Master List of rotted DVDs: docs.google.com/document/d/1CyLGHyuhA2mfhPr4Bkyj8RAapl_0LTmN/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=104657163513621066025&rtpof=true&sd=true My rotted DVDs: docs.google.com/document/d/1XUv13xbSeQvNtKdX5PC2a6apwObC4pOs/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=104657163513621066025&rtpof=true&sd=true Technical information from Warner DVD rot threads on hometheaterforum, dvdtalk and Bluray.com: docs.google.com/document/d/1u_L3Z6kNPkBYGwxr_erlMARdLDiNOHmp/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=104657163513621066025&rtpof=true&sd=true
i already commented here but I do have another disc rot question i have noticed on some newer discs some faint blochy looking areas that look similar to disc rot but they play fine do you know what i am referring too and do you know if there is any problem with that thank you.. 😁👍
@@comicsgatekeeper9746 that’s good! If you’ve got standalone copies and not the boxsets or ones made at the Mexican plant you should be good for most things.
It really does bug me big time when I spend so much money on Special Editions and box sets, only to have to replace them a few years down the road. It's an insult to all of us collectors. The people responsible for manufacturing these discs should be made responsible, and replace all the ruined copies free of charge.
Right there with you,pisses me the hell off specially when you buy new,you buy used your taking a risk, its understandable but new? nope, should work perfectly.
Also some people who bought these defective discs years ago may not have the money to replace them today. There are an incredible number of defective discs and I believe most of these titles are dead in most people's collections.
As a huge DVD collector, I'm sad I just found out about this from your video here and Retroblasting today. I will have to run through my WB titles. I know I have that same 4 pack of Lethal Weapon, and I put it in a couple months back and it stopped working a couple minutes in. I know I watched it many times in the past and no problems. I just assumed my player not liking it right now. Also have other titles you mentioned. For them to ask for receipts on stuff purchased so long ago that's just a kick in the face to all of us that bought these in good faith, and have taken care of them all these years.
It sucks to run into this. I hope you don’t have any other rotters. Thankfully most are available in other pressings or on BD now but sadly not everything is.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I only ran into this with One Tree Hill so far and fortunately I was lucky enough to find copies of the first few seasons that worked properly.
@@ozzy.....7383 which release of season 2? The Canadian one or the UK one? Cause I know the Canadian DVD set of season 2 is really pricey now so it would be a shame if that one has issues. There's also a Joey DVD set that combines both seasons, don't know if that one is affected.
@@jadedheartsz I think America. Season one is still fine. I thought I watched the disc too many times and that messed it up. I can’t find it anywhere and I paid a lot for it new. The one with the poker is the only problem it freezes and skips. It used to be if I played all episodes instead of individual it would get through it. I thought it was a bootleg. Number on box is 1000038397. Your probly alright it says 2008 and I’ve watched it 100 times and just that one issue
I've noticed problems with some of my Warner-made DVDs made around that time. These have included Roots, which the second bonus disc has rotted, as was MGM: When the Lion Roars. This is why making backups is extremely important.
Great video. One of the best and most informative I've seen on this topic. I've recently (2023-2024) had rot issues with several TV series box sets, such as Babylon 5 season one (WB); CHiPs, various seasons (Turner Home Ent); Earth 2 (Universal Home Entertainment); The Partridge Family season two (Sony); V The Complete [original] Series, various discs (WB); despite storing my discs in their cases in a controlled environment of 70 degrees with 40-50% humidity or less and out of direct sunlight.
Thanks! If those are from the affected period of manufacture date I'm sure the issue is likely more widespread on TV season DVD boxsets than we know of yet.
Was directed here from RetroBlasting's video. Your work is much appreciated. I don't have many movie DVDs in my collection, but the two box sets I do have were on your list. The Looney Tunes Golden collection set only seems to play audio, despite no particularly noticeable damage on the DVD. Thankfully the disks in my Superman Ultimate Collectors Edition still work. Though there was some odd residue on the first disk that I at first thought were cracks. That was fixed with some soap and water. I decided I should rip and back up my copies. Thankfully I had finally installed a DVD reader/writer on my PC during my last upgrade and I have a lot of DVD-Rs in reserve. Unfortunately I don't have much experience with that so I have a bit of research to do.
@@Girder3 good thing you caught some before they went bad! Thanks for the kind words. Most of the affected titles thankfully have other pressings or Blu-ray upgrades but others that don’t are the big worry.
Great video and an important topic to spread awareness of. Noticing you haven't listed any of the Adult Swim releases from Warner that are prone to rot in your master list, all from 2007 for them. Metalocalypse season 1 Venture Bros season 2 Moral Orel Volume 1 (the unholy edition) Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres. I own all of these and they've all suffered from varying degrees of rot. I don't own it but have heard Squidbillies volume 1 also suffers.
I just came across this video. I've been going back and ripping my DVDs, and encountered problems with Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me (not on the list) and Veronica Mars (on the list). Thank you for making collectors aware of this issue, I'll be checking over the rest of my WB DVDs from that era for additional problems.
Found this video researching my Warner Bros issue. I got thousands and thousands of DVD's and Blu-Rays. Never ever even gave DVD rotting out a 2nd thought. The majority of my collection and so far every blu ray I have tried seems to work flawlessly even after many years now. DVD's from just about every studio also seem to be playing just fine years later and some of these are hitting 25 years old now. The BIG problem I having is my Warner Bros disc. Like you say from 2005 to 2010 or 2011. Its at the point that every time I pull out an older Warner Bros DVD from these dates I am nervous it won't play and at least half the time its a bad disc now. Ironically every disc that has failed was in pristine condition. No signs of any issue even using a magnifying glass. I am pretty sure the disc played just fine at some point in the past. In my case the failure is almost always the same problem. Plays totally fine then when it hits the 2nd layer it freezes and eventually seizes the player. Sometimes you can fast forward to different chapter before it locks up completely. I did have one disc that would not even load because of TOC error so that does happen. Last night I pulled out Twilight Zone the Movie from a 2007 pressing and it failed. So far in most cases you can find newer pressings for cheap and I just replace them. However Twilight Zone The Movie is out of print. THAT...makes me angry!
Exactly my experience with "A Clockwork Orange". The 2nd half of the disk does not play, and it surmise this is the dual-layer transition, as you stated above. Your post supports my theory: the 2nd disk layer is unreadable.
I have the twilight zone movie on bluray all my Warner bros box sets have rot what do they do put only a certain amount of times you can play a disc it seems so what's next blurays too I will never buy a Warner disc again I hope they rot in hell.
The fact that this is such a massive studio library is what makes this terrifying. If this was a niche, short-lived library of films, that's one thing....but Warner Bros! I agree with the point about LaserDisc. I have so few LDs with any issue.
That’s what had me so worried and why I compiled the list in the description. Thankfully it does seem to be confined to a certain timeframe and specific types of releases. Of course it affects classics and boxsets most of all….🤦🏻♂️🤪
All the titles from ADV or AD Vision the anime company on laserdisc are rotters and pressed at DADC. My copy of Gunsmith Cats is completely unplayable now. I thought of maybe buying multiples to find one that plays, but i said it isn't worth it. I have the blu ray but its been remixed for 5.1 and i want the stereo mix. My copy of Evangelion isn't too bad but its a rotter as well there is snow but no audio dropouts.
Actually, it is worse than you think. This involves three studios, Warner Brothers, MGM, and RKO. That means it involves most of the great musicals of those studios.
Checking various forums, it sounds like it's hitting TV seasons mega hard. Friends, Dallas, Dukes of Hazard, Gilmore Girls, Supernatural, The OC are all having seasons rot. I told my sister and she checked her seasons of Gilmore Girls and most are now dead. She is devastated since she paid $40+ for each season when they first came out.
Thanks for the video! I bought the Warner Bros. Film Noir Vol. 4 box set and was shocked that none of the discs worked. After a little google search, to my horror, I discovered the Home Theatre Forum thread. After going through my discs, I discovered 18 of them had rotted, all dual layered multi disc or box sets. I'm a classic film collector and this hit me hard, almost making me give up on buying physical copies. Hopefully WB customer service will respond.
I completely feel your pain. At least it’s confined to a certain run of titles and a particular period. I haven’t found anything outside the discs I have that are rotted or outside the main reported ones. If you can get Warner archive or standalone copies or TCM 4pack reissues of titles that will resolve the issue for the ones available in the meantime.
This could hit people hard in the pocket book, what with the price of gas going up as well as everything else because of that. You might want to see if your local library could get a hold of some of your favorite titles that have gone bad. Either from them or while on loan from another library, even out of state. I`ve received requests from libraries that are half the country away from where I live. Much cheaper, though you have to wait a bit.
To anyone reading this, Full House: The Complete Fifth Season needs to be added to the list. I had a copy in the past where Disc 2 wouldn't read. I have a new set where Disc 3 stops playing by episode 4, and Disc 4 has visible signs of rot but played fully. Note: I did my testing on a PC.
I regret to tell you that 'Act of Violence' also freezes up. You can't watch the first 20 minutes of this movie. This is a great video. I was talking about this issue (film noir #4) in the comment section of another channel yesterday. Another user confirmed the 'Act of Violence' -freeze. This is a collector's nightmare. I bought so many warner boxsets in the past.... it's just terrible. It think the rot primarly affects dual-layered discs. Didn't detect any issues concerning discs in Vol 1,2 en 5. Still have to check the 3th box.
My mum has this problem with some of Warner's Dallas DVDs she bought in the 2000s. Some episodes get stuck or are completely unplayable. Judging by the reviews on Amazon, these dud discs are still being included in the complete box set.
Thanks for the list and video. You saved me some money, was about to buy the original Popeye the Sailor volume 2 and 3 dvd sets because mine had rotted. I thought it might have been due to a bit of dampness in the room they were stored in at the time but now will get the MOD versions.
Some have commented that humidity might play a role but in my experience it hasn’t. All my discs have been properly stored and whether purchased new or used they still went bad.
You need to look into MGM as well. My Abbott and Costello Collection (set 2) turned blotchy before I even watched them. I was so disappointed with that I never ended up replacing them.
@@mrdaft3272 I’ve only had one MGM dvd ever go bad from very early in the DVD era and haven’t run into anything on a big scale though I know there’s one or two specific examples here and there.
I see your classic comedies collection. Years ago I had an issue with Dinner at Eight stopping about 10 mins before the end. Playing for a film group and bought rest on streaming to finish the picture. Never dreamed this was an extensive problem. Probably have never watched most of my boxed sets.
Thank you for brining this to light. I started to notice many of my Warner DVDs had long since rotted about 10 years ago. I’ve converted some of them over to Blu-ray but I’m still gun shy about buying physical media because of this problem. Doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped buying discs, but the worry is always in the back of my mind. I also had problems with some Anchor Bay titles in the early 2000’s rotting (Heathers and Kentucky Fried Movie being two that spring to mind).
Thanks! I too knew of some early discs or a few early MGM, Anchor Bay and other examples being bad but this was a whole new level to suddenly run into. At least I can easily avoid rotted LDs due to the laserdisc database.
Thank you very much for helping me out! I checked my collections and found my copies of The Flintstones Season 5 and 6 have discs that don't work! I hope Warner sends my better copies of those sets, I got those sets off of eBay and I found out those sets were still being produced after 2009. So my sets are replaceable. It's still sad that the sets I bought have discs that no longer work!
It sucks because sellers will have no idea about used copies and it's not their fault at all. You have to scrutinize to see what year the pressing is and otherwise look for later repressings.
Good to know i was not the only one to notice. The blu rays of these editions came out fine. But lucky my 2008 discs seem ok. A couple of 2006 discs(superman 1,2 and returns and the departed) and all and i mean all of my 2007 dvds all freeze up after chapter 20 something.
Unfortunately this problem is not exclusive to Warner DVDs. The last seasons of my Star Trek: The Next Generation DVD collection are completely worthless, when they played fine a few years ago. So are my Special Edition copies of Terminator, The Silence of the Lambs, and Road to Perdition. These are Paramount, MGM and Fox titles. I'll have to find replacements for all of them.
