them.
I got dvds from 1999 and they play perfectly 🙂
I have some bootleg discs and when I checked them, they looked fine and I got them around 2006-2007.
so when i lived in texas, my family put my DVD collection in the attic where heat was really bad... i got that collection back and well... most of it works except for one box set of Aqua teen hunger force :< buuuuttt my blurays have been fine, it takes while for them to rot.
I used to burn thousands of DVDs, and disc rot was a concern because the layers that are burned are chemicals. Retail Blu-rays and DVDs are pressed like you said. You don't have to worry about the chemicals breaking down due to age, light, normal heat, etc. It really depends on how the manufacturers make them. You expect them to be hermetically sealed, but you still shouldn't wash them. Only a little alcohol (not dry wipe cloths which scratch the plastic surface).
Manufacture disc are not reliable. I have had way to many just stop working.
I’ve got one blu ray that’s rotting presumably due to faulty manufacturing. I’ve never had a CD or DVD rot. I’ve got quite a few cds from the 80s and they play perfectly even with scratches. Scratches in a CD aren’t nearly as bad as scratches on dvds.
My odest CD album is since 1990 it's the Dave Weckl's < Master Plan > and one year later his 2nd CD album < Heads Up > and since then i have bought many CD albums all of them are in perfect condition ,
Also my oldest DVDs are since 2000 also without any problem and DVD-ROM videogames and CD-Rs / DVD-Rs too no problem
but never had any Blu-ray .
I'm pretty much sure it depends from the quality of the materials in factories they build the CD/DVD/Blu-ray discs , normally they all can last if they be in a good care for more than 100 years and i say that because i've read that in hi-fi audio video magazines in late 90s .
I have an album from the 90s looked bronzed that I bought from Music Magpie they refurbish all DVDs 📀 or CDs 💿 people sell to them.
The album plays just fine, in case you wanted to know which album it is it’s “Rocking all over the years” by Status Quo 🙂
I have a CD collection I started 30 years ago, DVD collection I started 20 years ago, the first Playstation discs, Blu-Rays. And I've never even heard of this issue.
Same here
It's rare to find a DVD, BD, or CD that has rot. But back in the laserdisc era, I've had MANY titles that either had rot (colored speckling in the picture, not to be confused with "inclusion" which early DoscoVision titles suffered from) when brand new, or developed it with time. I recall back in 1984 or so going through 5 copies of Never Say Never Again at a Crazy Eddies store. ALL 5 had ROT on various sides!
@@reedgrele6673 I totally skipped out on the laserdisc era, sounds like it wasn't as "prefect" as they started calling CDs. :P
@@thegrimyeaper not ALL titles had rot. I've never had a 3M pressing go bad. Technidisc was the worst. But at the time, Laserdisc was the best looking and sounding video format available to consumers. Of course, when DVD came along, that was the beginning of the end for LD.
Same here too no problem .
I have CDs that I bought in the 1980s that are still perfectly fine. Just take care of your stuff, and it'll be fine.
fun fact: there's this record disc called m-disc that claim that they last a thousand years
Wow thanks, I might buy those.
Though no one will be around to confirm it. Lol
@@jeremy3261 remember to have an external m-disc player for your pc to burn them
@@markus19999 oh, thanks.
@@jeremy3261 no problem 👍🏻
Excellent video. Thank you. I heard about discs deteriorating way back in the '90s that worried me. I have CD's that are over 30 years old and DVDs that are over 20 years old and none of them have any deterioration. Let alone rot that renders them unplayable. It's not something I give much, if any, thought to. Your comments regarding media device obsolescence, on the other hand, is something I've thought about many times and it does cause me concern.
In over 20+ years of collecting discs, I’ve only had 1 cd and 1 dvd exhibit signs of disc rot.
I’ve got 35 year old CD’s which are all perfect like you say as long they are stored sensibly no issues 👍🏻
My DVD copy of the grim adventures of Billy and Mandy and zathura both fell victims to disc rot for no apparent reason and good luck trying to find Billy and Mandy now it's over $100 for that set
All my dad’s CDs from 30 years ago still work fine. Disc rot is supposedly much more rare for new formats including blu rays and 4K blu rays because of better manufacturing techniques.
I’ve been collecting cds dvds blu rays and 4K since the 80’s and have never had a disc do that
It depends on a lot of factors. Do the discs get exposed to humidity? UV radiation? High temperatures?
Disc rot exists on Warner Bros HD DVD’s.
Yup. Every disc I owned was garbage after three years.
I had it as well. Mostly on the duel disc, DVD on one side, HD-DVD on the other.
