I've had a few DVDs over the last 20-some years that just erase themselves and nobody seems to know why.
About 20 years ago, I bought a DVD from someone on eBay. It was one that he (or someone he knew, most likely) recorded themselves. It had a very hard to find movie featuring Spike Jones, which was why I wanted it. His band played at least two songs and I don't think I've ever heard them played anywhere before or since. I played the DVD when I first got it and it worked perfectly fine! A few months later, I had the time to record those two songs to hard drive so, I put the DVD back into my computer. It played fine for the first 3 to 5 minutes and then it just died! There was nothing else on the DVD!! On my next attempt a few days/weeks later, I put the DVD in and it was completely blank!!
I asked a computer geek friend of mine that specializes in video to see if he could find anything on it or anything wrong with it. Everything he tried pulled up the same results: the disc was blank!!
As far as I recall, this was the first time I'd ever seen a coloured DVD or CD, instead of being silver, like all the others (bar 1) I've seen, it was blue!! (The other one I saw was green.)
A few months ago, I decided to try to watch all the Warner Brothers cartoons I have in release order. On the boxed set they came in (the 24-disc Golden Collection vols. 1 - 6) they're in a fairly random order. I bought the set about 10 years ago and have seen it at least twice since then. This third time around, one of the DVD's would only play part way through! If I recall correctly, the next time I played it a couple days later, it wouldn't play at all!! The computer told me the disc was blank!!
I didn't erase them and they were NEVER kept near any strong magnetic or electrical devices! So, how could they lose all their information?
I used to have a good memory but now I can't re Member since May 2011 5059 Points Moderator
Magnetic devices are a red-herring. This has laser technology, no longer magnetic tape. The blue or green colour indicates that they are DVDR which means that it is possible to read and write over the original material. As with CDRs this is less reliable and needs transferring to a more stable, more permanent medium. I wonder if it was an error on your computer or software that meant that it wiped it by mistake?
Magnetic devices are a red-herring. This has laser technology, no longer magnetic tape. The blue or green colour indicates that they are DVDR which means that it is possible to read and write over the original material. As with CDRs this is less reliable and needs transferring to a more stable, more permanent medium. I wonder if it was an error on your computer or software that meant that it wiped it by mistake?
All I did was put it in the DVD drive and closer the drawer. It usually starts up by itself. I'm told that, even if you delete a file from your hard drive, it's actually still there and you can do some puter voodoo to get it back. I wonder if that's the case with these DVD's.
The Warner Brothers one was made BY THEM! It was not a copy made by someone else. How could a factory-burned DVD erase itself/
Crates Are For Digging Member since Aug 2012 25237 Points Moderator
Funnily enough this has just happened to my wife, she went to watch "To Sir With Love" which she has watched twice in the past and found the disc has gone blank. This is a genuine Columbia DVD.
Funnily enough this has just happened to my wife, she went to watch "To Sir With Love" which she has watched twice in the past and found the disc has gone blank. This is a genuine Columbia DVD.
So is that cartoon DVD I was talking about. What makes it weirder is that in the boxed set, it was near the middle of the box!! Why would something from the middle go blank but not everything around it, Especially the stuff on the outer ends of the set? It doesn't make sense.
And, I've tried contacting Warner Brothers about similar stuff and they refuse to do anything about it! I bought the 4 Bowery Boys DVD sets they had about 15 years ago and one of them was missing a disc AND a place to even hold it!! They were all sealed when I got them so, it was THEIR fault that I was missing the one disc! I wrote and asked them ONLY for the one missing disc, NOT the entire set it came from (there were 4 discs in each set) but they couldn't be bothered to send me just that one DVD that it was THEIR fault that I didn't have!! I paid for it, I SHOULD own it!! How much could it POSSIBLY cost them to send me a copy, a buck?? They're a multi-billion dollar company and they can't afford a buck??
So many questions, so few answers Member since Nov 2010 877 Points Moderator
The bigger they get the less they want to do, most big companies l try to contact make it almost impossible to contact a human or keep you hanging on for ages then cut you off.
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.
It should be Purple (The darker the better), Blue or Green are DATA Discs, not discs for recording movies on to. They cannot be Finalized, hence you can write over and over again. You must have erased by mistake, (easy to do with these). Some Programs will Format or Erase a Disc before you get to do anything. Sorry you lost the film. What was the film?. I put In my first edition copy of West Side Story. And It won't play, just say's Video Not Supported, and that is on all my machines. Just one of those things. They were not made to last forever (like we all got told when they launched them). Also I feel sorry for all the ones who sold or Tipped all their vinyl In the bin. To go over fully to CD. H.
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.
I've got a couple thousand CDs and have only had two or 3 go bad on me. One or two from CD rot and one from partially being erased by itself. It's only about 20:00 but the last few seconds of the last song won't play anymore after the first time I played it about 8 years ago. On the third play a few months later, a few more seconds was gone.
As far I know, the zones are all American and, in the cartoon box, why would they only make one DVD a different zone?
They're all always stored in their original cases and boxes unless I'm playing them. Even when I switch from one to another, I never leave the one out for than a minute or two, if that. Usually only about :10 or :20.
It should be Purple (The darker the better), Blue or Green are DATA Disc's, not disc's for recording movies on to. They cannot be Finalized, hense you can write over and over again. You must have erased by mistake, (easy to do with these). Some Programs will Format or Erase a Disc before you get to do anything. Sorry you lost the film. What was the film?. I put In my first edition copy of West Side Story. And It won't play, just say's Video Not Supported, and that is on all my machines. Just one of those things. They were not made to last forever (like we all got told when they launched them). Also I feel sorry for all the ones who sold or Tipped all their vinyl In the bin. To go over fully to CD. H.
Might've been purple but I KNOW I didn't delete it.
I don't recall the full title, something about Breakfast. I think it was supposed to be like a t..v. show where old women go to have tea and talk and the host has some bits of entertainment for them and Spike's band did a couple songs. I don't remember the plot. It was almost 20 years ago and I only saw it once before it went POOF!
If you're not lost... It's not an adventure! Member since Jun 2014 3735 Points Moderator
I was wondering about this, as having got tot he stage of having too many DVDs taking up too much space, I was going to keep the discs together in a wallet or something...
...ditch the cases (not in bin, but take to charity shop).
...But having come across a few of these case-less discs in wallets, I want to keep the artwork too.
So my solution is to put discs in paper CD envelopes, and keep them in a plastic sleeve binder with artwork, that way I can keep dozens in the same space as many more in cases would otherwise occupy...
...but if there is a danger of erasure due to proximity with each other, or for some other reason, maybe I should think again?