Strange problem playing one Disney video

[impmon2]

I have around 1500 DVD and BD in my collection and I would say around 90% of them are region 1 or A. Today for the first time I ran into unusual issue with one Disney video. Aladdin (1992 animated) would not play. It complains that it can only be played in Region 1 player. Tried it on my parent's DVD player, a cheap Apex junk. No go either.

I tried other DVDs I have including Aladdin 2, they all play fine. It is only the first one. When I tried on my computer, DVD software also reports problem playing it and when I forced it through VLC, it just displayed blank screen and a lot of disc activity like it's having trouble reading the start of the menu, warning screens, or trailers that clutters the beginning of all DVDs. I have just ripped it (4 frickin' hours? 16x DVD-ROM means diddly squat) and it played fine off my hard drive.

So what can cause 10-year old DVD that is labeled region 1 to be "locked" out of region 1 player yet video plays fine when ripped? These are about $30 to replace from used sources as Disney hasn't reissued it for a while. (they are planned for October release ) I have just contacted Disney about this, I don't expect to hear back until Monday at the soonest. Dunno if I have to send the bad disc back or not but I probably keep the case per Disney's instruction so I will probably sell the empty case on eBay as replacement for someone else who has good disc but bad case.

This is not the first time I've had DVD not work anymore. Some years ago Disney's The Rescuers wouldn't play anywhere at all and wouldn't rip. Disney sent me a new one free. I also had The Last Starfighter be completely unplayable after half way through movie like a dual layer DVD that lost the second layer. I just got a new one locally for $5 They were all never handled by little kids, no scratch or rough handling, never left in hot car or anything bad. They seems to just suddenly go bad with no warning and no obvious sign of damage.

Still 3 problem DVD in 17 years, out of lifetime total of around 2,000 (sold dupes when I got "enhanced" version or BD version, or when movie sucked) is freaking low failure rate.

[october262]

reading a dvd and ripping a dvd are two completely different things. have you tried cleaning the disc??
it may be deterioration of the media

[impmon2]

Disc is clean enough for me to eat off of it. No smudge, no dirt, no finger print, still not playing. I'm wondering if the data that holds the disc security feature like the region encoding is damaged somehow and causing odd problem? Ripping ignores security feature.

[october262]

look at the dvd in a well lit room / under a bright light and see if there are any hairline cracks in the center of the disc.

[impmon2]

I tried under very bright light, and when I had the disc at certain angle, there's very bright reflected line from the center hub. Looks like a few lines so I guess the hub has cracked?

No word from Disney, they are probably still catching up to backlog of weekend DVD replacement requests.