I bought the majority of my DVD Warner Brothers box sets from the Warner Brothers Store on line and a lot of them have not been opened (still sealed) and you can see on the cellophane that the cellophane say's "Made In Mexico" on it. So I should be okay. My best friend always has kidded me that many times I have not broken the seal on these expensive box set's yet. But the imprint "Made In Mexico" is only printed on the cellophane. Sometimes the imprint can transfer to the back side of the keep case vinyl. Other than that looking at the inner ring on the DVD itself to see the plant code numbers where the faulty discs were manufactured is the other way. Or actually playing the DVD to see if it has any playback issues. Also the year time line too on the box sets within the copyright information indicating when the box sets were manufactured. Thank you for all of your help and research. Very much appreciated. This is ONE time that my OCD has actually been very useful and not just an annoyance:) Gratefully, --Tom Pennock .
I’ve got a bunch of DVDs that are rotting, and they largely match the two key identifiers: Warner Bros and the 2006-2010 period. Outside of WB, my Star Wars limited edition DVDs with the theatrical versions have rotted too. Others include my Robocop DVD steelbook from MGM, Army of Darkness director’s cut DVD from MGM, Shaw Bros’ Come Drink With Me DVD, and Borat DVD from 20th Century Fox. I was really disappointed that even my Matrix DVD ultimate box set’s Animatrix disc rotted.
Had a big problem with my Val Lewton Double feature dvds and was worried it was my player. I tried my brothers player and some worked fine and some worked worse. I had one disc that wouldn’t read at all. Thank you for this video
Glad you figured it out. It’s funny how some players will work a little better on some rotters. Sadly the Lewton dvd set is heavily affected but you can upgrade to the few Blu-rays from Warner Archive, Criterion and Shout except for Zombie and Seventh Victim which haven’t had anything yet.
All those years ago people were freaking out about LaserDisc rot, I have to this day never had an LD rot, but have had at least a half dozen DVDs rot across all studios.
Exactly! It’s very easy to know which Laserdiscs to avoid because of the Laserdisc database and fan updates. Plus, it’s a good rule of thumb to avoid DADC USA pressings and a few of the other plants known for pressing a lot of rotters. And on top of that if there’s a title you want, there’s usually a Japanese import pressing or a different version without any rot. Additionally only the most critically rotted copies will refuse to play. You can usually at least get through a movie if the rot isn’t too bad. Whereas with all of the instances of the Warner DVD rot, there’s no way to tell until you start trying to watch elements of the disc and there’s no way to know if you’ll make it all the way through.
It happened to me. And most of them, not all, but most of them were released in 2006. And when i checked it said "Made in Canada". The Christopher Reeve Superman Collection. Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, Superman Returns, a double feature of Cobra/Tango & Cash, Blade: The Series which is New Line but is owned by WB so i'm counting it. A friend gave me the first 6 Harry Potter movies and it happened with the fourth and fifth film. And none WB related stuff, it happened to me with Fantastic Four (2005) the extended edition. And a friend of mine gave me a box set with the first 5 Rocky films and i think the only one that still plays is Rocky V.
A couple years ago I ordered a used copy of the first Popeye set from Warners. Turns out most (if not all from what I recall) of the discs were bronzed. I thought that was strange but now that this has come to my attention I think it's starting to make sense now.
It makes it tough to buy some of these rare OOP dvd releases or classic era boxsets because chances are discs have rotted and sellers or stores won’t know.
I had bought two copies of the Tarzan Vol2 brand new years ago and never opened one of them. A few months ago, was watching "Tarzan Triumphs" from Disc 1 and it stopped about half way through. Decided to open the unopened box to watch it, and unfortunately it also stopped working in the exact same spot. Made me feel that it wasn't "disc rot", but potentially manufacture error. Also had same problem with "Invisible Stripes" from Vol4 of the Gangster collection. Fortunately, I have bootleg VHS version of "Tarzan Triumphs" and "Tarzan's Desert Mystery". But not DVD quality.
Update: Sent a claim to WB nearly a year ago. Months later received an email saying they were working on my claim. Today I received the "Silver Screen Icons Tarzan Vol2" in the mail. Unfortunately the Silver Screen Icons Tarzan Vol2 does not include "Tarzan Triumphs" or "Tarzan's Desert Mystery". Disappointing.
Wow! This video is extremely informative. I didn’t know that some discs would actually deteriorate over time. I thought they last forever. Thank you very much for this information. Is this also common with audio discs?
Disc rot is possible with any format but is extremely negligible for CDs, DVDs and beyond. This problem with WB DVDs, the Warner HDDVD problem and the Criterion Blu-ray issue is all due to manufacturing errors at particular plants.
There's a chemical reaction. With a the PDO cd plant, they used non-distilled water and in about 10 years all the discs bronzed and rotted out. It pretty much will effect all of the batch that was made under those conditions.
Thanks so much for this valuable info Spence. I've checked all my dvds that you've noted here and thankfully there are no issues. Ironically, The Forbidden Hollywood set Vol One has the disc contents reversed ie. the contents on disc one are on disc 2 and vice versa. I tried to email you but the notation I received was to 'be careful, this may be a trick'. lol.
A few years ago a friend of mine who also collects movies told me about Warner Bros DVDs manufactured between 2006 - 2009 succumbing to Disc Rot. I actually grabbed all my Warner Bros DVDs from that era and scanned through them. Fortunately all of them still play perfectly. I did it again a few months back and they are still fine. I think it is because I live in Western Canada and as far as I know during that period Warner Bros was manufacturing the Canadian editions of their DVD releases here in Canada. Maybe the Canadian editions were manufactured better? Shockingly, the James Bond 2-Disc Ultimate Edition DVDs from 2006 are infamous for succumbing to Disc Rot. They must have been poorly manufactured. I was thinking about re-watching the entire series a couple months ago but when I learned about the Disc Rot problem I scanned through all of mine and unfortunately six of the movies are pretty much unplayable now. Now I also own the older Special Edition DVDs of Dr. No to Die Another Day and all of them still play perfectly. I am planning to upgrade the first twenty James Bond movies to Blu-Ray but I am going to wait because Warner Bros now owns the home video distribution rights for Dr. No to Die Another Day and I want to see if their Blu-Ray editions will be superior to the editions that Fox released between 2008 to 2012. Apparently, Goldfinger is going to be re-released in December and I am gonna grab it. Ironically, I have been collecting LaserDiscs since I was thirteen and I have never had a LaserDisc that suffered from Disc Rot.
I’ve heard about the UEs going bad and fearfully glanced at mine which still seemed okay. I’ve held onto them for the extras having their own separate discs even though I have the Blu-ray’s. Some people have said they had issues with some fox DVDs like the Charlie Chan sets but I had no issues recently with those.
The second discs with the extras in my Ultimate Edition copies of Dr. No and Tomorrow Never Dies have unfortunately rotted too. They manage to get to the main menus but they choke up when I try to play the actual extras on them. Luckily I have never had a Blu-Ray suffer from disc rot. I agree with you regarding legacy extras. I too prefer to watch legacy extras on DVD instead of Blu-Ray for the same reason, I find that legacy extras on many Blu-Ray releases don't look as good as they do on DVD.
@@Riddler95 I’ll have to go through all of mine then. I also like them because some of the vintage documentaries were redone ones on the Blu-rays and I miss the originals. Yep most times the dvd presentation of legacy extras is indeed better.
I love how they went all out for the extras for old James Bond movies. They produced some really fantastic content. I have the 2-Disc Collector's Edition Blu-Ray of Casino Royale from 2008 and it has the most extras compared to the other Blu-Ray editions. Some Blu-Ray releases have the extras on a separate DVD disc. My Blu-Ray box-set of the Extended Editions of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy uses DVDs for all of the extras.
I first encountered dvd rot probably 2010 when I went to try the first Anchor Bay dvd release of Halloween 4. It wouldn’t even play. I may have some in the google doc. Definitely Richard Donner Superman 2. During the summer I started slowly backing up my discs for the purpose of using for Plex. It’s a painfully slow process but with the idea that also I’m backing up discs I own. The Criterions I own from that Blu-ray era work and have backed up. I still have so many discs to go. Still is incredibly frustrating and alarming. Thanks for making this.
This is disapointing. I collect moves made pre 1960 and have nearly every box set WB released. I have thousands of dvds collected with the expectation that tastes change and that these films will not be broadcast or streamed in time or transfer to new formats. Not all VHS made it to dvd. Frankly most of the movies produced during this period were not very good, but I love them for these deficits and what they tell us about the culture and attitudes of the time.
I own pretty much all the classic Warner Home DVD collections and after seeing your video, immediately my heart was racing, had to open up some of the boxes (some were still sealed) and check for myself and lo and behold, the discs that you mentioned had disc rot in your collection, I found it on mine. I had to stop because I have invested way too much and I've gone through this with Criterion (who replaced my discs) but knowing this may not be the case with Warner. While I was able to do disc-to-digital via VUDU FANDANGO for some of the Warner classic discs, I'm still numb about all this. I also have a large LD collection and was aware of LD rot, and also for old DVD-R discs some say that they don't last that long but for pressed disc....I didn't think it would be this bad. I'll someday go through everything...but right now, just went through the ones you mentioned and was disheartened to see the disc rot on my discs.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. More and more people are having success getting responses and replacements form WB like I did with what's in stock as an MOD titles-but it's still hit or miss. Definitely check through your collection and see how many you have that do not have a later Blu-ray so that you can try emailing WB. There should be an official response like Criterion did for their bad run of discs.
I HATE these kinda issues. They first begin mysteriously, then you spend considerable amount of time researching. Then… its doom, and gloom. I mean… what a PAIN in the ASS. Now I gotta go through all these disk. I say we go to that plant in Pennsylvania and TP it. 😡 Great! I get to throw away my Terminator television series that probably doesn’t exist anymore. Thanks by the way. I’m REALLY sorry you had to go through this. You spent your hard earned money, and have a true love of cinema. This is really upsetting… 😖 There can be pain in collecting. Yellowing toy vehicles, 10-15-to 20 year digital watches with loads of sentimental value that suddenly have functions that don’t work anymore. Ugh…
Yeah it really sucks and I compiled the list to try and help people who ran into the same issue. I still can’t believe I randomly got someone at Warner to respond but it took several years, making a video and compiling a list to do so. I’m still out of luck on one or two titles.
I binged watched all of VERONICA MARS about four or five years ago and there were no issues. I mostly have a few of the TV shows that are on that master list---gotta check THE FLASH and F TROOP. Anchor Bay had a bunch of DVDs back in the day that rotted, but of the titles I got that had rot, they've all been released on blurays since.
I did the same with Veronica Mars. However there are two runs of those one in original digipack cases and one in plastic reissue cases IIRC. The Flash also had an original digipack and plastic case reissue. Whichever was made during this period would be the likely culprit.
Yeah, it really sucks for Series and boxsets. I have been getting the classic Superman TV series and the later volumes are all out of print and go for quite high prices now. Except most of the later seasons are completely rotted so buying them used is playing the rot lottery.
Marlon Brando Collection - bought in 2014 Reflections in a Golden Eye - never worked Mutiny on the Bounty - disc 2 died a few years after purchase, disc 1 a few months later Julius Caesar - died a few years back The Teahouse of the August Moon - just checked, it freezes within the last few chapters. The Formula - still plays.
a bit late, but I always wondered what was wrong with my Babylon 5 boxsets. Warner Brothers released Babylon 5 as a complete series in 5 season boxes in 2009, and subsequently released them individually as well. From my experience, most of the discs in this set are rotten.
I thought I would watch A Christmas Story in fullscreen with the commentary on tonight, and it got about three minutes in before freezing up. Widescreen won't even play, it freezes during the menu. The box says 2003, but I'm guessing it could have been a newer reprint in the same old case. I'll have to see if I can read the code on the disc. It was pretty sad that my Blade Runner: Final Cut (2007) DVD started rotting only a few years after I bought it >_< There really should be some kind of online backup archive where we can at least preserve the disc images before it's too late. I always worry that my original GoldenEye disc will rot away, and I don't care for any of the newer releases of it.
