3 ms·

Has anyone had an otherwise undamaged DVD fail on them? By now there should be plenty of nearly 25 year old dvds out there that have done nothing but sit in a c

Has anyone had an otherwise undamaged DVD fail on them? By now there should be plenty of nearly 25 year old dvds out there that have done nothing but sit in a case on a shelf since 1999.

486sx33 3y ago
Commercially produced DVDs don’t fail due to age in my experience, but they do get scratched or corroded to the point of being error riddled. Burnt CD-R and DVD-R definitely had a reduced life. CD-RW even worse
aidenn0 3y ago
I have two out of hundreds. Both were about 10 years old when they first encountered issues.
AnotherGoodName 3y ago
I've had corrosion. Literal rust spots forming on the metal layer. Similar to how mirrors get that mold/rust growing between the silver layer and glass. I have not been keeping the DVDs in a controlled environment. They have been in a garage in a high humidity region. I think you could keep them indefinitely in a humidity controlled environment but for the average user they will corrode just like old mirrors do.
alamortsubite 3y ago
We had an early CD burner in our lab at my first job out of grad school. I used to burn CD "mixtapes" for friends with it, a fun novelty in 1995. Recently, I found a couple of these stashed among the many boxes of CDs in my basement. Although they weren't stored in the manner recommended by TFA, they ripped without trouble. It's fun listening to them again after almost 30 years.
sumtechguy 3y ago
Search for DVD disc rot on youtube. There are many channels talking about it. There is a chunk of them from 2007-2011 that have a bad rot issue. There is also a chunk of laserdisc that have similar issues from the early 90s. Usually it is the process to make the plastic is done wrong and the layers start to delaminate from each other. I have also had them come right out of the box and have errors. No visible issues. But the thing just will not read in particular places on the movie.
drivers99 3y ago
I have a DVD of Apollo 13 (from 1998 I believe) that won't play at all for no discernible reason (no coloration, no scratches). That's the only one I've ever had a problem with. Then again, I haven't gone through all my DVDs, well, ever. Maybe something to try when I'm really bored.
asciimov 3y ago
Yes, 6 or 7 years ago I went through and digitized my family’s dvds and cds (music, movies, data, games) For factory printed discs, bit rot caused data loss in 8 to 10% of the discs. 2 to 3% were a total loss. Those loses were closer to 20-25% for burnable media. 90%+ lived a very comfortable life, climate controlled and protected from UV.

Has anyone had an otherwise undamaged DVD fail on them? By now there should be plenty of nearly 25 year old dvds out there that have done nothing but sit in a case on a shelf since 1999.

486sx33 3y ago

Commercially produced DVDs don’t fail due to age in my experience, but they do get scratched or corroded to the point of being error riddled. Burnt CD-R and DVD-R definitely had a reduced life. CD-RW even worse

aidenn0 3y ago

I have two out of hundreds. Both were about 10 years old when they first encountered issues.

AnotherGoodName 3y ago

I've had corrosion. Literal rust spots forming on the metal layer. Similar to how mirrors get that mold/rust growing between the silver layer and glass. I have not been keeping the DVDs in a controlled environment. They have been in a garage in a high humidity region. I think you could keep them indefinitely in a humidity controlled environment but for the average user they will corrode just like old mirrors do.

alamortsubite 3y ago

We had an early CD burner in our lab at my first job out of grad school. I used to burn CD "mixtapes" for friends with it, a fun novelty in 1995. Recently, I found a couple of these stashed among the many boxes of CDs in my basement. Although they weren't stored in the manner recommended by TFA, they ripped without trouble. It's fun listening to them again after almost 30 years.

sumtechguy 3y ago

Search for DVD disc rot on youtube. There are many channels talking about it. There is a chunk of them from 2007-2011 that have a bad rot issue. There is also a chunk of laserdisc that have similar issues from the early 90s. Usually it is the process to make the plastic is done wrong and the layers start to delaminate from each other. I have also had them come right out of the box and have errors. No visible issues. But the thing just will not read in particular places on the movie.

drivers99 3y ago

I have a DVD of Apollo 13 (from 1998 I believe) that won't play at all for no discernible reason (no coloration, no scratches). That's the only one I've ever had a problem with. Then again, I haven't gone through all my DVDs, well, ever. Maybe something to try when I'm really bored.

asciimov 3y ago

Yes, 6 or 7 years ago I went through and digitized my family’s dvds and cds (music, movies, data, games) For factory printed discs, bit rot caused data loss in 8 to 10% of the discs. 2 to 3% were a total loss. Those loses were closer to 20-25% for burnable media. 90%+ lived a very comfortable life, climate controlled and protected from UV.