Blu-ray discs gone unreadable (1 Viewer)

[Dave Moritz]

So how many people have come up with blu-ray discs that worked perfect one viewing then literally stopped being readable the next? How many have had this problem and how many titles have just stopped being playable? I had two other titles that just stopped working with my Denon 1611, not playable on my LiteOn blu-ray drive and now not playable on my Samsung 4K UHD blu-ray. And today Rambo First Blood just would not play on the Samsung or the pc rom! Finances are bad enough but now I have three movies that are not readable and there is no damage to any of the discs! While Hitchhiker's is very enjoyable and push comes to shove I can go without both Hitchhikers and Flight Plan. I will however replace Rambo one way or the other. Not one of the discs that failed had any playback issues before they stopped working out of no where!

 

[Todd Erwin]

I've had some issues with a few titles, mostly ones I purchased that first year that Blu-ray came out. Warner has been very good at issuing replacements at no cost, provided the disc is still in print (or if not, that they still have inventory). Superman Returns and Superman II: The Richard Donner Cut have become unplayable in the last year, and Warner has replaced the first, waiting for my shipping label for the second. All I had to do was fill out their customer service form, and a few days later I got an emailed response. I've heard that Fox has a similar program if you call the toll-free number listed on the back cover.

Disney does have a replacement program, but I think they charge a small fee to issue replacements. I have no idea about Lionsgate.

 

[Fritz Nilsen]

My Spider-man trilogy from Sony (UK version, 2007) suffers from the same problem. None of the three discs are even recognised as Blu-rays by either my Playstation 3 or my Oppo.

I'll have to check my Hitchhiker and First Blood discs now...
My Superman II Donner Cut Blu played just fine two days ago.

 

[moviepas]

The first year for me with US South Pacific which I eventually got replaced from UK and it came again in the R&H box set. The other was he Robe which does not seem to have been released elsewhere to replace. Amazon was good enough to give me a full credit more than 12 months later. They would not play on anything and I had a lot of choices. Others including Disney either would not work on the Blu Ray Recorder(Panasonic) or the Blu Ray in the computer(LG) or maybe titles and extras played but the feature did not in one or the other. I have not tried any Blu Ray BD-R but DVD-Rs from US were unplayable when they first came out but an updated machine solved the problem.

I have forgotten the title of the Blu Ray that was issued recently with a problem disc that is being replaced. I may have ordered it. Any know what it was? Thanks

 

[Thomas T]

I remember when Warners began their MOD Archives program, a certain segment loudly declaiming they would never purchase burned discs because their life expectancy was short. Ironically I've had pressed DVDs and Blu rays go "bad" but I've yet to have a MOD disc fail on me. Some that wouldn't play initially yes but never one that played fine upon purchase.

 

[Walsh61]

I have never had this problem with any blu-ray disc that I've ever bought. That's not to say I never will, but I've been lucky so far I guess.

 

[AshJW]

Some of the above mentioned BDs are in my possession as well. I have to check these titles.

 

[Matt Hough]

I've had more trouble with DVDs going bad than Blu-rays. Recently, a disc in season two of The Closer became unplayable, and I also had recent trouble with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Babes on Broadway.

 

[Richard V]

Never has happened to any of my DVDs or Blurays (I have well over a thousand total)

 

[cinemiracle]

It has happened many times with me. Sometimes I think that the problem is that my all zone player is getting old.They generally, but not always , play on my portable player or my computer.A single finger mark can also stop the disc from playing. I also have almost 2000 dvd's and blurays.

 

[Cranston37+]

Recently went to play The Fog and couldn't get it to work on any player. According to Amazon I purchased it in 2013.

 

[Dick]

It is possible that a number of my nearly 5,000 DVD's and Blu-rays have gone unreadable, but those of us with large collections who are also not young anymore may never find this out...

 

[jcroy]

(As a tangential aside).

Around a decade ago (circa mid-2000s), I remember several local friends who had very large dvd collections talking about some of their dvd discs going bad. At the time, I didn't think much about it.

In late-2010 when I first thought about and entertained the idea of buying a lot of dvds/blurays, these same local friends gave me a very stern warning about optical discs going bad. (I only started buying a lot dvds/blurays in 2011, where over the entire 2000s decade I had very little to no interest in dvds/blurays). From these first hand experiences, quite a few of these friends never moved on to bluray and largely exited the dvd collecting hobby by the mid/late-2000s.

Come 2011, I largely ignored the advice of my local friends and completely turned a blind eye to phenomenon of optical discs going bad. At the time I was thinking "it won't ever happen to me".

By early 2015, I was encountering dvd/bluray discs in my collection which were developing bad sectors or wouldn't play at all. Unfortunately I should have taken my friends' stern advice back in late-2010, and not ever start collecting dvds/blurays in the first place.


Recently I've been kvetching a lot on this issue on another thread on this message board.

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/com...-you-guys-watch-your-collection.348379/page-4

 

[Everett S.]

I received a DVD from Amazon UK that was loose and would skip, I had small screen cleaning pad , so I thought what the hell and cleaned it. Now it plays fine. I can't find it now, I just moved, Thought I would be the big hero,with at least with some of the discs. I believe it came from Woot. Sorry.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Even with a third blu-ray disc going bad I still have no interest in purchasing digital content. I have really good internet right now but finances are horrible and what many people should ask themselves is, what would they do if they couldn't afford internet? So you purchase digital content and your hard drive dies and no internet to redownload or stream, then what? Luckily the first Rambo is around $10 on blu-ray so ether next Friday or next month I will replace Rambo and hope no other titles go bad!

 

[Malcolm R]

Never has happened to any of my DVDs or Blurays (I have well over a thousand total)

Same here, so far. Though my collection is large enough there may be several that I just haven't yet discovered.

I'm pretty sure I own a couple of the titles being discussed here. I'll have to check them.

 

[John Hermes]

My Picnic Blu-ray from TT became unreadable within the first six months. They had me mail it back to check it and sent me a replacement. This is the only Blu-ray that I've noticed to which this has happened.

 

[David Norman]

I wonder if this is related to that production batch that affected the Well-Go and certain Criterions. Both my Walkabout and Howards, End disc becomes unplayable after the layer switch. Most of the others on that list seem to work and scan fine though.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I just sent an email to lionsgate to see what if anything they can do for me. If not I will just purchase a new copy of Rambo. To bad that I did not have an ultraviolet code for this title so I could have still watched the movie till I replaced it on disc. mmmm maybe I should check and see if it is available on netflix.

 

[cinemiracle]

I have bought videos ,in the old days,that were completely blank. It has also happened with dvds. Now I always check discs as soon as I buy them,to ensure that there are no problems. It is often many months before I get around to watching them.