I Think I Figured Out The Whole Sticky Labels / Playbacck Issue Thing...

[SteyrAUG]

I had a problem with my DVDs during playback and copying to my drive.

I thought the quality of Ricoh DVDs had simply gone downhill. Then I read the "sticky labels" topic and did some experimenting..

I created 2 identical DVDs.

Both played 100% on playback and both copied to my computer hard drive. I then labelled one of them. Both still played 100% on my stand alone DVD player.

I copied the UNLABELLED DVD to my hard drive successfully.

I then attempted to copy the LABELLED DVD to my hard drive and it failed to completely copy.

I then copied the UNLABELLED DVD successfully to my hard without issue.

Clearly the label DID change things. I suspected a heat related issue.

So I shut my computer down for 6 hours. I rebooted and this time I was able to successfully copy the LABELLED DVD to my drive TWICE, a third attempt failed. I then copied the UNLABELLED DVD to my drive three times without incident.

So I think the issue is the labels trapping heat and causing problems in playback on some DVD players. While I never ran into any playback issues on my DVD player my computer seems to be a lot fussier and once things get hot my computer can't seem to do things as simple as copying files.

Hope this helps.

[Capmaster]

It sounds like you pinned it down. Labels mis-balancing the disc and causing read problems is also common.

[Krispy Kritter]

I believe the heat within the pc/standalone softens the adhesive on the labels. The labels then cause the disc to become unbalanced and unreadable.

Of course, this has been a known issue for a long time.

[psx_pirate]

And the cure for this problem .....

Printable disks and a cd/dvd printer ....

The cure is as well known as the problem lol

[rkr1958]

And the cure for this problem .....

Printable disks and a cd/dvd printer ....

The cure is as well known as the problem lol

Or a sharpie.

[MOVIEGEEK]

For the 20 millionth time:
Do not use adhesive labels on optical media,the heat will cause the disc to warp and the data will be unreadable and in extreme
cases could damage the writer.
Just because they sell cigarettes doesn't mean they're safe.

[TooLFooL]

why did we start a new thread for this?

[RabidDog]

too few case studies to draw a general conclusion
Try 10 different computers,dvd players,dvd drives,dvd media

I do think Labels are bad.. probably some combination of heat, thickness and slipperyness. Remember all drives actually clamp the disc in place so shiny/greasy labels might cause slippage.

[Krispy Kritter]

For the 20 millionth time:
Do not use adhesive labels on optical media,the heat will cause the disc to warp and the data will be unreadable and in extreme
cases could damage the writer.
Just because they sell cigarettes doesn't mean they're safe.

I've never had a disc warp from having a label on it. I have/had quite a few with labels on them (from before I knew better). I just remove the label and the disc works just fine.