Weird, none of the ones I kept ever seen a problem
@@Beansrdone Those flipper discs have always been shit. Regardless of what combination of formats is on either side, they always stop working very soon after you get them. I’m frankly dreading picking up the box set of Gone With The Wind because the special features are on a flipper disc.
not only hd dvd wb, my blade runner case version on blu ray is completely destroyed, but the dvd discs are fine
I have CDs from 1983. Still play perfectly. Keep your fingers off disc surfaces . Never clean as it scratches the surfaces .
I’d be more worried about finding a blu ray player in a few years from now ....
Many Disney Touchstone laserdiscs had laser rot . The Japanese laserdiscs I have - the complete Lost In Space , still play perfectly . That’s quality .
I’ve never cleaned any of my discs . If you keep your fingers off the data side they should play for years . Yes, sometimes there are manufacturing grit problems with mainly covers . Inspect discs when you buy them . I hold every disc under a light and look for dirt etc . But NEVER wipe the disc surface as it causes minute scratches on the surface no matter how good the cleaning cloth . Dust and manufacturing grit can easily be blown off . NEVER ever rotate discs in their clamps . I see so many people unboxing blu rays and the first thing they do is rotate the discs in the covers - or worse , lay them on display on a dusty table lol
This is an interesting topic. Im a collector myself. I got a humble collection of physical games between N64, gba, NDS, UMD, ps2, ps3 and ps4. The think is that at least you live in the New England Region. Just imagine living in a hot, humid country like myself in the tropics. Here is even more difficult to try to preserve for a long term physical media. Humidity and hot weather here is 24/7 all year round. Temperatures between 78 F and 95 F. Even the clothing rots here because of this weather (of course washing have to do something with it as well)
The very first DVD I bought over twenty years ago still plays fine. Even the first CD I bought thirty-five years ago still sounds great. The only issue I've had with disc rot is with recordable media, especially with burned CDs that were left in the car.
adorkability Yes , burned stuff is a good point. I made backups in the past of some Playstation 1 games and the half of it started to rot , but the original games are still good and play perfect.
Your video hits on what i've always thought.The biggest threat is if Bluray/Dvd players are phased out over worries of rotting.
Thank you so much for this video.
I'm a CD collector.
I love my music so much that I don't want to rely on streaming.
Since day 1, I have always kept discs away from windows and areas like near the bathroom or a kitchen for example, keeping it away from moisture is key to its longevity
Thanks for making a video on this! I live in a very dry area and have been collecting discs since 1994. Absolutely no disc rot yet.
I knew I wouldn't regret keeping all my stuff at room temperature 24/7/365. Heated storage units are expensive but worth it.
I take steps to make sure that problem doesn’t happen
I’ve seen this before. It usually happens with games that are left in the elements in a garage, flea market or basement. It’s just moisture getting between the layers of the disc and peeling them up
I just discovered your channel. I really appreciate the video. I'm a movie collector but I don't have a large collection. It's nice to know how to take some precautions to discourage disc rot. Keep up the great work on your videos.
Great video Jeff.
Disc rot is the oxidation of the disc's silver data layer. It was a big issue for the Laser Disc format (laser rot).
It greatly affected Laser Discs manufactured in Mexico, presumably due to the humid salty environment, while discs pressed in the US and Japan especially had fewer instances of laser rot.
Discs released by Columbia/Tri-Star Home video had a higher rate of rot (manufactured in Mexico) but technically discs by any studio or manufacturer could be affected, even brand new shrink wrapped discs.
I remember holding my breath while spinning up a new disc side waiting to see whether I would be rewarded with a pristine image or an image covered with the dreaded white or colored speckling resulting from laser rot (there were rarely any visible signs of rot on the discs themselves).
Laser Disc was an analog video format and the discs were much larger (12" platters), so the chances of manufacturing issues was much greater when compared with the smaller 5" platters of subsequent digital discs.
Digital disc players (CD/DVD/BluRay/UltraHD) all include error correction so they are to a certain extent able to recover from errors introduced by manufacturing defects and disc rot.... there are of course limits, heavily damaged discs will be unplayable.
I have 400 laserdisc’s from the ‘90’s. They cost $29 to $129. Way over 90% have rot. I stored them in the house, in custom shelves, on their edge, disc’s have envelopes, jackets have envelopes. It’s now a useless collection.
My huge collection of CD’s (1500) , DVD’s (3000) and Blu-rays (couple hundred) have no issues at all.
Rot sucks.
I Read the rot is caused on Laserdisc by the glue in the middle that holds the 2 Disc sides together stopped collecting them because of this.
