This sounds similar to an issue a friend of mine had with some early audio CDs that fell victim to "bit rot" where the data on the disc seemed to just disappear and you could see the holes in the foil when you held it up to the light. General thought at the time was either a mixture of how it was stored (too hot, too exposed to sunlight) or a manufacturing defect. I personally have CDs that are well over 30 years old and they look and play fine. Likewise I've never encountered a case of a DVD going blank. I HAVE come across discs that perhaps weren't finalized properly and as a result cannot be read by some players. Another question is whether the disc is playing in the proper region-coded player. Especially on computer-based drives it's possible for a non-Region 1 (North America) DVD to play because the software automatically changes, but only the first or second time, then it locks. No idea if that's the case here.