Yup, it's really hard to read but I think it does say 2U. It definitely says "IFPI L908" and that looks like a bad sign as well. Will they replace these discs? Or only titles in the MOD program? I guess I'll just have to try it and see.
I have a nice big stack of Warner Bros HD-DVDs that are rotted, which will soon be heading into the recycle bin. Had no idea it extended to Warner Bros Dvds. I wonder how many of their Blu-rays and 4Ks will end up the same way?
I think my Warner Bros. 2 dual layered disc 2007 edition of Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man has this DVD rot you talk about here. The surface of the discs look absolutely perfect. Tried playing it at slow speeds and fast forwarding, using a can of Dust Remover very carefully over the discs and wiping very softly ,anti static cloths and the film still gets stuck. It doesn't skip, it just freezes.Tried burning the discs on my Pioneer disc burner and it jams, won't even finish burning. This is one of my all time favorite films and this edition is perfect in sound and picture quality. I should try sending it back with a very convincing letter because its not available in any other format in the US currently.
That's indeed how the disc rot can happen on some of these. You get to a certain point on a spotless disc and it just freezes and also cannot be read or backed up on a PC. Definitely try contacting WB but otherwise keep an eye out for a cheap used copy and hopefully its rot free.
I noticed some of the titles on the master list that I have like Tales from the Crypt boxset. But mine says 2017 on the copyright for packaging. Does this mean that they pressed these sets again? If the titles are packaged outside the dates you noted, we should be good right? I have the Superman tin set and was wondering why it was messing up. Thanks so much for informing us!
Many thanks for posting this video! I am currently going through all of my DVDs that are on the list you posted. Thank you once again for posting this (as well as the list).
Was just settling down this week to all the Warner Gangster Collections and volume 2 seems to contain some deceased dvds. G Men, Each Dawn I die, Ballots or Bullets. All running well till the end chapters then freeze.
Heads up for those considering buying "Warner Bros Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection (15 wins and 26 nominees)", might wanna buy the separate re releases they made later on instead of the original set. Just got one of the older ones used, and it seems it's one of many WB dvds with disc rot. (disc 2 to be specific) it works on some players, but not others
Time to make some back ups! In the uk I had lots of rotted had dvds, I wrote to them and they agreed I could have any two of the affected titles on blu ray. Had to buy a lot of titles twice
I seriously wonder if this is a problem with discs sold in the US because I live in the UK. Nearly all my Warner Bros discs are Technicolor with only a few that aren't (usually new old stock or second hand). One of those discs is O Lucky Man! I first got a second hand copy off Ebay and the second disc (which contained the second half of the film, why Warners didn't put the whole film on a single disc is beyond me) was loose and was quite badly scratched, I was able to watch near enough the whole film but the disc started freezing during the dance party ending. So I sent it back and got a new and sealed copy (for £20), the first thing I tested was the dance party ending and it plays just fine, I've had the disc for well over a year now and after watching this video I tested it again and it still works. I don't think the disc was made by Technicolor but the codes are different to the US titles (plus why would they use an American manufacturing plant for UK discs?). I believe it went out of print in around 2009 so if the disc were to fail, it probably would have done it by now.
Like you said no one wants this but glad you did I aswell just found out about this a couple months ago i checked 100s of dvds. Luckily i only had problems with 3 two of them being classic hanna barbera releases probably why they ended up re releasing them. Its frustrating and i know many of you have said the same we collect physical media for the conveniency of it. Many times tho we pay extra for these special releases and they should be treated that way if they want us to spend money on all of them. Which most of us will do happily to own these classic shows and films. Hopefully more wont come up later as of right now most think they were all made at the same factory and its between like 06-08.
I've had a few issues with Laser rot and with HD-DVD. The late 90's Eraser Laserdisc (A Warner Bros. title) was the first i experienced it's playable but unwatchable . like the CRT TV's when you turn on a vacuum cleaning creating sparks all through the image is what that Laserdisc looked like, Moonraker THX DVD just stopped playing , Tomorrow Never Dies - original DVD release stopped playing - Both MGM) And The Matrix Trilogy original HD-DVD box set won't play at all. Twilight Zone The Movie HD-DVD(another Warner Bros. title) That also stopped playing. I have only 1 Criterion Collection Laserdisc which was Blade Runner and it does play just fine .
@@mykal.7424 early MGM DVDs were the only dvd rotters I had before this. Even laserdisc rot is easy to avoid but this Warner disc rot problem is beyond crazy.
Thank you so much ! Just tried to play "The Big Steel" last night. "Illegal", plays, but not "Big Steel". Kind of expensive to replace. Think Amazon offers a MOD twin feature version, but does it have the commentaries and special features too ? Last month went through this with "Stagecoach". 2 disc version. 2007. Movie disc says "Unreadable disc", while special features disc is fine (so far). So I bought a used single disc version with the commentary, on ebay. Only paid $7.81 total. From Goodwill. Thought it had finger prints on surface, but they would not wash off. Rot ? I washed and rewashed that disc with Ivory liquid dish washing soap with real hot water so many times. Then added isopropal alcohol to the soap. Movie would play, but had places where it would skip a few lines ahead. Finally I just rubbed it with my thumb with oil from my nose on my thumb, every which way, and then stand my DVD player on end vertically, and it plays OK, so I can finally listen to the super commentary. I also have the Criterion version, but Warners commentary is much better. I copied the ones I have in my collection from your list. Must look for 2U on clear area right near hold on underside. Thanks again.
Three Warner noir double features in my collection are unplayable, but I was able to find MOD replacements. Last night I starting watching THE CONSPIRATORS (1946) and the disc froze ten minutes before the feature was to end. Unfortunately there are no other releases of that title currently available. I'll continue to upgrade to blu rays as they become available. I have the TARZAN COLLECTION you mentioned and THE HILL. I dread popping them into my player.
I checked a few of my old WB DVD's and they're all fine. Including Loony Tunes collection and Animatrix. Perhaps because I got Dutch copies that may have been manufactured in Europe.
Disc rot is definitely a real thing. I'm somewhat concerned about my BBC Region 1 DVDs, as the local distributor is WB, but it appears none appear on your master list....
I had an issue with the Lethal Weapon 4-Film Favourites as well, but it was so much that the film stopped, so much as it stopped and fell apart as I was watching it in my laptop disc tray. Popping the LW1/LW2 disc out of the hub it came out in two pieces, like pulling apart an Oreo. Fuckin' A
Have you tried cleaning the DVDs? With many DVDs, a sticky film forms on the surface because the plasticizer in the plastic case evaporates. The discs are then no longer playable. but that is only on the surface. The discs can be cleaned and then played again.
Just another thought. What with everything going up in price. Because of price of gas going up, and other reasons too. It would be much more economical (for the time being), to see if your local library could receive some of the titles from your collection that have gone bad, just to be able to watch your favs again. I have received titles on loan from libraries half the country away from my location. You just have to wait a bit to enjoy your film, and then hope "it" plays. Hint; try standing your DVD player on end, it might help. Careful not to press "OPEN". Thank you again. Would love to see something about "DVD ROT", on TV news.
Dang I actually just started a little rewatch of the reeves superman series I only ever got the donner cuts of 1 and 2 on blu so went back to listen to the commentary on the theatrical editions and sure enough superman 1 froze about halfway through. Part 2 made it through and pleasantly the bonus feature discs worked hope they hold out.
That seems about my experience. I went back to the DVDs in a rewatch for the extras and the non teal transfers on some. Thankfully 3 got a letterbox LD. 4 didn’t. Ironically you can get the original snapper case DVDs and they have zero issues.
This is really worrying me! I bought “Mr. Woodcock” (New Line Cinema) on DVD used a month ago and I watched it 3 times and it seemed to play just fine all 3 times. Then this month, I bought “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show”(New Line Cinema) on DVD brand new and sealed but haven’t opened it yet. It appears that “Mr. Woodcock” was also released on Blu-Ray but I couldn’t find any Blu-Ray releases for “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show.” I’m hoping the next time I watch “Mr. Woodcock,” nothing bad will happen. The same goes for “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show,” hopefully when I get around to watching it, it’ll still play fine. This really sucks to hear but thank you for the information.
This certainly makes me question if this hobby/passion is truly futile. Let’s face it, unless it gets magically selected for Warner Archive or gets licensed out to a label that actually cares about film preservation, all of these titles are just going to vanish. Young people don’t care about classic Hollywood, and we as collectors don’t spend as much as it would make it worth it to WB to reissue or keep these titles in circulation. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not switching over to streaming and abandoning my collection, but the future of this hobby and these films lies directly with boutique labels. And with techbro douchebags like Zaslav at the helm, it’ll be a while before we get many of these titles back.
It’s becoming more and more a scenario of collectors building a film library and then having to essentially run their own archive library of catalog titles. Thankfully the fail rates of optical media are very low outside of manufacturing issues but in this particular case it is distressing since many affected titles have no other major releases. Eventually we’ll all have to have physical media and a digital collection of backed up bits or elements if you go down the rabbit hole of looking at transfer problems like I do.
When I checked my _Superman Ultimate Collector's Edition_ I saw what looked like frost on the edge of one disc. Yikes! But it wasn't rot. I rubbed some skin oil on it and it mostly went away. It probably has something to do with outgassing and plastic. Whew! But this begs the question: can we trust these plastic cases with close physical contact over time? How do these plastics react together?
This video has given me a mild anxiety attack, lol...I own *a lot* of Warner Bros. dvds. With the time I have available before I have to run out I just checked my Bette Davis Collection Volume 3 box on dvd, threw all 6 discs in my bluray player. All 6 look to play fine. At least they loaded up flawlessly, and as I jumped around through various scenes there were no problems. Also, gotta say, all of them except "The Great Lie" (which looked a bit beat up, maybe the source print was subpar) look *really, really* good. Especially "In This Our Life" which I'm not certain I wouldn't mistake for a bluray transfer otherwise. Hopefully this is a good omen. However there's one caveat. I've seen in the comments here that apparently it's primarily Warner's discs from the mid-late 2000's that are affected by this malady. My copy of this box is from 2012. So maybe this is why everything looks okay. I'm particularly worried about the Warner Brothers gangster boxes. I have all 4 and they might collectively be my favorite collection of....anything. Hopefully they're okay. I haven't watched any in a bit.
Sounds like you’re ok. Hopefully your gangster boxes are clear. If the manufacture date is 2010 or later there shouldn’t be any issues. The problem is these appear sporadically. I just went to check an episode on Batman the animated series Vol 4 and the disc is unplayable.🤦🏻♂️
I know same thing happened to me i only had 3 that had problems which is still too many and like i said elsewhere hopefully no more will pop up i was braving for the worse considering hoe many classic movies i have from WB..
wow thats infuriating and total BS. The superman metal boxed set is especially heartbreaking and totally pisses me off. It was not cheap and I clearly remember jumping through hoops running all over town trying to find them as they were selling out but managed to find one for me and one for a gift. I believe I also got rid of a couple single disk copies of some after getting this set. I dont even want to check mine to find out cause ill be too angry.
You’ll likely find some rotters if you have a substantial amount of Warner DVDs. If you’ve got the tin set I’ll guarantee there’s at least one disc partially rotted if not several.🤦🏻♂️
Side Street and Decoy are unplayable (confirmed). Concerning the Illegal/The Big Steal disc: Illegal plays fine (I also have access to the menu), The Big Steal locks up instantly. In total: 4 out of 10 movies in this set are goners. And I live in the Netherlands: I have to rebuy and import all this shit again. Damn you Warner! I will check out some more in the near future. San Quentin plays fine over here (yellow Gangster 2 box) But for how long??
Are there any lists of rot from other companies? Luckily I didn't have that many from this list, and my WB Doctor Who discs have been in good condition. But it gave me heads-up to check HP&the Order o/t Phoenix and Flash series set. As well as Popeye (I presume the Williams/Duvall movie) as Hairspray (the John Travolta one).
There’s nothing like this for any other studio outside of individual rotters or early discs with issues. This is the biggest and most widespread manufacturing issue I’ve seen for DVD.
