bad DVD sucks...

[Wilykit]

Just found a bad DVD #3. Escape to Witch Mountain which I've had since 2003 isn't playing right anymore. At the part where Tony and Tia escapes and hides in Jason's Winnebago the player skips a lot then jumps forward several minutes, to about the start of chapter 7. I can't start playing chapter 5 or 6 at all. This would be roughly half way in the movie so maybe it's close to where the disc transitions from one layer to second layer?

Dunno if Disney still offers replacement DVD that goes bad with no scratch or obvious sign of problem. I should be glad this isn't rare or overly expensive to replace if Disney doesn't replace anymore.

[Wilykit]

And #4 Return to Witch Mountain. Just won't play at all in DVD player and on my laptop. I got this the same day as Escape to Witch Mountain so there was probably bad glue or something.

[flashandpan007]

"bad glue"?

[Wilykit]

How else do they make dual layer DVD? There have been history of early CD getting ruined after some time and early dual layered DVD going bad. Poor or improper glue application allows air to get in and degrade the fragile data layer, which in turn causes laser to have a hard time reading and skips a lot.

[orsetto]

The glue decay issue primarily applied to the early double-sided (no label) releases: these weren't true Dual Layer discs, but two single-layer discs glued back to back. They had playback surfaces on both sides, so the "label" was limited to a tiny band around the hub (often just the movie title and studio name). Typically, this setup had a 4:3 Pan & Scan version on one side and 16:9 Widescreen on the other. In those days, this clumsy glue sandwich was cheaper than genuine Dual Layer disc production, and Hollywood is nothing if not cheap when it comes to consumer media costs.

The absolute worst, most nightmarish discs from hell were the glued Dual Layer Dual Sided dvds MCA/Universal used for many TV series box sets. These combined the decay risks of a glue sandwich with the staggering unreliability of shaved-down, cheaply-made dual-layer sides. Somehow, the studios justified this Frankenstein hack job as "cheaper to the end consumer" vs doubling the physical disc count in the package. Essentially, they shoehorned the contents of four single-layer discs onto a single defect-plagued combo disc. The most atrocious example of this I've ever encountered was the original "American Gothic" set (which was so bad NetFlix demanded the studio custom-press a single-sided version for their rental system).

Over the years, a few of the TV series that were dismally victimized by this concept were re-released as traditional Dual Layer discs with a normal label on one side, so if you had money to burn you could replace the terrible set with a better one (i.e. MGM's "Outer Limits" set, which went from 90% unplayable to 90% playable after the change). Unfortunately there's no durability guarantee on any Hollywood disc: to this day, one out of four discs in a season set are inevitably riddled with defects. You're better off with the digital download files, if available from iTunes or Amazon.

[redwudz]

Have you inspected the disc carefully? I'm thinking delamination may be visible at the edges.