Posted by One-Shot Scot on 10/12/05 03:44

"Film Buff" <Fred_C@Dobbs.MTN> wrote in message
news:bhuok158ljh4jc8ps90ui5ltlv0sctsqvl@4ax.com...
> "One last note today... we've noticed a strange thing here at The
> Bits. In going back to a lot of our very early Universal DVD releases
> (released in 1997 and 1998), we've discovered that many of those discs
> have simply stopped working in our DVD players. We don't know if the
> discs' bonding layers have gone bad, or if they're simply not
> compatible with newer players, or what. Affected so far are our
> original copies of the special collector's editions of Apollo 13,
> Psycho, Vertigo and others. We recommend that you check the older
> Universal titles in your own collections for similar problems. Let us
> know if you're encountering this as well."


Has anyone encountered DVD rot yet? Some of us have, and the rest don't
believe that there is such a thing. Having this problem mentioned in the
Digital Bits adds validity to my experience.

Oh great! More disk rot news from Universal. I think that _Apollo 13_ and
.... what was that Jody Foster piece of crap? ... oh yeah, _Contact_, were
among the early Universal rotters.

In a panic, I ran to the shelf, took _The Man Who Knew Too Much_ out of the
player and replaced it with _American Graffiti_. My two year old progressive
scan Sony NS501P seems to have no problem playing _American Graffiti_, which
was one of the first Universal DVDs that I bought in 1999. I don't really
care about the non-anamorphic versions of _Psycho_ and _Vertigo_, because
the new anamorphic versions are in the new Hitchcock Masterpiece collection.
And this collection has also provided backup copy of _Rear Window_.

My collection of rotted disks included these Warner WAMO pressings, which I
have replaced with working copies:

Devil's Advocate (the original release with the sculpture)

Casablanca

My Fair Lady

Cabaret

The Maltese Falcon

http://www.thedigitalbits.com/index.html

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