I have this warners noir dvd box vol.4 .... DECOY plays fine. So does ILLEGAL, and THE BIG STEAL. (I just checked these) I'm in Canada tho. I just heard about this issue ..... thru a more recent video of yours i think ..... Is the ROT visible most of the time?
Shit, the Animaniacs DVDs are on the rotted list. Does that include the final volume and Wakko's Wish as well? I replaced the first three volumes a couple of years ago, and I purchased Volume 4 and Wakko's Wish either the day of release or months later. Is Volume 4 and the aforementioned movie safe?
I think so, but I can’t remember when they were manufactured. I know all of the initial volumes with the really lovely impressive digipacks are unfortunately Rotter titles potentially. To be on the ultra safe side you can pick up the complete series basic repackage which generic art and it should be the same discs but without rot inside.
Nice!! this is such a great video! thank you I had one the other day "crimewave"/"decoy" disc from one of the film noir set, "decoy" freezes up, but "crimewave" is fine, thank God! lol
All of the discs from my Clark Gable Signature Collection and Katharine Hepburn 100th Anniversary Collection are dead now. And worse of all, the huge Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers boxed-set containing 12 discs, which weighs a ton and cost me around $100 over 15 year ago, is also useless now. I'm truly upset. Same regarding the Forbidden Hollywood vol. 1 and 2. And from the Gangsters Collection, also San Quentin! Regarding vol. 4, both The Little Giant and Invisible Stripes became unreadable. Also other individual titles such as Hallelujah (1929), Cabin in the Sky (1943), The Informer (1935) and The Good Earth (1937).
@@JohnDoe-zn3lu Really sorry to hear! It's a tragedy indeed 😞 So much money invested, and now lost forever. I've been checking my collection since my first comment, and sadly found many others (both individual titles and boxed-sets) that won't work anymore.
@@fran_1978 I made an interesting discovery a few days ago…two of the DVDs that supposedly rotted seems to be working fine on the computer using an external drive DVD and I have no explanation. I’m sorry for you. Which titles have you encountered?
I have had to have WB replace so many of my DVD collection because of them going bad on the shelf. Today it is a paramount box set - The Brady Bunch Season 2, where the disc are cracking, or look like someone stained them.
Hello. Was looking over the long list of defective titles. Could not locate "STAGECOACH", 1939. I'm having trouble with the WB two disc special edition. The Bonus special disc plays fine, but the movie disc doesn't even reach the main menu ! So, I purchased the single disc version used from Goodwill (nice price), and this had problems also, but after scrubbing playing surface (water, ivory liquid, isopropyl alcohol), it does play but only when player is standing on it's side. Also title " THAT'S DANCING", I can't find on your list. My copy freezes a quarter of the way through. Must replace now. Saw a TD Vol. 2 on your list but not the one I have. Never knew there was a Vol. 2.
I guess I didn’t put it down separately from the Ford and Wayne boxset. This was one I had myself and it was a bad unplayable feature disc with bronzing.
SAME thing happened to me, with the Warner Gangsters Box Set Vol. 1. Multiple discs stopped working midway through the movie. Weirdly, when I re-purchased (grrrr....) those movies individually, the new DVDs worked just fine.
That’s it exactly. It seems to be a case of the boxsets being made at the bad plant mostly and then standalones or multi film packs being made elsewhere. At least one can easily find standalone versions for things not OOP.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader True! Anyhow, thanks so much for the great video. Very interesting stuff. Weirdly I had some trouble with a Warner Archive M-O-D DVD today, brand new, just stopped working on multiple players. Hopefully that's not a sign of things to come, because I've got a LOT that I still haven't watched....
Yes that’s one that can have several go bad. Mine was thankfully OK though when I checked it. I would definitely advise to just fast forward through all of the discs in that set to see if you have any affected copies.
Hello. I have Metallica S&M 2DVD made in 2000, in the US by WAMO (Warner Advanced Media Operations) and it shows white spots and foggy areas close to the outer edge of the discs (both are DVD9, two layers). The discs play great, additionally I tested it by Nero DiscSpeed and it shows relatively good results compared to other DVD9 discs. I'm not sure that these will not die completely in the nearest future. What do you think, are these discs are going to die?
Once you've got spots or foggy areas it might be a good idea to make a backup at some point. It's possible they may remain perfectly fine but it never hurts to have a backup especially if it's a very rare title. The only discs I ever had issues with before the WB issue were the early years DVDs or ones that specifically had issues.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I have just washed up 2 DVDs and one CD from these white foggy fields! The discs were tested after that and showed lower PI\PO errors for DVDs and C1\C2 errors for CDs. I thought I lost them, but now they shine like new ones. I would like to add that I used really hot water, first a liquid for cleaning acrylic baths and then a shampoo made from natural components. All liquids were on the surface for no longer than 30-40 seconds while I was washing the surfaces with a piece of a soft cloth, then the discs were cleaned dry with a soft cloth. The best result is when you repeat the full cycle a couple of times. The idea is that those white foggy spots are from the interacting surface of the disc with plastic holders and the booklet's paint parts in the air inside the box.
Yes the legends of horror box is one that rots completely. Luckily there’s an archive re-issue or you can get four of the films in the same transfers in the MGM Laserdisc boxset. Best of all is the new restoration of Mad Love that was just released on Blu-ray from the archive.
My Blade Runner The Final Cut four disc box set that I got in 2007 is ruined. I took great care of it, and it's always been in a low humidity, temp controlled environment. I'm heart broken because they don't even sell the equivalent of this on blu-ray anymore, just the film by itself. I feel sick to my stomach. Screw WB.
@@Leahi84 yeah it sucks that some of the Blade Runner releases were affected. The HD DVDs as well are major rot titles, but at least that’s pretty well known that all Warner HD DVD titles will rot within the collecting community. Definitely keep an eye out for one of the two reissue Blu-ray sets that had all of the legacy features re-encoded on Blu-ray. It took a while, but I finally found the regular Digibook Blu-ray set at a decent price and the other bonus of those is that they re-encoded the workprint to be slightly higher quality than the original Blu-ray.
Do you have physical marks on the broken discs or are they just unplayable? My Babylon 5 DVDs (single packed seasons and also warner bros) broke down some years ago. The season boxes were sitting in the bookshelf with my other dvds and I decided to watch some episodes after a break. Well, turned out all of the discs in each 5 seasons had became sticky from the data side and also most discs had a perfect circular disc wide scratch on them. They did play but froze constantly.
No marks on discs and only one or two had bronzing effects. I’ve heard about the B5 series DVDs going bad before but the initial release date seems to predate the affected period. Maybe it was an early example of the bad plant though with actual physical defects that sounds like a different manufacturing issue altogether.
With cds at PDO in the UK, they used non-distilled water for their cds. All of a given batch would be affected unless they repressed later. I'd buy alternate pressings of second DVDs to escape this issue. That how I escaped the major labels pulling undisclosed cd-r's for inprint titles that were on a repress. It affects mostly deep catalog titles (older than 3 years) and spread like cancer. As a matter of fact, I'd rather have cancer than go through it again and that is a hell of a statement! No need to check your discs. If it's a given pressing from a given plant in the same batch, then it'll go. The receipts will actually get foxed and become unreadable. It all depends how something is made and the chemicals that react within it. DVD-R and CD-R is anybody's guess. Some may be better and some worse but they aren't redbook cds.
I just stumbled across your Video, while searching if anybody had the same issues. I have a big DVD Set of the three extendet Lord of the Rings movies with specials. All the main movie DVDs are unusable and can't be read anymore. The discs look hazy and all the effected discs have the same pattern on them. I tried to digitise them and they couldn't even be read anymore sadly. I don't know if it comes from the same plant, since I live in germany and bought it here too, but sadly they have the issues and they are Warner Home Video DVDs, so it could check out I guess.
I actually have that Lethal Weapon box set. I watched Lethal Weapon 1 over Christmas and it worked fine thankfully but I haven't seen 2-4 to see if they're rotted. Hopefully they're ok. I didn't get them all that long ago. I want to say it was like 2012-2014 is when I grabbed them. Hopefully they're ok.
The LW DVDs are important on 1-3 for having the extended cuts and full bitrate DTS. I picked up the original snapper releases for cheap to replace them. 4 importantly has the documentary with deleted scenes and outtakes not released elsewhere.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader do you know if the other WB 4 film favorite 4 packs have issues. I have the Batman and Superman sets from that era and I'm afraid they might be compromised. I really hope they're not. I saw the lethal weapon and Hugh Grant sets are screwed up hoping that the whole line of those aren't. I actually talked to my dad about the issue he has the Lethal Weapon films as well but I think he has the original single releases so he should be ok. Unfortunately I have the 4 pack so who knows how long those have till they're caput.
@@bdavis24fanIt's very hit or miss but thankfully seems to only be the one or two I've encountered. I would've never thought these could have issues until suddenly finding the LW one wouldn't play. The Batman one is fine as I've owned that iteration before. My guess is that the bad plant just wound up making one or two of the 4 film favorites occasionally.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader ok awesome. I was going to be really sad if the Superman or Batman 4 packs were messed up. I actually ordered the Superman set off of WB's website. I got that and the Watchmen Director's Cut.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I went ahead and checked my lethal weapon 4 pack DVDs and they all worked thankfully. I'm going to check my Batman TAS collection because that set was on the list you have. Hopefully they're ok. I only have Volume 1 and Volume 2.
I got all of the original Animaniacs seasons, but the issue is that I don't know which discs they originated from. Keep in mind, all of the discs including the Wakko's Wish disc came from the Animaniacs: The Complete Series dvd box set, and I at least know that Wakko's Wish came out on DVD in 2014, which leaves me with the main show. Minus Volume 4, which came out in 2013, what discs are these that are in that Complete Series set? Are they the original ones from 2006 to 2007? Or are they reissues from a different manufacturing company based on those 2006-2007 masters?
As long as you’ve got any later reissue or pressing. The discs should be fine. The slimmed down complete series dvd set from the past few years would be rot free.
Master List of rotted DVDs: docs.google.com/document/d/1CyLGHyuhA2mfhPr4Bkyj8RAapl_0LTmN/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=104657163513621066025&rtpof=true&sd=true
My rotted DVDs: docs.google.com/document/d/1XUv13xbSeQvNtKdX5PC2a6apwObC4pOs/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=104657163513621066025&rtpof=true&sd=true
Technical information from Warner DVD rot threads on hometheaterforum, dvdtalk and Bluray.com: docs.google.com/document/d/1u_L3Z6kNPkBYGwxr_erlMARdLDiNOHmp/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=104657163513621066025&rtpof=true&sd=true
i already commented here but I do have another disc rot question i have noticed on some newer discs some faint blochy looking areas that look similar to disc rot but they play fine do you know what i am referring too and do you know if there is any problem with that thank you.. 😁👍
Can add the 2004 WB edition of Tod Brownings Freaks to that list
I seem to have dodged all those bullets.
@@comicsgatekeeper9746 that’s good! If you’ve got standalone copies and not the boxsets or ones made at the Mexican plant you should be good for most things.
I'll have to play my F Troop season 2 DVD. I know I played it multiple times but not for a while. Keeping my fingers crossed
It really does bug me big time when I spend so much money on Special Editions and box sets, only to have to replace them a few years down the road. It's an insult to all of us collectors. The people responsible for manufacturing these discs should be made responsible, and replace all the ruined copies free of charge.
Right there with you,pisses me the hell off specially when you buy new,you buy used your taking a risk, its understandable but new? nope, should work perfectly.
This news makes me so pissed I wanna pull off my va va hairs off!
Also some people who bought these defective discs years ago may not have the money to replace them today. There are an incredible number of defective discs and I believe most of these titles are dead in most people's collections.
Calm down, dude!
How is that gonna work when they don’t have the right to an out of print movie anymore?
