"DVD Rot, or Not?"

[James Fee]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1590561,00.asp' target='_blank'>http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1590561,00.asp</a><br /><br /></div>"The recent Associated Press story about insidious, disc-devouring "rot" wasn't the first to hit the mainstream press. Major news outlets Worldwide have for years been publishing sensational reports that up to 20 percent of all mass-produced CDs and DVD-Video discs were slowly destroying themselves. But when an alarmed DVD industry investigated whether the problem was indeed as catastrophic as it appeared, it turned out that most reported incidents had actually been caused by improper disc handling and storage. Despite the latest round of headlines, true "DVD Rot" today appears to be exceedingly rare. Users themselves are the greatest threat to the longevity of their DVD collections. The bottom line is that, in the absence of profound manufacturing defects, replicated DVD-Video discs remain a credible storage medium. Their longevity depends on how well you treat them. With proper handling and storage, they can provide reliable performance for decades."<br /><br />PC Magazine has an article that tries to get to the root of this DVD Rot scare that has gone across the Internet. According to PC Mag, a DVD recordable won't rot, but is very susceptible to damage. Some good ideas for storing a DVD include never storing DVDs in CD jewel cases, which may apply too much hub stress. DVD-approved jewel cases, designed to reduce hub pressure, can be differentiated from CD versions by an embossed DVD logo on the tray insert.

[Montego]

I think this all started with the very real problem of Laserdisc rot, which was discovered a couple of years after the first release of the LD format in the late seventies. Laserdiscs were literally glued together and a lot of times the glue would cause damage to the media. Also, imporoper and sloppy manufacturing contributed somewhat to the problem. Pioneer saved the format be using super clean rooms for manufacture, and I believe a different glue was then used.

I've got a few early laserdiscs that are pretty much unviewable now, and this problem really did almost kill the format. The LDs I bought after Pioneer started manufacture are still good. The last LD I bought was Goldeneye before switching to DVD. I've kept my laserdiscs as I have many that are not yet available on DVD.