What is the disc rot? The greatest bugman physical media explained

Imagine: you spend a quiet evening on Saturday at home, and instead of looking infinitely a broken algorithm to watch one of 12 streaming services, you just go to your shelves to choose DVD, Blu-ray or 4K Ultra HD to view. Perhaps this is a movie you just bought over the past few weeks, and maybe it’s a disk that has been in your collection for many years. In any case, you get snacks, turn off the lights, pour the disk into your player and start looking. You have a ball, delighted with how clear the picture is and how reliable the sound is, and you are so filming that it is almost shocked when 45 minutes into the movie starts to miss. You will try everything – pause and restart, stop and restart, rewrite a little, quickly, throw the disk and wipe it with cloth and so on, but nothing works. The Night of the Cinema is officially spoiled.

How unpleasant it is, it is even more upsetting that this scenario can be not only the usual phenomenon (this happened to me only a couple of weeks ago), but for this it is not really one of the solid explanations. Physical media have The right was the bread for a few years as A great alternative to the streaming environmentIf not for the best reason, it is one of the last other bastions of legitimate property; where may there be broadcasting services and digital purchases (and have) could change or remove without warning, possession of the disk means that your movies or TV shows will always be available always and as you wish. However, physical media also have their shortcomings, and although the biggest problems are storage and cost, the problem of defective disks is perhaps the most disturbing, simply because there is no single reason that is easy to avoid.

However, people crave control and certainty in life, and thus the name of this problem was created: the disc rot. This is a condition that is real enough to have a Wikipedia page that describes the problem as “a CD, DVD or other optical disks to become unreadable with the deterioration of the chemical.” The screen search on the Internet shows dozens of photos of discs that suffer from this condition, with different visible defects obvious. Recently, Joblo Bambra’s editor-in-chief said a number of his old DVDs released by Warner Bros. Home EntertainmentThe problem that the company itself recognized has a merit. Although this is a wide and proven issue, there is a big problem that is still not canceled: namely: this disc-gnille has been god among physical enthusiasts for a long time, and this is not an explanation that we need to produce rampant and reproduction that still send optical disks this day.

As reported by Joblo Piece and several others, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment has released a statement saying that the company “knows about potential problems that affect the selected DVD names made from 2006 to 2008” and that they “actively work with consumers to replace defective discs”. As I said, it would seem to confirm that these discs really suffer from the rot, only this term will not be found in the statement. Of course, this may just be a case of a corporate language that covers all the bases, but I think it speaks of a broader question that there are many different defects with optical discs that neither the consumer nor the manufacturer at this time can appreciate. In other words, while the disc rot may and happens, this is not the only reason that your discs may cause playback problems.

Due to this uncertainty, the problem of rotting the disk has grown in growth from a rare but possible occurrence, essentially a goat of the release among physical media fans. It becomes something used as a wrong diagnosis for different problems, as you can say, they just have a cold, but do not know if they have the flu, or Covid-19, or something else. Although the end result is mostly the same, the reaction of the hands does not cure the disease.

People really can’t blame the use of a disk rot as a shared term for a faulty disk because the causes of a defective disk seemingly fully arbitrary. From my own personal experience, having collected optical media disk for about 25 years, I have encountered many cases that look so that they will not play properly, playing perfectly, and vice versa, if the disk has many playback problems. Sometimes this is a more problem of a player than a disk problem that can be difficult to troubleshoot. There are many physical media fans that will lead poor packaging as another possible sources of faulty products where everything from the disks that fall and knock around the box during delivery to the disks folded to the disks installed in the tight design of the cardboard sleeve. In a statement, WBHE shows that the production defect may become the root cause of this deterioration, these specific issues are now experiencing. This makes the collection an extremely unpleasant collection: even if you are the most conscientious collector, you are not safe from problems that you do not know the true cause and can’t fix.

None of this would be as unpleasant as it was if it was a simple, fastest, stupid way to determine whether the disk in your possession is defective or not. The problem is that there is only one way to be absolutely sure of this, and this is actually watching every material on the disk. Of course, this is a commitment to which no one wants to subscribe to, and they do not need. Even the label do this – jump on the disk, seeing that it is loaded, briefly choosing a movie and every bonus function and passing all different sections – takes a lot of time and eventually unconvincing. Yes, the most broken discs reveal their true colors without much hustle and bustle, but some act perfectly until you have an hour and 20 minutes in a three -hour movie, and then punched.

Again, it can be reduced if you just managed to turn the discs and give them a quick look, but this is another unconvincing method of checking the problems. Only the most extreme cases of rotting disk represent themselves as demonstrating these photos on the Internet, with a clearly perverted and corrosion material. In most cases, your discs will look great for nude eyes, but only show problems when they are located under a very bright and straight light source. In other cases, you can see some unpleasant scratches, color change and other defects, and yet the disk can still reproduce perfectly. In other cases, the disk may not read one of your players, but work great on the other (and it suggests that you are wealthy enough to own multiple drives).

Despite the presence of things such as special fabrics, cleaning sets and other such accessories, consumers simply have no guaranteed method to correct a defective disk. Sometimes rapid wiping will solve the problem, at another time no cleaning will work. In some cases, there may be a question of coding, which is even more beyond the buyer’s control, such as the problem I had with a recent release of boutique, which will not be loaded on a PS5 disc-player (if refused, the manufacturer denied his responsibility, citing policies, so that they could guarantee that their discs would work on “allocated players”). In all cases the only one close to a guaranteed solution for a faulty disk Phases on the market only collectors.

The compilation of the problem of rot of the disk and other production defects is that it would seem that there is no real guilt for this industry. First of all, it is unclear how many optical disk production plants remain in the world, given that the demand for physical media after commanding has decreased from its prosperity due to the rise of the broadcast. People on messages are usually referred to four main objects as prompt: Sony Dadc Austria, Sonopress Germany, Vantiva Mexico and Vantiva Poland. Others of the intended Criterionetc.) Use exclusively Vantiva object in Guadalahari, possibly because Vantiva was Technicolor (By the way, the hereditary company of the film industry). Whether today’s discs are made on one or one of the four objects will it become clear that it is necessary to increase quality control standards.

There is not much hope that it will happen; After all, if this wide rotten disc that affects the DVD WBE provides discs made in the mid -00 years, which was in the golden years of physical media, what treatment can be expected at this current age? Although we cannot do much in what materials are used to make discs these days, we can definitely ask for a reasonable package, with greater care and attention, given the placement of the discs in new issues. Hopefully, this reduces the new 4K UHD or Blu-ray cases that show scratches as soon as you open the case and others are easy to avoid problems. Unfortunately, physical media fans became known loudly and vocalists who take the issue with many aspects of new issues recently (you should see the comments concerning arts and sliding, the Good Lord), so I hope they can put this energy in the area that really needs help.

Because despite all the above problems, physical media remain an absolute way to enjoy movies and television. Not only in terms of picture and sound, but also in terms of a wide variety of variety, with releases, from the dawn of cinema to the present day, from the most incomprehensible indie titles to blockbusters. Most environments are not just fun but also art, and if all art is political, then it is also history. Knowledge of history not just makes art better but also life in general.

Let’s try to get rid of the rot of the disk and all these other issues that will help stop humanity from rot.