hi Serifiot

I'm no expert on this, but have covered some issues from my past in the film/muisc industry.

Ok there have been on certain discs & some will say that the common CDr is very easily subject to 'disc rot'. Now on some discs this appears as a bronz'ish' sheen over the playing surface of the disc & causes the information to distort & eventually become unseless.

There were some very bad examples in the 12 inch laser disc market & this format has suffered to the point where the actual disc becomes a complete snow storm.

It was caused by the 'glue ' that was used to attach the alloy to the in plastic disc.

Now in the cd world there have been a number of cases where the cd has 'rotted' or started to 'bronze' & this is often on a run or batch of discs & then others of the same title are not effected.

It has occurred when the disc has some kind of attched label to the front of the playing surface. But this is not always the case, as some examples I have had to deal with were just standard discs even with out a title printed on them, just an industry copyright.

A lot of the time it is a manufacture defect that the industry as a whole really does not want to own up as something that exists as no doubt it would cause a mass of people wanting free discs or even refunds & to be fair to the music industry, it has never been 100% proved what are the actual causes. Just as a new car can be full of faults so can a cd or dvd, they are just a mass produced product & subject to the same rigours & problems as anything mass produced in the consumer market.

The first mass produced cd was Dire Straits Brothers in Arms & I have a copy from the very first batch 'hot off the press' & that was in 1981 (if I remember correctly) & it plays as well now as it did then.
But I did have a US pressed Phantom Menace The complete recording & that bronzed & did in fact become useless? I since got a European pressing & had no problems, BUT my friend bought his at exactly the same time as I did & from the same store Tower Records in Westwood LA & his is perfect to this day? See there is no rhyme or reason to why some fail & some don't.

There have been reports that you need to keep cds in a constant temperature or that they should not be stacked in a certain way, all kinds of 'tales woes' but consdier this, the average cd is pressed, stacked in a box & shipped out via a truck & then stacked in a ware house, then a shop/store front & then finally to a car & to your home & played in machines that get hotter the longer they are kept on!. All that change & movement, so I am not of the school of belief that they need to be kept 1 way or another. Like so me many things they need to be kept at some kind of constant, but what the actual degrees are, who knows.

The whole Cdr scare I often think is an industry led campaign to stop down loading & pirates, 'don't buy a cdr copy it will not play after 5 years' is often banded about. Well folks I have cdr & cdr recordable cds from Japan/USA/Canada/Europe & Africa from as far back as 1984 & they all play just fine, without any problem. But I am not saying there are some out there that have not had problems.

I think the whole truth is no one really knows & the whole cd industry is still too new to actaully know what will happen to cds eventually.

What I try to do is listen to all my cds (& boy does it get a bigger task as the years go by) at least once a year, we all have our favourites, mine is Banderlero, just love it & play it at least once a week, but I try to get through as many cds as I can a day & if I think something is wrong I give it a better listen & maybe make a personal copy to keep the music. But to date I have had just the 1 cd The Phantom Menace which was a problem & I own well in excess of 1000 sound tracks & popular music.

But as I say it's all too new for anyone to really have a definitive answer.

Enjoy the music & just take care of your cd collection as I'm sure you do & you will have no problems or very few anyway.

andrew





ajbjmdb, February 7, 2006; 2:07 AM

...Thanks for the encouraging response. For a brief moment disastrous thoughts crossed my mind as I pictured myself waking up to a beautiful and glorious morning and noticing that all my beloved music has been eaten away by '''disc rot'''. Anyway, I have to sign off for now as I desperetaly need sleep. I hope I do not have any nightmares of the '''disc rot ''' monster!...

serifiot, February 7, 2006; 2:35 AM

Well put Andrew.
I myself own a bunch of 12" LaserDiscs, and I think it was at that time this whole "laser rot" thing surfaced. A legend to some, a scientific fact to others. To this day, I have yet to see a rotted disc...
Same with CD's - never encountered a rotting disc. I personally believe that the laser rot legend is nothing to worry about. Sure, there always will be faulty discs, but I'm sure there is no straight answer as to why they become faulty.

One thing though, CD-R's DO in fact become useless after a certain time/amount of play time. That is certainly no fairy tale. Especially when you play these discs in your car stereo (which is in fact a cheap CD-ROM player), they get damaged quickly (dunno why that is). Still, in this case it is hardly noticable on the disc surface. I have yet to buy a brand that makes consumer CD-R's which last as long as a pressed CD.

rinse_dream, February 7, 2006; 2:55 AM

Hello Serifiot,

I have to agree with rinse dream on the laserdisc point (I too own quite a few of these movies that suddenly seem to take place during heavy winter snow). Also, CDRs really *do* have a much shorter life span than factory pressed CDs. Many of the first CDRs I burned (in 98 or so, I think) are dead now. I don't know if it's the CD burner's fault or the brand of CDR's. I guess both do their part.

As for "disc rot" on CDs, that is also the sad truth. I can't really say what makes it happen, but there is a company called "PDO" that presses CDs in England. Most of the CDs they pressed during the early 90's are subject to rot. I own about 10 - 15 CDs that have this "rotting" bronze problem. BUT, it doesn't affect playing yet. The rot is reported to start on the last track and work itself towards the beginning. I sure do hope my CDs don't do this. Many, many OOP titles and limited editions among them... AAAh, nightmare indeed!!!

Best,
Burnie


blinddoc, February 7, 2006; 3:51 AM

A specific problem was reported on certain titles from the British Unicorn label from the late
80s-early 90s. One of the titles, the 3-CD set of Bernard Herrmann's "Wuthering Heights"
opera, is sitting here, suffering from some serious bronzing; however, it plays fine, so far.
Some reports blame the bronzing on the reaction of an inferior plastic to the paper of the
CD booklet. Claims are that the bronzing in this case would not happen if the booklet is kept
outside the jewel case.

Here's an extended forum piece on the Unicorn topic from the Bernard Herrmann fan site:
http://herrmann.uib.no/talking/view.cgi?forum=thGeneral&topic=1928


I've also noticed some bronzing on some mid-80s classicla CDs from the Hyperion label.
Nothing in my collection that's reaching its 20th year that is from the U.S., i.e. Varese,
seems to suffer from this.

glenngarv, February 7, 2006; 4:19 AM

Hello,

On the John Scott web page they mention this very problem (Cd's turning Brown). They said that Some of their disc's that were made at the PDO company in England have this problem.If this happens with one of your Jos cd's then you can send the disc infromation to PDO and they will repalce your disc for free. My jos cd of "William the Conqeror" had this problem and they sent me a replacement in about three weeks.


Best Regards,
David Phoenix, AZ.

deg63iami, February 7, 2006; 8:28 AM

Hello! When I collected LaserDiscs some years ago, I had heard of the disc-rot phenomenon. Apparently it's when the two layers of plastic that encase the actual thin metal disc are not sealed properly at the factory. Over time, air gets in and creates a mass of 'bubbles' on the surface of the disc, which has a disastrous effect on the metal. I've had it happen to two LaserDiscs and even a CD single!

satanbug69, February 7, 2006; 6:56 PM

I have at least 2 laserdiscs with discrot. Grease and Battlestar Galactica Cylon Attack (The 2 parter with Lloyd Bridges as Caommander Kane). Also there are known issues with the original cd recording of Willow, I think PDO may have pressed them as well.

ragar01, March 24, 2006; 3:40 AM

The question with Willow is within the lasedisc issue from 1995.

I owned this on Laserdisc and the laserdisc was subject to "Laser-Rot". Just poorly maufactured but was a fantastic transfer that equalled the DVD!

fuzzbox77, June 8, 2007; 3:12 PM