I read somewhere that DVD's don't last forever but there doesn't seem to be a lot of justice involved.

Pirate rubbish I got ten years ago still plays as good as the day I bought it and an expensive, hard to get set is deteriorating rapidly after three years.

I keep the disks clean without over handling them.

I tend to suspect my player, which is somewhat short of being top of the line.

The picture breaks up into little squares.

Will professional re-polishing do any good? I know a guy with a machine.

Hi,

Yes, a DVD won't last forever... There are many factors such as quality of the disc itself, proper handling, defective players, accidents, act of god, your visitors' kids playing around with your collection, etc...

So why not rip them off and archive them on a USB external drive when they are still new, and burn them again when you need to restore them? A backup tape would last longer than a USB drive, however it's more specialized and not as user friendly as a USB drive, however if you want to keep the movies for a long time then it's maybe a better solution.

Also we need to remember that nothing last forever and sometimes we have to say goodbye to stuff we own...

You've been divorced too have you?

Thanks for that, I've just acquired a new external drive. Any tips on care and maintenance there?

There's a guy in another forum bewailing the 150 movies on his that just flew south for the winter.

One thing I have noticed is the heat really gets to these external drives. I had the power supply go out on one recently. It had a built in fan. I am pretty sure the heat got it. Luckily, it was salvaged, but the new case they put it in does not have a fan. So....I just use it as a backup...never on very long.

I bought another one and it also has a built in fan, but it too is really, really hot. Since that is where I put my movie downloads, it has to be on. I bought a small fan that is always on. Seems to work for now...

Yes, a DVD won't last forever... There are many factors such as quality of the disc itself, proper handling, defective players, accidents, act of god, your visitors' kids playing around with your collection, etc...

And sunlight! The less exposure the better!

Pixelation during playback might as well be a decoder issue. The DVD standard allows various encoding settings, and some players may have troubles with high bit-rates for instance.

If the problems are due to a deteriorated DVD surface, some players might read DVDs better than others.

If you notice problems a backup is surely recommended. Some enthusiasts would make a copy after purchase and never touch the original - of course this is problematic with copyright protected DVDs. Others would not even remove the cellophane packaging from a rare collector's edition

I can believe it, I know people with wine they have no intentions of drinking.

We were promised that CD would last for ever......... It does not.

I have commercial CD's where the top silver coating has rotted and the disc

plays with a popping sound.

I doubt DVD's are any better.

These days I keep all my media on a hard disk, well two actually, for backup.

Easier to carry around and I plug into the WD HDTV player to watch in the TV.

Mind you keeping the original disks in the dark can mean they slowly rot and I do not notice.

Sunlight should only be an issue with recordable CD/DVD.