As a huge DVD collector, I'm sad I just found out about this from your video here and Retroblasting today. I will have to run through my WB titles. I know I have that same 4 pack of Lethal Weapon, and I put it in a couple months back and it stopped working a couple minutes in. I know I watched it many times in the past and no problems. I just assumed my player not liking it right now. Also have other titles you mentioned. For them to ask for receipts on stuff purchased so long ago that's just a kick in the face to all of us that bought these in good faith, and have taken care of them all these years.
It sucks to run into this. I hope you don’t have any other rotters. Thankfully most are available in other pressings or on BD now but sadly not everything is.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I only ran into this with One Tree Hill so far and fortunately I was lucky enough to find copies of the first few seasons that worked properly.
Joey season 2 been giving me the same problem 2008
@@ozzy.....7383 which release of season 2? The Canadian one or the UK one? Cause I know the Canadian DVD set of season 2 is really pricey now so it would be a shame if that one has issues. There's also a Joey DVD set that combines both seasons, don't know if that one is affected.
@@jadedheartsz I think America. Season one is still fine. I thought I watched the disc too many times and that messed it up. I can’t find it anywhere and I paid a lot for it new. The one with the poker is the only problem it freezes and skips. It used to be if I played all episodes instead of individual it would get through it. I thought it was a bootleg. Number on box is 1000038397. Your probly alright it says 2008 and I’ve watched it 100 times and just that one issue
I've noticed problems with some of my Warner-made DVDs made around that time. These have included Roots, which the second bonus disc has rotted, as was MGM: When the Lion Roars. This is why making backups is extremely important.
Great video. One of the best and most informative I've seen on this topic. I've recently (2023-2024) had rot issues with several TV series box sets, such as Babylon 5 season one (WB); CHiPs, various seasons (Turner Home Ent); Earth 2 (Universal Home Entertainment); The Partridge Family season two (Sony); V The Complete [original] Series, various discs (WB); despite storing my discs in their cases in a controlled environment of 70 degrees with 40-50% humidity or less and out of direct sunlight.
Thanks! If those are from the affected period of manufacture date I'm sure the issue is likely more widespread on TV season DVD boxsets than we know of yet.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I forgot to mention at least one season of Seinfeld (if memory serves season four), which I believe is a Sony release.
Ditto with my B5 DVDs ... had problems almost immediately.
Was directed here from RetroBlasting's video. Your work is much appreciated.
I don't have many movie DVDs in my collection, but the two box sets I do have were on your list. The Looney Tunes Golden collection set only seems to play audio, despite no particularly noticeable damage on the DVD. Thankfully the disks in my Superman Ultimate Collectors Edition still work. Though there was some odd residue on the first disk that I at first thought were cracks. That was fixed with some soap and water.
I decided I should rip and back up my copies. Thankfully I had finally installed a DVD reader/writer on my PC during my last upgrade and I have a lot of DVD-Rs in reserve. Unfortunately I don't have much experience with that so I have a bit of research to do.
@@Girder3 good thing you caught some before they went bad! Thanks for the kind words.
Most of the affected titles thankfully have other pressings or Blu-ray upgrades but others that don’t are the big worry.
Great video and an important topic to spread awareness of. Noticing you haven't listed any of the Adult Swim releases from Warner that are prone to rot in your master list, all from 2007 for them.
Metalocalypse season 1
Venture Bros season 2
Moral Orel Volume 1 (the unholy edition)
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theatres.
I own all of these and they've all suffered from varying degrees of rot.
I don't own it but have heard Squidbillies volume 1 also suffers.
I just came across this video. I've been going back and ripping my DVDs, and encountered problems with Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me (not on the list) and Veronica Mars (on the list). Thank you for making collectors aware of this issue, I'll be checking over the rest of my WB DVDs from that era for additional problems.
Found this video researching my Warner Bros issue. I got thousands and thousands of DVD's and Blu-Rays. Never ever even gave DVD rotting out a 2nd thought. The majority of my collection and so far every blu ray I have tried seems to work flawlessly even after many years now. DVD's from just about every studio also seem to be playing just fine years later and some of these are hitting 25 years old now. The BIG problem I having is my Warner Bros disc. Like you say from 2005 to 2010 or 2011. Its at the point that every time I pull out an older Warner Bros DVD from these dates I am nervous it won't play and at least half the time its a bad disc now. Ironically every disc that has failed was in pristine condition. No signs of any issue even using a magnifying glass. I am pretty sure the disc played just fine at some point in the past. In my case the failure is almost always the same problem. Plays totally fine then when it hits the 2nd layer it freezes and eventually seizes the player. Sometimes you can fast forward to different chapter before it locks up completely. I did have one disc that would not even load because of TOC error so that does happen. Last night I pulled out Twilight Zone the Movie from a 2007 pressing and it failed. So far in most cases you can find newer pressings for cheap and I just replace them. However Twilight Zone The Movie is out of print. THAT...makes me angry!
Exactly my experience with "A Clockwork Orange". The 2nd half of the disk does not play, and it surmise this is the dual-layer transition, as you stated above. Your post supports my theory: the 2nd disk layer is unreadable.
I have the twilight zone movie on bluray all my Warner bros box sets have rot what do they do put only a certain amount of times you can play a disc it seems so what's next blurays too I will never buy a Warner disc again I hope they rot in hell.
The fact that this is such a massive studio library is what makes this terrifying. If this was a niche, short-lived library of films, that's one thing....but Warner Bros!
I agree with the point about LaserDisc. I have so few LDs with any issue.
That’s what had me so worried and why I compiled the list in the description. Thankfully it does seem to be confined to a certain timeframe and specific types of releases. Of course it affects classics and boxsets most of all….🤦🏻♂️🤪
All the titles from ADV or AD Vision the anime company on laserdisc are rotters and pressed at DADC. My copy of Gunsmith Cats is completely unplayable now. I thought of maybe buying multiples to find one that plays, but i said it isn't worth it. I have the blu ray but its been remixed for 5.1 and i want the stereo mix. My copy of Evangelion isn't too bad but its a rotter as well there is snow but no audio dropouts.
I believe it also involves MGM and RKO radio films
Actually, it is worse than you think. This involves three studios, Warner Brothers, MGM, and RKO. That means it involves most of the great musicals of those studios.
Checking various forums, it sounds like it's hitting TV seasons mega hard. Friends, Dallas, Dukes of Hazard, Gilmore Girls, Supernatural, The OC are all having seasons rot. I told my sister and she checked her seasons of Gilmore Girls and most are now dead. She is devastated since she paid $40+ for each season when they first came out.
Thanks for the video! I bought the Warner Bros. Film Noir Vol. 4 box set and was shocked that none of the discs worked. After a little google search, to my horror, I discovered the Home Theatre Forum thread. After going through my discs, I discovered 18 of them had rotted, all dual layered multi disc or box sets. I'm a classic film collector and this hit me hard, almost making me give up on buying physical copies. Hopefully WB customer service will respond.
I completely feel your pain. At least it’s confined to a certain run of titles and a particular period. I haven’t found anything outside the discs I have that are rotted or outside the main reported ones.
If you can get Warner archive or standalone copies or TCM 4pack reissues of titles that will resolve the issue for the ones available in the meantime.
This could hit people hard in the pocket book, what with the price of gas going up as well as everything else because of that. You might want to see if your local library could get a hold of some of your favorite titles that have gone bad. Either from them or while on loan from another library, even out of state. I`ve received requests from libraries that are half the country away from where I live. Much cheaper, though you have to wait a bit.
It's been 2 years I hope they rot in HELL
I love the way I see how Piracy is not a victimless crime; well, neither is poor product design and manufacturing.
To anyone reading this, Full House: The Complete Fifth Season needs to be added to the list. I had a copy in the past where Disc 2 wouldn't read. I have a new set where Disc 3 stops playing by episode 4, and Disc 4 has visible signs of rot but played fully.
Note: I did my testing on a PC.
I regret to tell you that 'Act of Violence' also freezes up. You can't watch the first 20 minutes of this movie. This is a great video. I was talking about this issue (film noir #4) in the comment section of another channel yesterday. Another user confirmed the 'Act of Violence' -freeze. This is a collector's nightmare. I bought so many warner boxsets in the past.... it's just terrible. It think the rot primarly affects dual-layered discs. Didn't detect any issues concerning discs in Vol 1,2 en 5. Still have to check the 3th box.
My mum has this problem with some of Warner's Dallas DVDs she bought in the 2000s. Some episodes get stuck or are completely unplayable. Judging by the reviews on Amazon, these dud discs are still being included in the complete box set.
Thanks for the list and video. You saved me some money, was about to buy the original Popeye the Sailor volume 2 and 3 dvd sets because mine had rotted. I thought it might have been due to a bit of dampness in the room they were stored in at the time but now will get the MOD versions.
Some have commented that humidity might play a role but in my experience it hasn’t. All my discs have been properly stored and whether purchased new or used they still went bad.
You need to look into MGM as well. My Abbott and Costello Collection (set 2) turned blotchy before I even watched them. I was so disappointed with that I never ended up replacing them.
@@mrdaft3272 I’ve only had one MGM dvd ever go bad from very early in the DVD era and haven’t run into anything on a big scale though I know there’s one or two specific examples here and there.
I see your classic comedies collection. Years ago I had an issue with Dinner at Eight stopping about 10 mins before the end. Playing for a film group and bought rest on streaming to finish the picture. Never dreamed this was an extensive problem. Probably have never watched most of my boxed sets.
Thank you for brining this to light. I started to notice many of my Warner DVDs had long since rotted about 10 years ago. I’ve converted some of them over to Blu-ray but I’m still gun shy about buying physical media because of this problem. Doesn’t mean that I’ve stopped buying discs, but the worry is always in the back of my mind. I also had problems with some Anchor Bay titles in the early 2000’s rotting (Heathers and Kentucky Fried Movie being two that spring to mind).
Thanks! I too knew of some early discs or a few early MGM, Anchor Bay and other examples being bad but this was a whole new level to suddenly run into. At least I can easily avoid rotted LDs due to the laserdisc database.
Went through my own Errol Flynn Vol 2 box set after watching this. Thankfully, all of my DVDs seems to be ok.
Thank you very much for helping me out! I checked my collections and found my copies of The Flintstones Season 5 and 6 have discs that don't work! I hope Warner sends my better copies of those sets, I got those sets off of eBay and I found out those sets were still being produced after 2009. So my sets are replaceable. It's still sad that the sets I bought have discs that no longer work!
It sucks because sellers will have no idea about used copies and it's not their fault at all. You have to scrutinize to see what year the pressing is and otherwise look for later repressings.
Good to know i was not the only one to notice. The blu rays of these editions came out fine. But lucky my 2008 discs seem ok. A couple of 2006 discs(superman 1,2 and returns and the departed) and all and i mean all of my 2007 dvds all freeze up after chapter 20 something.
Unfortunately this problem is not exclusive to Warner DVDs. The last seasons of my Star Trek: The Next Generation DVD collection are completely worthless, when they played fine a few years ago. So are my Special Edition copies of Terminator, The Silence of the Lambs, and Road to Perdition. These are Paramount, MGM and Fox titles. I'll have to find replacements for all of them.
I bought the majority of my DVD Warner Brothers box sets from the Warner Brothers Store on line and a lot of them have not been opened (still sealed) and you can see on the cellophane that the cellophane say's "Made In Mexico" on it. So I should be okay. My best friend always has kidded me that many times I have not broken the seal on these expensive box set's yet. But the imprint "Made In Mexico" is only printed on the cellophane. Sometimes the imprint can transfer to the back side of the keep case vinyl. Other than that looking at the inner ring on the DVD itself to see the plant code numbers where the faulty discs were manufactured is the other way. Or actually playing the DVD to see if it has any playback issues. Also the year time line too on the box sets within the copyright information indicating when the box sets were manufactured. Thank you for all of your help and research. Very much appreciated. This is ONE time that my OCD has actually been very useful and not just an annoyance:)
Gratefully,
--Tom Pennock .
Warner is a big problem with so many films affected during that era. Warner's HD-DVDs aren't even worth the gamble.
