Is Disc Rot Killing Your DVD Collection?

I posted a video introducing myself and my idea for this store I'm opening, called Razzle Dazzle Music of Movies. This video has received a lot of support and I'm super grateful for that... save for one critique which popped up throughout the comments, contending that DVDs' and CDs' long term stability and sustainability is at risk because of something called "disc rot." So am I in trouble? Are all of us physical media fans doomed? Did I just make an all time bad bet and put my future at risk?

Well, slow down, slow down, slow down. Before jumping to conclusions, we should probably talk about what disc rot actually is. So what is it then? Well, relating to CDs and DVDs - which are by far and away the items I'll be stocking most of in the shop - disc rot is a deterioration of the disc's layers, over time, causing them to become unreadable.

Okay, so, discs stop working by themselves then? Yeah, but also no. Disc rot typically occurs due to exposure to light, heat, humidity or chemical contaminants. That said, some discs were just made shittily. (Like, "shittily" is a word, right?) Well, there are runs from the mid to late 2000s from studios like Warner that really did shittily produce some DVDs. But for the most part, you're not gonna have to worry about that when it comes to CDs or DVDs. They're pretty stable.

I mean, anecdotally, in that big-ass pile of discs behind me in that first video I mentioned I encountered one or two discs that needed to be tossed because of disc rot. That ain't bad. And as @nerdpiece notes in his own TikTok on the subject, Blu-rays are actually the technology far more at risk of disc rot due to how those discs are manufactured. Please, please, please go watch their video as it's really illuminating. And it speaks to how DVDs aren't just a piece of plastic, but a series of layers. There's a bunch of needless details and yada, yada, yada, yadas I'll skip over here; instead, I'll just say that if discs start to show visual signs of deterioration, discoloration, speckling, or cloudy areas, and functional problems like audio skipping or complete unplayability - that might be a sign that your disc has been subject to disc rotting. Go watch their video for more details.

But further, I just want to point out that disc rot isn't the problem I experience every single day that negatively affects the health of CDs and DVDs; not nearly as much as scratching and mishandling does. Some discs do appear to have disc rot, but in fact, they're dealing with a surface issue caused by people treating them like trash. Considering most of this stuff has been exiled to basements or thrift stores or your grandma's attic, though, that would make complete sense. (And while we're on the subject, quick shout out to the Gladys' Janis' Carols and Beatrice's of the world, thank you for keeping the world's VHS collections alive for the next generation.) But to claim that DVDs and CDs are an inherently faulty medium because they're not indestructible is kind of like saying vinyl records are a waste of time and money because of that one time I left a copy of 9 to 5 baking in the backseat of my Volvo on a hot day and the damn thing warped on me. See, it matters how you take care of the things you're investing in.

There are discs that are trash. They have either rotted, which, again, in my own personal experience has been super rare, or they've been mistreated, which I come across far far far far more frequently. At their worst, when you hold a DVD or CD up to a light source and can see spots through it, that thing is cooked. It's missing data, which there is no coming back from. But many abused and mishandled discs aren't damaged to a point of no return. And this is one of the areas I really want to impress upon you as being something I care about, and I hope becomes clear when visiting the shop when it opens in December.

Not only will each disc in the store be individually inspected, but I'm swapping out stick-ridden, sticky, cracked, and beat-down cases on top of making sure that there is, at most, a small amount of visible wear on the discs themselves. Now, you've been to a thrift store. You've seen how messed up this are. How am I going to do this? Well... I have an industrial resurface for doing all the dirty work: resurfacing discs and making what was once beautiful, beautiful again. The point is, I want to provide the best experience I can for anyone who's able to stop by the shop. If you've made it this far, thank you for reading to the end, and if you're in Eastern Iowa, I hope you can swing by and check out the store in person when Razzle Dazzle Musica movies opens in Lindale Mall this December.