Warner Bros FAIL: The Race Against the ROTTING DVD Epidemic

I really get sick of the "but it's on streaming, grandpa" response to physical media. My reply is usually: "And it won't be on there tomorrow, kid, but I'll still have my discs." Big companies have never been interested in archiving anything unless there's profit in it. The BBC famously wiped 20-30 years worth of programming back in the 70s, costing us a lot of classic Dr Who episodes, nearly deleting Monty Python, but succeeding in deleting Spike Milligan's Q Series, which was a comedy show to rival Python. And of course there are unknown numbers of old movies that are just gone now because nobody cared.

What a nightmare. That 2002-2009 window that WB was using the crappy manufacturing facility are probably the peak DVD collecting years for a lot of people.

George Feltenstein is really doing a tremendous job at Warner Archive. He has forgotten more about film and preservation than most of us will ever know.

Thanks for the shoutout! Sorry it’s on such a downer topic. I did a followup video when I tried contacting WB again and they did finally send me MOD copies of what they have in print- but it seems to be totally hit or miss that you actually get a response and then if you do, it’s probably going to be the usual crud I went through the first couple of times of not getting much help. The pandemic kinda threw everything out of whack, which makes sense, but it still did take me several years to get most of the rotted titles I have replaced. The others I just had to rebuy and hope or simply live with dead discs or watch my Laserdisc copies. There needs to be some sort of official recognition and a replacement program offered to at least send people Warner Archive MOD DVDRs in the mail for the rotter titles they have. The problem will be the ones that they don’t have available in print as MOD and others that they no longer have legal rights to. That’s why I’ve never been able to replace the bad disc in my Tarzan volume two set which has not been re-released, is long out of print and very expensive, but also the only video release of those films on any format. So unfortunately, there are examples like that. It’s all tied to the particular manufacturing plant and when this happened Criterion on some of their Blu-rays, they owned up to it and had a whole replacement program. That’s what Warner should’ve done years ago. I’m not sure if it’s the same plant that did all of Warners rotted HD DVDs but it’s very likely. The irony is after being a Laserdisc collector for years and always having people asking me or thinking laser rot was a terrible thing-DVD Rot is the worst disc rot I’ve ever experienced. I can avoid laser rot or find rot free pressings with no problem on particular titles. It’s also very difficult to diagnose DVD rot with these Warner discs because it manifests in different ways-sometimes there’s bronzing, sometimes it’s just a point randomly in the movie itself where you hit a freeze and the disc locks up, sometimes the menus go bad, sometimes the extras go bad, sometimes it’s the movie that went bad, and on double feature that sometimes it’s one film or the other or both. Even doing rips and checks with software doesn’t always get you a perfect back up as I found out the hard way. the only way to know 100% for sure is to go through the whole disc or back up you made and literally fast forward through 100% and then check all the menus and sub menus and extras. When I found my first rotted disc and then the rest of the box was shot, I went back to the random forum mentions I had seen in the past and then did the panic check of over 200 DVDs, which was not fun… thankfully it’s tied to a specific period of time and mostly on boxsets. Unfortunately, for Superman, most of the home video releases and refresh of Superman titles was in the affected period. The biggest offender is probably the big ultimate collectors edition tin set of the feature films, which if you go to it now most of the discs will have some sort of issue if not be completely dead already. And that was already if they hadn’t been scuffed up by the poor plastic disc tray packaging to begin with…🤦🏻‍♂️ I really wish Warner Archive had been put in charge of all the home video releases years ago. The studio label currently makes nothing but boneheaded decisions and handles titles poorly across the board. Meanwhile, the archive division does their job perfectly and does the work the studio division never does on every single title. I’m not sure if the archive division is fully aware of the DVD rot issue, because honestly if George Feltenstein was involved there would have been some sort of official response immediately. He’s the head of the archive division and is a legend in home video going all the way back to the early VHS, Beta and Laserdisc days at MGM. I think the Warner studio division is just trying to ignore this particular issue, and I’m sure the only reason I had a box of MOD copies randomly show up at my door one day unannounced was because I made a video and included the link in the umpteenth letter I sent them with my compiled list of affected titles, and evidence of all the correspondence I had had with people trying to diagnose this issue. I get them not being able to provide replacement copies of titles no longer in print due to legal and other reasons, but there is no reason that they can’t provide people with MOD replacement DVDs for affected titles, which we can pretty much narrow down to a specific era. Or provide people with replacement copies of the version in print that doesn’t have problems. The flash that you showed in the plastic case is a good example because I have that same repress re-issue and all the discs are fine. It’s just the original pressing with the fancier digipack case that you have to worry about. Lastly I’ll say that yes the Rambo films are kind of cursed on home video because most every release of them has some issue. I picked up the German trilogy Blu-ray set because those discs were better encoded and better overall than the crappy US ones, but unfortunately the original audio presentation is quite poor. The UHD’s have color timing issues and also have issues with the original audio so I didn’t bother with those. The Laserdiscs along with the German Blu-ray set are really the only solid options. However, thankfully I can say there is a new 4K version being worked on by the same people behind the surprisingly good new 4K UHD release of Young Guns. Just like they did on that release they’ll be sourcing the PCM audio of the Laserdisc releases to provide the currently best available original audio presentation. So at least there’s some potential hope on that front as they’re also going to be addressing the color timing issues of the first UHDs.