Laserdiscs were WAY WAY more susceptible to rot, because of the materials used: for example, the plastic was polyvinyl whic is relatively porous to moisture and oxygen. DVD/CD?BD are made of polycarbonate, which isn't.
I’ve been buying/collecting dvds and blu rays since they first came out and have never come across disc rot, obviously if you take care of you physical media in my opinion you have nothing to worry about.
I have a large optical disc collection starting with the first CD i bought back in 1988, witch is fine.
My first DVD i bought way back in 1999 Titanic and that is still going strong with no sighs of deterioration. But recently i decided to play my 2001 DVD copy of Terminator and discovered that the playing serfice had clouded over in places and that the artwork on the disc is breaking down.
I am also a watch collector and used a substance called Poly Watch to restore the playing surface. Polly watch is a fine abrasive pasted used to remove scratches from plastic watch crystals found on Omega Vostok watches. I finished off with a light clean with a micro fibber cloth cleaning from the centre to the edge of the disc. That seemed to do the trick.
So far this is the only disc that i have had problems with.
Fingers crossed!
Well Jeff. Long time viewer, first time commenting.
I would certainly put out there to people that Disc rot isn't as common as it was with the likes of Laser disc and early DVD.
The coating is different today.
I agree with you on the advances of technology out dating the format. I myself, last month had to buy a new blu ray player after the one I had for 11 years had become out dated by
newly released blu ray titles. The likes being distributed by Indicator and Eureka. You couldn't get picture, only the main menu with the sound of the film.
The companies describe the discs as. "High bit rate discs". It's likely as well that T.V.s won't have HDMI or 4K outputs in the Future, much like scart.
I would say this is where the real risk is with a vast collection.
I can't justify signing up to every streaming service as they don't have everything you want and it's likely to be taken down at some point.
Putting into consideration of the cost of these services as well. Once they get enough subscribers they increase the price annually.
It's like paying for a film that you already have 10 times over.
Don't worry people, disc rot is the least of your worries here.
Me personally I have not had any problems with CD's that I have owned since CD's first came out. Again, like you said storing them is what you need to look out for. I am not worried and I own around 2,000 DVD's, blu rays, 4K, laser discs, etc. Again, you might see some manufacture problems occur, but nothing to be worried about. Great video!!
I’ve been collecting movies on DVD since they first launched about 20 years ago and I have well over 1000 movies across DVD Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray, I have only experienced one DVD not working correctly anymore. The odds of this happening Are ridiculously low
I live in the upper midwest, about 70 miles west of Chicago ..... our winters are unbelievably, bitterly cold and dry (wind chills of -35 in January) .... and our summers are horribly hot and hella-humid; for instance, today is July 27, and it's going to get up to about 96 degrees today, with very High humidity. My point is that we have horrible heat and humidity, in summer, and I have been collecting (and, therefore, storing) CDs for 34 years, now, and I've never had a CD with disc rot. Ever. Most of my music CDs are stored inside large, closed plastic tubs, as I have cats, and .... as I say, I've never experienced disc rot .... if anyone cares lol
Member the days of VHS tapes when people put them on their car’s dash and they would just warp and bend in all kinds of funky ways.
Great video! Love your channel. My own discs of various formats have been absolutely fine. I also recently was gifted old AOL and old computer CDs from the early to late 90s that were kept in a garage since they were obtained. They were all still in their protective sleeves and or cases and still all in perfect condition. Keep your discs in their case or a case of some kind and you will MOSTLY be fine.
Great information!! I am still an avid physical media collector. Thanks again!!
Wow that's crazy I have never seen this. This is why I need to invest in a Zappiti so I can back them up as well. I would die if my disk started doing that. Thanks for video....
Relax. The disc rot thing is total bullshit. It was mainly traced back to a plant long ago that made crappy cds that were not stable. I HAVE THOUSANDS of hem and not one has ever rotted some 28 years old. NOT ONE!
@@anthonymartino9917
Amazon.com has digital versions of movies and TV series (Kim Possible, SpongeBob SquarePants, The Loud House, etc)
Great video bud! I've got over 5000 discs and i've had 5 or less have this issue so far. The last 2 were "Left Behind" and "The New Daughter" UK releases. There are no signs of disc rot on them. They just refuse to playback. Disc rot is of course and issue but as long as your sensible and don't mistreat them, you shouldn't have any issues.
Thank you for this important information you and I have large collections and I have discs from years back and don't want to loose any of them. Stay safe.
I have CDs over 30 years old that still look brand new. And DVD'S, like the Star Wars prequel trilogy, like look brand new and play perfectly and are still nice and clear on a 4K TV. And cds still sound new. As well as blurays. I think it's all the way you take care of your things.
if I was rich , I'd just buy 5 bluray players as backups and hope they last for 10+ years.