I’ve got a bunch of DVDs that are rotting, and they largely match the two key identifiers: Warner Bros and the 2006-2010 period. Outside of WB, my Star Wars limited edition DVDs with the theatrical versions have rotted too. Others include my Robocop DVD steelbook from MGM, Army of Darkness director’s cut DVD from MGM, Shaw Bros’ Come Drink With Me DVD, and Borat DVD from 20th Century Fox. I was really disappointed that even my Matrix DVD ultimate box set’s Animatrix disc rotted.
I have a copy of Borat that works. The inner ring code is IFPI 2F29.
Had a big problem with my Val Lewton Double feature dvds and was worried it was my player. I tried my brothers player and some worked fine and some worked worse. I had one disc that wouldn’t read at all. Thank you for this video
Glad you figured it out. It’s funny how some players will work a little better on some rotters. Sadly the Lewton dvd set is heavily affected but you can upgrade to the few Blu-rays from Warner Archive, Criterion and Shout except for Zombie and Seventh Victim which haven’t had anything yet.
Mine too - had to bin it 😢
Thank you for bringing this topic to light. I haven't heard anybody mention this with warner dvds
No problem. I wasn’t aware of it until the HTF thread and didn’t think much of it until I started finding dead discs on my shelf!!
All those years ago people were freaking out about LaserDisc rot, I have to this day never had an LD rot, but have had at least a half dozen DVDs rot across all studios.
Exactly! It’s very easy to know which Laserdiscs to avoid because of the Laserdisc database and fan updates. Plus, it’s a good rule of thumb to avoid DADC USA pressings and a few of the other plants known for pressing a lot of rotters. And on top of that if there’s a title you want, there’s usually a Japanese import pressing or a different version without any rot. Additionally only the most critically rotted copies will refuse to play. You can usually at least get through a movie if the rot isn’t too bad. Whereas with all of the instances of the Warner DVD rot, there’s no way to tell until you start trying to watch elements of the disc and there’s no way to know if you’ll make it all the way through.
It happened to me. And most of them, not all, but most of them were released in 2006. And when i checked it said "Made in Canada". The Christopher Reeve Superman Collection. Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut, Superman Returns, a double feature of Cobra/Tango & Cash, Blade: The Series which is New Line but is owned by WB so i'm counting it. A friend gave me the first 6 Harry Potter movies and it happened with the fourth and fifth film. And none WB related stuff, it happened to me with Fantastic Four (2005) the extended edition. And a friend of mine gave me a box set with the first 5 Rocky films and i think the only one that still plays is Rocky V.
A couple years ago I ordered a used copy of the first Popeye set from Warners. Turns out most (if not all from what I recall) of the discs were bronzed. I thought that was strange but now that this has come to my attention I think it's starting to make sense now.
It makes it tough to buy some of these rare OOP dvd releases or classic era boxsets because chances are discs have rotted and sellers or stores won’t know.
I had bought two copies of the Tarzan Vol2 brand new years ago and never opened one of them. A few months ago, was watching "Tarzan Triumphs" from Disc 1 and it stopped about half way through. Decided to open the unopened box to watch it, and unfortunately it also stopped working in the exact same spot. Made me feel that it wasn't "disc rot", but potentially manufacture error. Also had same problem with "Invisible Stripes" from Vol4 of the Gangster collection. Fortunately, I have bootleg VHS version of "Tarzan Triumphs" and "Tarzan's Desert Mystery". But not DVD quality.
A shame when you have to make a backup copy! 🎃
Update: Sent a claim to WB nearly a year ago. Months later received an email saying they were working on my claim. Today I received the "Silver Screen Icons Tarzan Vol2" in the mail. Unfortunately the Silver Screen Icons Tarzan Vol2 does not include "Tarzan Triumphs" or "Tarzan's Desert Mystery". Disappointing.
Wow! This video is extremely informative. I didn’t know that some discs would actually deteriorate over time. I thought they last forever. Thank you very much for this information. Is this also common with audio discs?
Disc rot is possible with any format but is extremely negligible for CDs, DVDs and beyond. This problem with WB DVDs, the Warner HDDVD problem and the Criterion Blu-ray issue is all due to manufacturing errors at particular plants.
There's a chemical reaction. With a the PDO cd plant, they used non-distilled water and in about 10 years all the discs bronzed and rotted out.
It pretty much will effect all of the batch that was made under those conditions.
Thanks so much for this valuable info Spence. I've checked all my dvds that you've noted here and thankfully there are no issues. Ironically, The Forbidden Hollywood set Vol One has the disc contents reversed ie. the contents on disc one are on disc 2 and vice versa. I tried to email you but the notation I received was to 'be careful, this may be a trick'. lol.
A few years ago a friend of mine who also collects movies told me about Warner Bros DVDs manufactured between 2006 - 2009 succumbing to Disc Rot. I actually grabbed all my Warner Bros DVDs from that era and scanned through them. Fortunately all of them still play perfectly. I did it again a few months back and they are still fine. I think it is because I live in Western Canada and as far as I know during that period Warner Bros was manufacturing the Canadian editions of their DVD releases here in Canada. Maybe the Canadian editions were manufactured better?
Shockingly, the James Bond 2-Disc Ultimate Edition DVDs from 2006 are infamous for succumbing to Disc Rot. They must have been poorly manufactured. I was thinking about re-watching the entire series a couple months ago but when I learned about the Disc Rot problem I scanned through all of mine and unfortunately six of the movies are pretty much unplayable now. Now I also own the older Special Edition DVDs of Dr. No to Die Another Day and all of them still play perfectly.
I am planning to upgrade the first twenty James Bond movies to Blu-Ray but I am going to wait because Warner Bros now owns the home video distribution rights for Dr. No to Die Another Day and I want to see if their Blu-Ray editions will be superior to the editions that Fox released between 2008 to 2012. Apparently, Goldfinger is going to be re-released in December and I am gonna grab it.
Ironically, I have been collecting LaserDiscs since I was thirteen and I have never had a LaserDisc that suffered from Disc Rot.
I’ve heard about the UEs going bad and fearfully glanced at mine which still seemed okay. I’ve held onto them for the extras having their own separate discs even though I have the Blu-ray’s. Some people have said they had issues with some fox DVDs like the Charlie Chan sets but I had no issues recently with those.
The second discs with the extras in my Ultimate Edition copies of Dr. No and Tomorrow Never Dies have unfortunately rotted too. They manage to get to the main menus but they choke up when I try to play the actual extras on them.
Luckily I have never had a Blu-Ray suffer from disc rot.
I agree with you regarding legacy extras. I too prefer to watch legacy extras on DVD instead of Blu-Ray for the same reason, I find that legacy extras on many Blu-Ray releases don't look as good as they do on DVD.
@@Riddler95 I’ll have to go through all of mine then. I also like them because some of the vintage documentaries were redone ones on the Blu-rays and I miss the originals.
Yep most times the dvd presentation of legacy extras is indeed better.
I love how they went all out for the extras for old James Bond movies. They produced some really fantastic content.
I have the 2-Disc Collector's Edition Blu-Ray of Casino Royale from 2008 and it has the most extras compared to the other Blu-Ray editions.
Some Blu-Ray releases have the extras on a separate DVD disc. My Blu-Ray box-set of the Extended Editions of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy uses DVDs for all of the extras.
I first encountered dvd rot probably 2010 when I went to try the first Anchor Bay dvd release of Halloween 4. It wouldn’t even play. I may have some in the google doc. Definitely Richard Donner Superman 2. During the summer I started slowly backing up my discs for the purpose of using for Plex. It’s a painfully slow process but with the idea that also I’m backing up discs I own. The Criterions I own from that Blu-ray era work and have backed up. I still have so many discs to go. Still is incredibly frustrating and alarming. Thanks for making this.
This is disapointing. I collect moves made pre 1960 and have nearly every box set WB released. I have thousands of dvds collected with the expectation that tastes change and that these films will not be broadcast or streamed in time or transfer to new formats. Not all VHS made it to dvd. Frankly most of the movies produced during this period were not very good, but I love them for these deficits and what they tell us about the culture and attitudes of the time.
I own pretty much all the classic Warner Home DVD collections and after seeing your video, immediately my heart was racing, had to open up some of the boxes (some were still sealed) and check for myself and lo and behold, the discs that you mentioned had disc rot in your collection, I found it on mine. I had to stop because I have invested way too much and I've gone through this with Criterion (who replaced my discs) but knowing this may not be the case with Warner. While I was able to do disc-to-digital via VUDU FANDANGO for some of the Warner classic discs, I'm still numb about all this. I also have a large LD collection and was aware of LD rot, and also for old DVD-R discs some say that they don't last that long but for pressed disc....I didn't think it would be this bad. I'll someday go through everything...but right now, just went through the ones you mentioned and was disheartened to see the disc rot on my discs.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. More and more people are having success getting responses and replacements form WB like I did with what's in stock as an MOD titles-but it's still hit or miss. Definitely check through your collection and see how many you have that do not have a later Blu-ray so that you can try emailing WB. There should be an official response like Criterion did for their bad run of discs.
My Japanese Nippon Herald ‘True Lies’ rotted away.
Spencer, this is why I always make a digitized version before filing to the library closet
Not a bad idea with these. I did have to do something similar back in the day with all the universal double sided DVD 18s.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader double sided discs are the pits. It’s always the widescreen version that’s scratched beyond repair
I HATE these kinda issues. They first begin mysteriously, then you spend considerable amount of time researching. Then… its doom, and gloom. I mean… what a PAIN in the ASS. Now I gotta go through all these disk. I say we go to that plant in Pennsylvania and TP it. 😡
Great! I get to throw away my Terminator television series that probably doesn’t exist anymore.
Thanks by the way. I’m REALLY sorry you had to go through this. You spent your hard earned money, and have a true love of cinema. This is really upsetting… 😖
There can be pain in collecting. Yellowing toy vehicles, 10-15-to 20 year digital watches with loads of sentimental value that suddenly have functions that don’t work anymore.
Ugh…
Yeah it really sucks and I compiled the list to try and help people who ran into the same issue. I still can’t believe I randomly got someone at Warner to respond but it took several years, making a video and compiling a list to do so.
I’m still out of luck on one or two titles.
I've noticed a while back some of my Superman DVDs didn't work. Super girl, the metal tin box set, Smallville and Lois/Clark. Now I know why :(
I binged watched all of VERONICA MARS about four or five years ago and there were no issues. I mostly have a few of the TV shows that are on that master list---gotta check THE FLASH and F TROOP. Anchor Bay had a bunch of DVDs back in the day that rotted, but of the titles I got that had rot, they've all been released on blurays since.
I did the same with Veronica Mars. However there are two runs of those one in original digipack cases and one in plastic reissue cases IIRC. The Flash also had an original digipack and plastic case reissue. Whichever was made during this period would be the likely culprit.
I'm auditing my "Dallas" collection now and I'm finding my share of bad discs. Not great when you're trying to follow a serialized series.
Yeah, it really sucks for Series and boxsets. I have been getting the classic Superman TV series and the later volumes are all out of print and go for quite high prices now.
Except most of the later seasons are completely rotted so buying them used is playing the rot lottery.
Marlon Brando Collection - bought in 2014
Reflections in a Golden Eye - never worked
Mutiny on the Bounty - disc 2 died a few years after purchase, disc 1 a few months later
Julius Caesar - died a few years back
The Teahouse of the August Moon - just checked, it freezes within the last few chapters.
The Formula - still plays.
a bit late, but I always wondered what was wrong with my Babylon 5 boxsets. Warner Brothers released Babylon 5 as a complete series in 5 season boxes in 2009, and subsequently released them individually as well. From my experience, most of the discs in this set are rotten.
I thought I would watch A Christmas Story in fullscreen with the commentary on tonight, and it got about three minutes in before freezing up. Widescreen won't even play, it freezes during the menu. The box says 2003, but I'm guessing it could have been a newer reprint in the same old case. I'll have to see if I can read the code on the disc.
It was pretty sad that my Blade Runner: Final Cut (2007) DVD started rotting only a few years after I bought it >_<
There really should be some kind of online backup archive where we can at least preserve the disc images before it's too late. I always worry that my original GoldenEye disc will rot away, and I don't care for any of the newer releases of it.