There's a clock on the players too. The bottom line is that no media format had an infinite lifespan.

I have thousands of DVDs. And tons of Warner Bros. This is a f***ing nightmare.

Oh my God, thank you, Michael. My father passed away years ago and he was a movie buff. I inherited his massive DVD collection and I spent a lot of money to display his collection in a way he never got to. I had no idea dvds rotted like this and now I am looking at this list of movies and seeing so many he has, that I have, that I need to preserve. This just isn't a sector of the internet I'm on so if you hadn't made this video I may have never known. Again, thank you.

This gives me a sick feeling in my stomach. I'm terrified to check on my collection

I admit when DVD was on the rise I jumped on it. As you said they opened up a huge library of movies and TV shows that were just not available before. I finally got some 1950s horror movies that I could not find before like Them and When Worlds Colide. Still have them today

One thing I learned recently is that CDs, DVDs and BD/UHD all have their recorded media at a different surface to the others. Depending on the format, damage to either side could make it unplayable, or may not matter at all. The saddest part of disc rot is how unavoidable it might be. If the discs are poorly manufactured, and oxygen gets beneath the plastic layers, it's bye bye disc. You can even replicate the effect by cutting a disc with scissors, at the first puncture the data layer will start becoming visibly corrupted. A pin prick can do it. The bottom line is: be very careful with your discs, even removing and replacing them into packaging. It's also another reason why packaging matters. The tendency of companies to place discs in binder format or with overlapping disc trays is definitely part of the problem.

I was the guy with Laser Disc, wide-screen movies, big screen TV, Dolby Surround Sound with all the speakers & subwoofers. While my friends watched mono VHS on a 19-inch TV. But even now, some Laser Discs and 90s CDs have died. Goo coming out. Aluminum cracking. Haven't had any DVDs or BluRays fail yet. 🤠

Good morning, Mister Phelps... your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to find a Warner Brothers DVD that will last longer than an ice cube in the sun. If you, or any of your IMF team are killed or captured, your DVD warranty will be null and void. This DVD will self destruct in... well... we're actually kind of surprised you are still able to watch this DVD to be honest...

I know exactly where that DVD factory in Pennsylvania is. Knew a few people who used to work there. It's near Scranton. Yes and I know for a fact they were told to cut corners while pressing some of the movies and TV shows.

I had a single pack Blu-ray of Predator that I brought out and discovered had also bronzed/rotted. One quick Amazon search later revealed that people who bought that single pack had the same rot/bronzing. It's such a shame to see what should be collectors editions not holding up to time :(

I didn’t know about dvd rot, but I knew Warner bros double-sided discs were crap, and I noticed that when I bought the Superman The Animated series when they came out and they would glitch right out of the package.

Your advice on ripping is the best message to share. I was a video editor for 15 years, loved collecting physical media but had a change of heart when I moved with my wife and started a family. We didn’t have the space to store physical media but, like a stubborn dope, it took me until then to realize I should have this media ripped on my own… Backed up just like how I backup my work. A RAID is ideal but not necessary, use a battery back up and setup Plex, you’re good to go. Lastly, share, share, share. That’s our protection for all of this media! ✌🏼 from 🇨🇦

Great video. This is one of the many reasons I am really advocating for preservation by any means of media. Whether its the discs, digital back-ups, hard drive copies, etc. More often these companies no longer care about their past libraries and even have corporate big wigs who actively hate the past of the company. Disney and Warner seem to be a prime example.

14:16 The problem with streaming is they can take it all away from you at a moments notice. They already did this to Sony/Playstation users. Things just taken out of their account that they had PURCHASED. They had owned them, they were in their inventory... Poof! Gone! Same with digital only games. Delisted. Poof. Gone. Whether someone loves streaming or not, it needs to be said, we ALL need to support physical media. Not just that, but we all need to support and push companies to give us the best quality of physical media. Heck, this goes into anything. Why is it that refrigerators from the 1950s are still in use to this very day? Water heaters from the 1970s, still working. Vintage cars, still rolling... Yet we have clothing, and devices and machinery that is basically built to break. Apple with their forced obsolescence policies. None of this is okay, or good. It used to be that the mark of quality was you would buy something and it was made to last. As you say, Michael, if you take care of it, it will take care of you.

Having several thousand DVDs, this is exceptionally scary. I appreciate you putting this video out. I'll be checking the list vs my collection soon. Wow. Just Wow.

This calls for a class action lawsuit against Warner brothers