Re: Life of DVDs
- From: Clem Dye <bite@xxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 05 Apr 2006 16:31:47 GMT
synaptyx wrote:
On Tue, 04 Apr 2006 21:16:22 +0100, "Mark Fraser (News)"
<mfraser@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I bought Shrek on 2 DVDs (region 1) back in 2001 from Play which I have had
no problems with until recently when disc 1 has become unplayable (a 1/4 of
the plastic around the centre has come away underneath).
What is the life of a DVD supposed to be and would I be able to claim a new
copy from Play or Dreamworks?
No physical/visible damage, but my Monsters Inc picture drops out
completely and intermittently to a black screen. If you hit pause it
comes up again. It's my kid's favorite at the minute. Am just about to
contact Disney about it. :/
Aaron
I seem to recall a scare many years ago regarding the life of CDs, and how they'd be unplayable in 20 years. Well, having had some CDs since the format first came into being in 1980 (or thereabouts) I can refute that claim. That said, I suspect that those discs that haven't been well made or properly stored and handled may well degrade over time. I think that to a degree, the same applies to DVDs. There have been a number of well publicised problems of DVD 'rot' - Terminator being a case in point. Given that DVDs, unlike CDs, are two layers of material glued together I would suspect that careful handling and storage are just as important, like CDs, perhaps more so. I have a fair number of DVDs whose playing surface looks 'stained' - these are known as coffee stains in the business, apparently. It's something to do with the glueing/manufacturing process. So far, I haven't had any problems with such discs, but every time I get a new disc with this type of staining I do wonder how long these particular 'flawed' discs will last. As the discs play, there's no fault per se, so suppliers aren't interested in offering replacements - believe me, I've tried.
The problem with DVDs is compounded by the fact they're easy to scratch, even with careful handling, and they're not cheap to replace, assuming that you can get replacements for your well-loved titles - DVDs seem to go out of print a lot quicker than CDs, at least to me. The galling thing about scratching is that apparently, Toshiba has developed a playing surface formulation that prevents such damage. Great, but it's only going to be applied to HD-DVDs. Thanks a lot!
I suspect that DVDs are more susceptible to manufacturing faults. Modern players can cope with a lot of these problems seamlessly, given the error correction facilities in the system, but I suspect that as the media ages along with the players, these problems will become more prevalent.
I have some DVDs that I purchased when the format first became available in the UK. I plan to watch some of those soon to see how they've faired. I will be extremely annoyed, if after having carefully stored them, and handled them with 'kid gloves' I have problems. But what if I do? Given their age I suspect that the likes of Play wouldn't consider offering replacements, and I doubt if the manufacturers will either. Built-in obsolescence, either by virtue of a format change or by product degradation, keeps the industry happy and the punters poor!
Clem
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