DVD failure

[khunkeith]

I moved to Thailand 5+ years ago and starting to get I high percentage of DVD's that jsut stop working or freeze in the middle of a movie. I don't have air conditioning in my house and wondering if it's the heat and humidity that's causing the failure. I have between 1500-2000 movies I have purchased over the years in my collection. they are all in the original boxes and vertically arranged on shelves.

I own 2 DVD players and get failure on both.

anyone make any recommendations or suggestions (other than installing central air conditioning)?

a different way to store the movies or, anyway to try and recover them?

thanks

[RichCor]

CD, DVD and BluRay-Discs were originally touted for their durability and longevity, with some saying those that are commercially stamped (rather than 'burned') would easily last for up to 100 years. But some people are saying that recent manufacturing quality is considerably inferior to its successors, which makes recently produced discs more susceptible to damage caused by mishandling and environmental factors.

Oxygen and moisture finding it's way through the laminate and making contact with the aluminum cause the disc to loose reflectivity. The combination of high humidity and increased temperatures will accelerate the oxidation rate. Technically, DVD and Blu-ray disc reflective layer is sandwiched between two polycarbonate substrates that is supposed to make it nearly impossible to scratch or oxidize the fragile reflective recorded surface layer.

Generally, it is best to keep ROM discs in a dry, cool environment. If the disc is removed from a humid, hot environment to an ideal condition before damage has been done, it will "dry out" and should be as playable as if it had been kept in ideal conditions all along. Other contaminates, however, such as inks, solvents, and pollutants, have the potential to irreversibly penetrate and to deform, discolor, or corrode the disc, causing permanent reading problems for the laser.

Check the surfaces for any scratches.

** This information was plagiarized from the following sources:

How Long Can You Store CDs and DVDs and Use Them Again?

Council on Library and Information Resources

How to store your data forever

TECH2.COM

[khunkeith]

no scratches. some DVD's that fail or, lock up partially through a movie look as if they are wet in places but, they are not. Others have tiny black dots. some look like a car when the clear coat is starting to lift off.

maybe taking them out of the original plastic boxes and storing them in a zip up DVD case

[KittenKong]

To protect your significant investment you should buy some external hard drives and rip the content of those disks NOW. (This is fair use copying, not piracy.)

[khunkeith]

good idea. any suggestions on ripping sortware? that will give me a project to keep me busy for quite a while. thanks

Back in my youth, I used to copy albums to tape and keep the albums fresh and new.

[KittenKong]

good idea. any suggestions on ripping sortware?

It rather depends on whether you want to back up the entire disk with menus etc or just the video files (which can include extras and subsidiary tracks like commentaries and trivia/sub-titles).

This page describes a couple of options but there are many others:

http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/how-to/digital-home/how-rip-dvd-windows-pc-mac-3332271/

Personally I use Handbrake and rip to H265 as this gives a good result for a fairly small file size.

You may find that your PC has more success reading your damaged disks than your stand-alone players do.

All my CDs are ripped to FLAC also.

[astral]

Check there are no plastic foam inserts to stop the discs moving in the box

I had a number of commercially stamped cd's that failed

All had the foam in the case

As stated above the life of cd and dvd is not what it was toted to be when first produced

All my video is now on hard disk, with a back up copy, of course.

DVD Platinum Ripper works well

http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/resources/download/

for cd to FLAC conversion

[sometime]

Thanks for starting this topic, I now find myself in the same position as the OP.

I have hundreds of genuine DVDs from the UK, and a huge collection acquired in Thailand.

I read loads of forums dedicated to DVD copy for personal use, and tries lots of suggested free software, they all took far too long.

I was prepared to have a larger file and a fast copy time, so I am using MakeMKV, even to decrypt and copy a 90min film only takes 15min or less, just create a folder for each film.

I am even prepared to purchase the software.

Reads DVD and Blu-ray discs

Reads Blu-ray discs protected with latest versions of AACS and BD+

Preserves all video and audio tracks, including HD audio

Preserves chapters information

Preserves all meta-information (track language, audio type)

Fast conversion - converts as fast as your drive can read data.

No additional software is required for conversion or decryption.

Available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux

Functionality to open DVD discs is free and will always stay free.

All features (including Blu-ray decryption and process

[AlexRRR]

Time to move on, yes its nice to see and be able to touch your DVD or cd, i ripped all my music and DVD's and stored on Hard drives a few years ago now with a back up, yes hard drives can break down.

I play my movies through a media player conceded to my tv with by the way is connected to the internet and gives me a few options which i don't use.

I moved 5 times in 12 years kinda nice now that everything fits into a small bag.

[Chicog]

Has anyone suggested getting one of those CD cleaning kits with the fluffy CD and the solvent spray?

There is an enormous amount of clag in the air in Thailand that may have found its way to your lens.

[sometime]

Has anyone suggested getting one of those CD cleaning kits with the fluffy CD and the solvent spray?

There is an enormous amount of clag in the air in Thailand that may have found its way to your lens.

It’s the DVDs a lot of mine have become pitted, one was even see through, the gold coloured layer had almost gone, what was left was black.

All the DVDs are kept in the plastic box, I am wondering if the black plastic boxes from Thailand are leaching causing oxidation, all my genuine DVDs in clear/opaque plastic are fine

[Chicog]

How do you know, have you seen his DVDs? I say that because environment could be a factor in your case.