Yup, it's really hard to read but I think it does say 2U. It definitely says "IFPI L908" and that looks like a bad sign as well.
Will they replace these discs? Or only titles in the MOD program?
I guess I'll just have to try it and see.
Came here from Retroblasting
I have a nice big stack of Warner Bros HD-DVDs that are rotted, which will soon be heading into the recycle bin. Had no idea it extended to Warner Bros Dvds. I wonder how many of their Blu-rays and 4Ks will end up the same way?
Thankfully none as the bad plant issues are confined to HDDVD and dvd only as of now.
I think my Warner Bros. 2 dual layered disc 2007 edition of Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man has this DVD rot you talk about here. The surface of the discs look absolutely perfect. Tried playing it at slow speeds and fast forwarding, using a can of Dust Remover very carefully over the discs and wiping very softly ,anti static cloths and the film still gets stuck. It doesn't skip, it just freezes.Tried burning the discs on my Pioneer disc burner and it jams, won't even finish burning. This is one of my all time favorite films and this edition is perfect in sound and picture quality. I should try sending it back with a very convincing letter because its not available in any other format in the US currently.
That's indeed how the disc rot can happen on some of these. You get to a certain point on a spotless disc and it just freezes and also cannot be read or backed up on a PC.
Definitely try contacting WB but otherwise keep an eye out for a cheap used copy and hopefully its rot free.
I noticed some of the titles on the master list that I have like Tales from the Crypt boxset. But mine says 2017 on the copyright for packaging. Does this mean that they pressed these sets again? If the titles are packaged outside the dates you noted, we should be good right? I have the Superman tin set and was wondering why it was messing up. Thanks so much for informing us!
Yes that would be a repressing and totally fine. All Warner represses are fine especially the later ones in standard packaging.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader thank you for taking the time to respond! Love your channel!
Many thanks for posting this video! I am currently going through all of my DVDs that are on the list you posted. Thank you once again for posting this (as well as the list).
Was just settling down this week to all the Warner Gangster Collections and volume 2 seems to contain some deceased dvds. G Men, Each Dawn I die, Ballots or Bullets. All running well till the end chapters then freeze.
Sorry to hear that! At least Warner Archive has been doing some Blu-ray updates on select titles.
Heads up for those considering buying "Warner Bros Home Entertainment Academy Awards Animation Collection (15 wins and 26 nominees)", might wanna buy the separate re releases they made later on instead of the original set. Just got one of the older ones used, and it seems it's one of many WB dvds with disc rot. (disc 2 to be specific) it works on some players, but not others
Time to make some back ups! In the uk I had lots of rotted had dvds, I wrote to them and they agreed I could have any two of the affected titles on blu ray. Had to buy a lot of titles twice
I seriously wonder if this is a problem with discs sold in the US because I live in the UK. Nearly all my Warner Bros discs are Technicolor with only a few that aren't (usually new old stock or second hand). One of those discs is O Lucky Man! I first got a second hand copy off Ebay and the second disc (which contained the second half of the film, why Warners didn't put the whole film on a single disc is beyond me) was loose and was quite badly scratched, I was able to watch near enough the whole film but the disc started freezing during the dance party ending. So I sent it back and got a new and sealed copy (for £20), the first thing I tested was the dance party ending and it plays just fine, I've had the disc for well over a year now and after watching this video I tested it again and it still works.
I don't think the disc was made by Technicolor but the codes are different to the US titles (plus why would they use an American manufacturing plant for UK discs?). I believe it went out of print in around 2009 so if the disc were to fail, it probably would have done it by now.
Like you said no one wants this but glad you did I aswell just found out about this a couple months ago i checked 100s of dvds. Luckily i only had problems with 3 two of them being classic hanna barbera releases probably why they ended up re releasing them. Its frustrating and i know many of you have said the same we collect physical media for the conveniency of it. Many times tho we pay extra for these special releases and they should be treated that way if they want us to spend money on all of them. Which most of us will do happily to own these classic shows and films. Hopefully more wont come up later as of right now most think they were all made at the same factory and its between like 06-08.
In the good old days if I found a faulty disc I swapped it out with Blockbuster. Not that that’s possible now.
I saw Seasons 1 and 2 of Foster's home for imaginary Friends on the Google doc, and yep
Disc one out of each set is completely unplayable now
I've had a few issues with Laser rot and with HD-DVD. The late 90's Eraser Laserdisc (A Warner Bros. title) was the first i experienced it's playable but unwatchable . like the CRT TV's when you turn on a vacuum cleaning creating sparks all through the image is what that Laserdisc looked like, Moonraker THX DVD just stopped playing , Tomorrow Never Dies - original DVD release stopped playing - Both MGM) And The Matrix Trilogy original HD-DVD box set won't play at all. Twilight Zone The Movie HD-DVD(another Warner Bros. title) That also stopped playing. I have only 1 Criterion Collection Laserdisc which was Blade Runner and it does play just fine .
@@mykal.7424 early MGM DVDs were the only dvd rotters I had before this. Even laserdisc rot is easy to avoid but this Warner disc rot problem is beyond crazy.
Not all heroes wear capes
Has _Warner Bros_ EVER made INTELLIGENT DECISIONS??
Thank you so much ! Just tried to play "The Big Steel" last night. "Illegal", plays, but not "Big Steel". Kind of expensive to replace. Think Amazon offers a MOD twin feature version, but does it have the commentaries and special features too ? Last month went through this with "Stagecoach". 2 disc version. 2007. Movie disc says "Unreadable disc", while special features disc is fine (so far). So I bought a used single disc version with the commentary, on ebay. Only paid $7.81 total. From Goodwill. Thought it had finger prints on surface, but they would not wash off. Rot ? I washed and rewashed that disc with Ivory liquid dish washing soap with real hot water so many times. Then added isopropal alcohol to the soap. Movie would play, but had places where it would skip a few lines ahead. Finally I just rubbed it with my thumb with oil from my nose on my thumb, every which way, and then stand my DVD player on end vertically, and it plays OK, so I can finally listen to the super commentary. I also have the Criterion version, but Warners commentary is much better. I copied the ones I have in my collection from your list. Must look for 2U on clear area right near hold on underside. Thanks again.
Three Warner noir double features in my collection are unplayable, but I was able to find MOD replacements. Last night I starting watching THE CONSPIRATORS (1946) and the disc froze ten minutes before the feature was to end. Unfortunately there are no other releases of that title currently available. I'll continue to upgrade to blu rays as they become available. I have the TARZAN COLLECTION you mentioned and THE HILL. I dread popping them into my player.
I checked a few of my old WB DVD's and they're all fine. Including Loony Tunes collection and Animatrix. Perhaps because I got Dutch copies that may have been manufactured in Europe.
Disc rot is definitely a real thing. I'm somewhat concerned about my BBC Region 1 DVDs, as the local distributor is WB, but it appears none appear on your master list....
The Doctor Who discs have issues
I had an issue with the Lethal Weapon 4-Film Favourites as well, but it was so much that the film stopped, so much as it stopped and fell apart as I was watching it in my laptop disc tray. Popping the LW1/LW2 disc out of the hub it came out in two pieces, like pulling apart an Oreo. Fuckin' A
Have you tried cleaning the DVDs? With many DVDs, a sticky film forms on the surface because the plasticizer in the plastic case evaporates. The discs are then no longer playable. but that is only on the surface. The discs can be cleaned and then played again.
Just another thought. What with everything going up in price. Because of price of gas going up, and other reasons too. It would be much more economical (for the time being), to see if your local library could receive some of the titles from your collection that have gone bad, just to be able to watch your favs again. I have received titles on loan from libraries half the country away from my location. You just have to wait a bit to enjoy your film, and then hope "it" plays. Hint; try standing your DVD player on end, it might help. Careful not to press "OPEN". Thank you again. Would love to see something about "DVD ROT", on TV news.
Dang I actually just started a little rewatch of the reeves superman series I only ever got the donner cuts of 1 and 2 on blu so went back to listen to the commentary on the theatrical editions and sure enough superman 1 froze about halfway through. Part 2 made it through and pleasantly the bonus feature discs worked hope they hold out.
That seems about my experience. I went back to the DVDs in a rewatch for the extras and the non teal transfers on some. Thankfully 3 got a letterbox LD. 4 didn’t.
Ironically you can get the original snapper case DVDs and they have zero issues.
This is really worrying me! I bought “Mr. Woodcock” (New Line Cinema) on DVD used a month ago and I watched it 3 times and it seemed to play just fine all 3 times. Then this month, I bought “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show”(New Line Cinema) on DVD brand new and sealed but haven’t opened it yet. It appears that “Mr. Woodcock” was also released on Blu-Ray but I couldn’t find any Blu-Ray releases for “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show.” I’m hoping the next time I watch “Mr. Woodcock,” nothing bad will happen. The same goes for “Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show,” hopefully when I get around to watching it, it’ll still play fine. This really sucks to hear but thank you for the information.
This certainly makes me question if this hobby/passion is truly futile. Let’s face it, unless it gets magically selected for Warner Archive or gets licensed out to a label that actually cares about film preservation, all of these titles are just going to vanish. Young people don’t care about classic Hollywood, and we as collectors don’t spend as much as it would make it worth it to WB to reissue or keep these titles in circulation.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not switching over to streaming and abandoning my collection, but the future of this hobby and these films lies directly with boutique labels. And with techbro douchebags like Zaslav at the helm, it’ll be a while before we get many of these titles back.
It’s becoming more and more a scenario of collectors building a film library and then having to essentially run their own archive library of catalog titles. Thankfully the fail rates of optical media are very low outside of manufacturing issues but in this particular case it is distressing since many affected titles have no other major releases.
Eventually we’ll all have to have physical media and a digital collection of backed up bits or elements if you go down the rabbit hole of looking at transfer problems like I do.
When I checked my _Superman Ultimate Collector's Edition_ I saw what looked like frost on the edge of one disc. Yikes! But it wasn't rot. I rubbed some skin oil on it and it mostly went away. It probably has something to do with outgassing and plastic. Whew!
But this begs the question: can we trust these plastic cases with close physical contact over time? How do these plastics react together?
This video has given me a mild anxiety attack, lol...I own *a lot* of Warner Bros. dvds.
With the time I have available before I have to run out I just checked my Bette Davis Collection Volume 3 box on dvd, threw all 6 discs in my bluray player. All 6 look to play fine. At least they loaded up flawlessly, and as I jumped around through various scenes there were no problems.
Also, gotta say, all of them except "The Great Lie" (which looked a bit beat up, maybe the source print was subpar) look *really, really* good. Especially "In This Our Life" which I'm not certain I wouldn't mistake for a bluray transfer otherwise.
Hopefully this is a good omen. However there's one caveat. I've seen in the comments here that apparently it's primarily Warner's discs from the mid-late 2000's that are affected by this malady.
My copy of this box is from 2012. So maybe this is why everything looks okay.
I'm particularly worried about the Warner Brothers gangster boxes. I have all 4 and they might collectively be my favorite collection of....anything. Hopefully they're okay. I haven't watched any in a bit.
Sounds like you’re ok. Hopefully your gangster boxes are clear. If the manufacture date is 2010 or later there shouldn’t be any issues.
The problem is these appear sporadically. I just went to check an episode on Batman the animated series Vol 4 and the disc is unplayable.🤦🏻♂️
I know same thing happened to me i only had 3 that had problems which is still too many and like i said elsewhere hopefully no more will pop up i was braving for the worse considering hoe many classic movies i have from WB..
wow thats infuriating and total BS. The superman metal boxed set is especially heartbreaking and totally pisses me off. It was not cheap and I clearly remember jumping through hoops running all over town trying to find them as they were selling out but managed to find one for me and one for a gift. I believe I also got rid of a couple single disk copies of some after getting this set. I dont even want to check mine to find out cause ill be too angry.