You have a good point that the bigger thing to worry about it players not been freely available in 30 years (I’ll be almost 70 by then and may not worry about it - but I like to think I will). Best solution to that; buy a few spare players now and keep them in storage and hope that they don’t change HDMI to something else - even then adaptors will be available I’m sure.
First I hear of this. I've collected DVDs nearly 20 years, never seen these. Even on my CDs.
Didn’t know that disc’s rot, since I’ve never seen this on any of my dvds
I worked for HMV records. We rarely had returns for this but it did happen a few times even if the title was fairly new. Back in the day, there were (Toll-free) 1-800 numbers from the manufacturer for quality control if there were issues. However, we were loose on the return policy and usually exchanged it for the customers. With time, we had fewer and fewer issues. ( PS , HMV is no more in the US .)
Only times I have encountered any forms of "Disc Rot" has been with used media discs I came across that had been improperly stored and or handled. Mostly it has been CD and DVD media discs that had been exposed to either or both high temperatures or direct sunlight. A friend of mine at turn of the century literally stored his DVDs in the trunk of his car, and I recall him having issues with some them turning dark colors and becoming unreadable, this for the very reasons provided in your excellent video.
Thats why, amongst my other collectibles, Its important to have storage in a dry, temp controlled, smoke free room. Extreme heat and cold (slightly better cold than heat) is bad but what takes the cake and should not be overlooked is humidity. I live in el paso tx where thats never a problem for the most part, but to avoid the heat I have refrigerated air around the upper 60's.
Yeah I have a copy of it's a wonderful life that I bought about over 20 years ago. I watched it last Christmas it's still fine. Never encountered this problem but still thank you very much alerting me of this problem. I'll keep this in mind and keep my eye out
I have been collecting Optical media for about 25 years, and have only lost about 6 discs. I have had more problems with new media being factory bad then I have had with media dying over time. On that, I would recommend that if you are still buying physical media, that you should use a ripping program to create a backup copy, and confirm your media. I have found that about 1% of media is factory bad over the years of ripping discs when I buy them. It isn't media specific, I have had DVD, BD, and 4K discs be bad out of the package. I will admit that it appears that country of manufacture has an affect on this. It does appear that movies made in Mexico have higher failure rates then ones that are not labeled that way. This is nothing against those movies, or the production process, it is just an observation that can hopefully help. Keep up the great content.
I’ve never once worried about disc rot. I’ve also never experienced it in 30 years. It doesn’t seem that common to me.
Nice going Jeff. Very informative as always. I agree nothing to worry about unless u don’t take care of ur discs.
I keep lossing dvds and games. Over 30 in the last 5 years. They are stored in my living room. No strong change in heat or humidity. I dont buy anymore. This keeps happening.
Just mention some of the ones I have lost, Shogun miniseries( 3 out of 4 discs) original back to the future DVD release. All 3 discs. Inherit the wind, fly boys, Tucker, over the top, the order, equilibrium, date night, tango & cash, Battlestar Galactica razor. In PS3 games mini ninjas, iron man and Gundam destiny warriors 2.
This is real. No freaking joke.
I've got CDs from 1983 that still play
I have been collecting movies for decades now, and when it comes to disc formats, the only format with really bad rot problems was the laserdisc.
I live in Germany and imported many US laserdiscs in the 90s - for a ridiculous amount of money.
Some day I read about the problem of "laser rot" in Doug Pratts "The Laser Disc Newsletter" (is that still around?) - and was really scared.
I started checking my collection and found quite a lot of discs with picture drop outs caused by "laser rot". That was a horrifying experience, as I now feared that *all* my very expensive laserdiscs might deteriorate over time and be worthless.
Another effect of my massive disc - checking was that my player broke down due to the excessive up- and downspeeding of the player.
So I had to have my player repaired just because I checked if my laserdiscs were ok... 🙄
I have no idea how many of my laserdiscs are still playable, they have been sitting on their shelves now for the last 20 years or so without being watched.
I should check if my two laserdisc players are even working anymore...
At least laserdiscs have great LP-sized covers that can be nicely displayed on the wall in LP cover frames. So even if the movie can't be played anymore, you can use the covers for decoration.
As for dvds and blu-rays, I have not experienced disc rot, but to be honest, I collected so madly for years, I haven't even opened the shrink wrap of most movies, so who knows...
I remember two German releases that had problems with discs that developed a sticky foggy layer on the data side of the discs, but that was because of some issues with stuff coming out of the printing color of the cardboard cases they had ("Silence of the lambs" and a silver box of "Lethal Weapon").
I’ve only had two instances of disc rot in over twenty years of collecting movies on disc. One was a public domain copy of a Flash Gorden serial from a small company. The second was Steven King’s The Stand on DVD for some reason messed up after several years. We used to have a lot more problems with rot when music CDs first came out back in the eighties. Love the channel Jeff.
I think it is best to store them in a wooden cabinet with wooden doors; if it has glass doors, cover it with nice wrapping paper. This way, they will not be exposed to light, dust or temperature changes because wood is a material that itself adjusts its temperature.
I have around 550 cds. Most of those are at least 20 years old. Some are closer to 30 years old. There was even a period where I had them in a storage shed for a year - extreme heat and extreme cold. Not one of them has got disc rot.
I did use to burn cdrs to listen on the car deck. Now those have seen a high rate of disc rot. There's several reasons for that. One, car decks typically have a slot to put discs in. Slot style decks can scratch cds. Secondly, though I try to be careful, you're in a car so sometimes discs would sit bare on the seat until I can safely put it away. Sun gets to them. Stuff happens. Basicly abuse. But, that's why I used cdrs in the first place.
In a home setting, as long as you handle discs by the edges. Put them away when you're done instead of leaving them sit in the open. Disc rot should be quite rare.
I never experienced disk rot like in those examples but I did experience my disks getting this sticky, matt film on them, almost like a dried up layer of grease, that caused the disks to become unplayable. I had it only on some How I met your Mother box set disks to the point I rebought those seasons and a few months later that same problem happened. Other movies and tv-shows on dvd and Blu-ray were spared so far, but it was very weird to have that happen twice on the same DVD’s.
I have movies since the 70s & still collecting
I have about 500 cds, 500 Dvds, 300 Dvd boxsets, 800 Blurays and 4ks and 300 Blu rays boxsets and luckily I have only ever had one case of cd rot and that is in a very damp UK. However I do agree that the future of media and whether you will be able to watch these films decades from now is a little worrying. I still have a couple of hundred video tapes but still have three VCR machines, not that I have used or even had them plumbed in for some while. I think it is worth buying spare machines in the future, just to make sure you will be able to watch your collections. Happy collecting everyone.
Learned the hard way ...back around 2003 I decided to store all my Dreamcast duplicates which was over 100+ titles up in the attic in a storage bin ...then year's later went to check on them and they appeared to be fine for case artwork looked great still but as I opened the case's in horror I found that all the disc had disc rot 😭 , but as a collecter of game's and movies with a collection well over 3,000 titles that I store in a climate controlled environment I've still had a few items develop disc rot.
Hi thank you very much for taking the time to make this video it was very useful and informative!
Only had one disc ever get disc rot.
An was in a TV show set that I bought on ebay.
EBay suck
I now store my collection in two xl sized luggage cases in my closet, I moved them from my shelves to make room for my model collection.
Had a several dvds fail to this, certain brands especially early pornos seem to have been produced on the cheapest discs known to man.
I would have said "A friend told me that some of his early pornos have rotted."
It’s a known issue with a lot of WB classic films on dvd. I remember losing “Meet Me In St. Louis,” “Forbidden Hollywood” box set, a stack of old gangster and film noir stuff, “Jailhouse Rock,” and “ National Lampoon’s Vacation,” just to name the ones I remember. The discs played perfectly at first, but failed over the years. Depressing stuff.
Good Video. At first I was worried, but I still have VHS tapes from 25-30 years ago that still play perfect. I guess I’ll have to get the CDs out of my car though.
Been collecting the past 15 years, and I’ve literally never seen this.
5 years or so ago, I digitized all of my cds. I found 5 discs that had rotted. 3 of them were Brian Eno cds from the Editions EG series released in the late 80's early 90's. These were the ones I found, there may have been more I just haven't played them yet.
Don't get me started on the Criterion Collection's blu-ray discs and their "recall" of rotting discs. What a mess that is.
The thing to watch out for is recordable media. Cd-R, DVD-R, etc. they are rotting away as we speak due to the data being burned in an organic dye layer. Pressed CDs are generally not gonna have an issue with rot, though discs manufactured by PDO UK in the mid-80s to early 90’s tend to be very problematic. Basically guaranteed to be rotten. Dual layer DVDs (or those horrible double sided DVDs that were common in the early days of the format) can delaminate over time, but I really don’t know anyone who cares about anything on dvd, everything’s on Blu ray these days...
I have CDs manufactured as early as 1983. They are in good shape and have experienced no rot. It's all about taking care of your stuff.