You’ll likely find some rotters if you have a substantial amount of Warner DVDs. If you’ve got the tin set I’ll guarantee there’s at least one disc partially rotted if not several.🤦🏻♂️
Thanks for taking the time to post this. Most informative. 🎃
Side Street and Decoy are unplayable (confirmed). Concerning the Illegal/The Big Steal disc: Illegal plays fine (I also have access to the menu), The Big Steal locks up instantly. In total: 4 out of 10 movies in this set are goners. And I live in the Netherlands: I have to rebuy and import all this shit again. Damn you Warner! I will check out some more in the near future.
San Quentin plays fine over here (yellow Gangster 2 box) But for how long??
Are there any lists of rot from other companies? Luckily I didn't have that many from this list, and my WB Doctor Who discs have been in good condition. But it gave me heads-up to check HP&the Order o/t Phoenix and Flash series set. As well as Popeye (I presume the Williams/Duvall movie) as Hairspray (the John Travolta one).
There’s nothing like this for any other studio outside of individual rotters or early discs with issues. This is the biggest and most widespread manufacturing issue I’ve seen for DVD.
I have this warners noir dvd box vol.4 .... DECOY plays fine. So does ILLEGAL, and THE BIG STEAL. (I just checked these)
I'm in Canada tho. I just heard about this issue ..... thru a more recent video of yours i think .....
Is the ROT visible most of the time?
Shit, the Animaniacs DVDs are on the rotted list. Does that include the final volume and Wakko's Wish as well?
I replaced the first three volumes a couple of years ago, and I purchased Volume 4 and Wakko's Wish either the day of release or months later. Is Volume 4 and the aforementioned movie safe?
I think so, but I can’t remember when they were manufactured. I know all of the initial volumes with the really lovely impressive digipacks are unfortunately Rotter titles potentially. To be on the ultra safe side you can pick up the complete series basic repackage which generic art and it should be the same discs but without rot inside.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I was definitely thinking that after seeing your list, thank you so much.
Nice!! this is such a great video! thank you
I had one the other day "crimewave"/"decoy" disc from one of the film noir set, "decoy" freezes up, but "crimewave" is fine, thank God! lol
All of the discs from my Clark Gable Signature Collection and Katharine Hepburn 100th Anniversary Collection are dead now.
And worse of all, the huge Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers boxed-set containing 12 discs, which weighs a ton and cost me around $100 over 15 year ago, is also useless now. I'm truly upset.
Same regarding the Forbidden Hollywood vol. 1 and 2. And from the Gangsters Collection, also San Quentin! Regarding vol. 4, both The Little Giant and Invisible Stripes became unreadable.
Also other individual titles such as Hallelujah (1929), Cabin in the Sky (1943), The Informer (1935) and The Good Earth (1937).
This is indeed very upsetting for me to hear! I’m so sorry! I’m experiencing problems myself.
@@JohnDoe-zn3lu Really sorry to hear! It's a tragedy indeed 😞 So much money invested, and now lost forever. I've been checking my collection since my first comment, and sadly found many others (both individual titles and boxed-sets) that won't work anymore.
@@fran_1978 I made an interesting discovery a few days ago…two of the DVDs that supposedly rotted seems to be working fine on the computer using an external drive DVD and I have no explanation. I’m sorry for you. Which titles have you encountered?
I have had to have WB replace so many of my DVD collection because of them going bad on the shelf. Today it is a paramount box set - The Brady Bunch Season 2, where the disc are cracking, or look like someone stained them.
Hello. Was looking over the long list of defective titles. Could not locate "STAGECOACH", 1939. I'm having trouble with the WB two disc special edition. The Bonus special disc plays fine, but the movie disc doesn't even reach the main menu ! So, I purchased the single disc version used from Goodwill (nice price), and this had problems also, but after scrubbing playing surface (water, ivory liquid, isopropyl alcohol), it does play but only when player is standing on it's side. Also title " THAT'S DANCING", I can't find on your list. My copy freezes a quarter of the way through. Must replace now. Saw a TD Vol. 2 on your list but not the one I have. Never knew there was a Vol. 2.
I guess I didn’t put it down separately from the Ford and Wayne boxset. This was one I had myself and it was a bad unplayable feature disc with bronzing.
Watched retroblastings video on this and then boom - you are now the top video on my home page lol
My copy of Freakazoid season 1 (original release) has disc rot. Didn't see it on the list so i thought i would pass it on. Disc 2 side A
SAME thing happened to me, with the Warner Gangsters Box Set Vol. 1. Multiple discs stopped working midway through the movie. Weirdly, when I re-purchased (grrrr....) those movies individually, the new DVDs worked just fine.
That’s it exactly. It seems to be a case of the boxsets being made at the bad plant mostly and then standalones or multi film packs being made elsewhere. At least one can easily find standalone versions for things not OOP.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader True! Anyhow, thanks so much for the great video. Very interesting stuff. Weirdly I had some trouble with a Warner Archive M-O-D DVD today, brand new, just stopped working on multiple players. Hopefully that's not a sign of things to come, because I've got a LOT that I still haven't watched....
@@TemakiTom I hope it’s not a problem. I’m the same with a growing number of archive mods. I haven’t had a problem yet. Will it read in a pc drive?
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader Funny enough, that's usually my go-to drive, and this was the first time it's given me trouble with any disc :/
Very sad to see my William Powell/Myrna Loy collection on this list😿
Yes that’s one that can have several go bad. Mine was thankfully OK though when I checked it. I would definitely advise to just fast forward through all of the discs in that set to see if you have any affected copies.
If it involves Warner Brothers, by definition it involves MGM and RKO as well
Hello. I have Metallica S&M 2DVD made in 2000, in the US by WAMO (Warner Advanced Media Operations) and it shows white spots and foggy areas close to the outer edge of the discs (both are DVD9, two layers). The discs play great, additionally I tested it by Nero DiscSpeed and it shows relatively good results compared to other DVD9 discs. I'm not sure that these will not die completely in the nearest future. What do you think, are these discs are going to die?
Once you've got spots or foggy areas it might be a good idea to make a backup at some point. It's possible they may remain perfectly fine but it never hurts to have a backup especially if it's a very rare title.
The only discs I ever had issues with before the WB issue were the early years DVDs or ones that specifically had issues.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I have just washed up 2 DVDs and one CD from these white foggy fields! The discs were tested after that and showed lower PI\PO errors for DVDs and C1\C2 errors for CDs. I thought I lost them, but now they shine like new ones. I would like to add that I used really hot water, first a liquid for cleaning acrylic baths and then a shampoo made from natural components. All liquids were on the surface for no longer than 30-40 seconds while I was washing the surfaces with a piece of a soft cloth, then the discs were cleaned dry with a soft cloth. The best result is when you repeat the full cycle a couple of times. The idea is that those white foggy spots are from the interacting surface of the disc with plastic holders and the booklet's paint parts in the air inside the box.
Forbidden Planet, 2 DVD set with The Invisible Boy has DVD Rot on The Invisible Boy disc
Hi on the master rot list which POPEYE VOLUMES are they talking about? Is it the 3 VOLUMES black & white cartoons?
Also had to replace my Fleischer Popeye Vol.1 and Hollywood Legends of Horror box sets with Warner Archives MODs.
Yes the legends of horror box is one that rots completely. Luckily there’s an archive re-issue or you can get four of the films in the same transfers in the MGM Laserdisc boxset. Best of all is the new restoration of Mad Love that was just released on Blu-ray from the archive.
My Blade Runner The Final Cut four disc box set that I got in 2007 is ruined. I took great care of it, and it's always been in a low humidity, temp controlled environment. I'm heart broken because they don't even sell the equivalent of this on blu-ray anymore, just the film by itself. I feel sick to my stomach. Screw WB.
@@Leahi84 yeah it sucks that some of the Blade Runner releases were affected. The HD DVDs as well are major rot titles, but at least that’s pretty well known that all Warner HD DVD titles will rot within the collecting community.
Definitely keep an eye out for one of the two reissue Blu-ray sets that had all of the legacy features re-encoded on Blu-ray. It took a while, but I finally found the regular Digibook Blu-ray set at a decent price and the other bonus of those is that they re-encoded the workprint to be slightly higher quality than the original Blu-ray.
Do you have physical marks on the broken discs or are they just unplayable?
My Babylon 5 DVDs (single packed seasons and also warner bros) broke down some years ago. The season boxes were sitting in the bookshelf with my other dvds and I decided to watch some episodes after a break.
Well, turned out all of the discs in each 5 seasons had became sticky from the data side and also most discs had a perfect circular disc wide scratch on them. They did play but froze constantly.
No marks on discs and only one or two had bronzing effects. I’ve heard about the B5 series DVDs going bad before but the initial release date seems to predate the affected period. Maybe it was an early example of the bad plant though with actual physical defects that sounds like a different manufacturing issue altogether.
With cds at PDO in the UK, they used non-distilled water for their cds. All of a given batch would be affected unless they repressed later.
I'd buy alternate pressings of second DVDs to escape this issue. That how I escaped the major labels pulling undisclosed cd-r's for inprint titles that were on a repress. It affects mostly deep catalog titles (older than 3 years) and spread like cancer. As a matter of fact, I'd rather have cancer than go through it again and that is a hell of a statement!
No need to check your discs. If it's a given pressing from a given plant in the same batch, then it'll go.
The receipts will actually get foxed and become unreadable. It all depends how something is made and the chemicals that react within it. DVD-R and CD-R is anybody's guess. Some may be better and some worse but they aren't redbook cds.
I just stumbled across your Video, while searching if anybody had the same issues. I have a big DVD Set of the three extendet Lord of the Rings movies with specials. All the main movie DVDs are unusable and can't be read anymore. The discs look hazy and all the effected discs have the same pattern on them. I tried to digitise them and they couldn't even be read anymore sadly.
I don't know if it comes from the same plant, since I live in germany and bought it here too, but sadly they have the issues and they are Warner Home Video DVDs, so it could check out I guess.
I still have some of these titles, but I haven’t found any of those problems.
I actually have that Lethal Weapon box set. I watched Lethal Weapon 1 over Christmas and it worked fine thankfully but I haven't seen 2-4 to see if they're rotted. Hopefully they're ok. I didn't get them all that long ago. I want to say it was like 2012-2014 is when I grabbed them. Hopefully they're ok.
The LW DVDs are important on 1-3 for having the extended cuts and full bitrate DTS. I picked up the original snapper releases for cheap to replace them. 4 importantly has the documentary with deleted scenes and outtakes not released elsewhere.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader do you know if the other WB 4 film favorite 4 packs have issues. I have the Batman and Superman sets from that era and I'm afraid they might be compromised. I really hope they're not. I saw the lethal weapon and Hugh Grant sets are screwed up hoping that the whole line of those aren't.
I actually talked to my dad about the issue he has the Lethal Weapon films as well but I think he has the original single releases so he should be ok. Unfortunately I have the 4 pack so who knows how long those have till they're caput.
@@bdavis24fanIt's very hit or miss but thankfully seems to only be the one or two I've encountered. I would've never thought these could have issues until suddenly finding the LW one wouldn't play. The Batman one is fine as I've owned that iteration before. My guess is that the bad plant just wound up making one or two of the 4 film favorites occasionally.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader ok awesome. I was going to be really sad if the Superman or Batman 4 packs were messed up. I actually ordered the Superman set off of WB's website. I got that and the Watchmen Director's Cut.
@@DamnFoolIdealisticCrusader I went ahead and checked my lethal weapon 4 pack DVDs and they all worked thankfully. I'm going to check my Batman TAS collection because that set was on the list you have. Hopefully they're ok. I only have Volume 1 and Volume 2.
I got all of the original Animaniacs seasons, but the issue is that I don't know which discs they originated from. Keep in mind, all of the discs including the Wakko's Wish disc came from the Animaniacs: The Complete Series dvd box set, and I at least know that Wakko's Wish came out on DVD in 2014, which leaves me with the main show. Minus Volume 4, which came out in 2013, what discs are these that are in that Complete Series set? Are they the original ones from 2006 to 2007? Or are they reissues from a different manufacturing company based on those 2006-2007 masters?
As long as you’ve got any later reissue or pressing. The discs should be fine. The slimmed down complete series dvd set from the past few years would be rot free.