I have not had a single CD, DVD, or blu-ray fall victim to disc rot in over 31 years of physical media collecting.

The oldest CD I have is 34 years old and it still looks perfect and plays perfectly.

"Disc rot" is caused by minerals in the water used to clean the information layer before the final layer is added, when it rusts it affects the laser reading. I worked at a disc plant in the 90's and they had a machine the size of a truck that did nothing but wash discs with purified water. Rot is still a problem but not the major problem it used to be, mainly from foreign manufacturers

Never had a disc rot on me, in fact until now I've never heard of this.

I’m more concerned with ME rotting away in 30 years than my BluRays.

STORE in a cool dry place. Like a mummy in a tomb. Preservation.

The number one fear of physical media collectors 😱

I've been a physical media movie and tv collector for over 26 years since I was 13, I've collected various formats through the years and have never experienced disc rot, never knew it was a thing till now.

Im a retro video game collector and the ps2 is my absolute favorite piece of hardware. I buy the original format of the games even though they’re free and easy to emulate; because I treasure the experience and physicality. I did begin to worry about disc rot after buying more rare games. This video help me stay confident in collecting.

I’m a devout dvd collector and this has always been my fear. I even check all my discs regularly for any signs of damage

I’ve had a few old DVDs get bad disc rot, but likely because they weren’t taken care of (before I became a collector) and was probably because of exposure to 110°+ Arizona heat while we moved

I've been buying DVD's and Blu Rays for about two decades now, and I've only had one disc that entire time that MIGHT have been disc rot. If you take care of them, they should be good for a very long time.

Great video. Just a note: there have been articles and forum discussions about the imminent death of laserdiscs for 20+ years. There was even a high-profile, hysterical article calling laser rot “a tragedy.” It’s 2021 and the laserdiscs are fine-almost all of them! They’re fine! I started collecting them a few years ago (like a vulture, I waited until the world had completely forgotten the retro-futuristic media format I always lusted after as a kid-I’ve bought a ton of discs for a dollar each that have ancient $30 price tags on the wrap). Even discs that were clearly stored carelessly and shipped to me in crates without bubble wrap... are all fine. People worry too much. Like the man said: don’t leave your discs out in 100 degree heat in a swamp or freezing temperatures in the Arctic tundra, and you’ll be okay.

Warner Bros HD-DVD discs are notorious for this. I’ve got about a dozen in my collection that are unplayable now. This is unique though, most people don’t even know what HD-DVD was much less collect them like me.

My father chose to store his music collection in binder-style cd cases with cloth sleeves back in the 90s. After sitting in them for 20+ years, all 200 of his cds now have mild "oxidization" or cloudiness somewhere within the cds' layers. The cds still work but they don't look as good as cds that have been kept in jewel cases their entire lives. Now I'm transferring them back to jewel cases to hopefully halt the oxidization.

I have only seen rot in my Laserdiscs...fairly frequently even. Some of my oldest DVDs are from the mid-late '90s, and none of them have any rot and I have cds from the '80s that are all fine too.

I have found this really has only ever affected my discs that are cheaply made. Mostly cdrs. A couple of my laserdiscs as well. Heat is a major enemy of physical media! Of my 10,000 plus discs across all media, less than a dozen have died from media rot. I have CDs from the 80’s that are still perfect. Those dozen or so discs, at least half were cheap cdrs. So out of 9500 factory replicated discs, only about 5 or 6 were bad.

I have DVDs and PS1 games that are over 20 years old that still work today. I even have 30+ year old records that still work today. Blu rays are much more durable as far as disc decay goes. Newer discs probably have a lifespan of 40-50 years. If it can last that long I'm good lol.

I’ve seen how badly some people treat their discs. You see scratches and fingerprints. That’s why I don’t lend my discs to anyone.Fortunately there are streaming services.

In over 20+ years of collecting discs, I’ve only had 1 cd and 1 dvd exhibit signs of disc rot.

fun fact: there's this record disc called m-disc that claim that they last a thousand years

I work in medical imaging and one place I worked at in the early 2000s archived their images on DVD-Rs. We had a significant number of them become unreadable after seven or eight years. Having said that commercially made DVDs and Blu-Rays use a totally different method of "burning" the data on the media, and are much more stable than DVD-R media. I have personally never commercially made CD, DVD, or Blu-Ray disk go bad.

I have a Fleetwood Mac CD of 1988 and it still works perfectly.

so when i lived in texas, my family put my DVD collection in the attic where heat was really bad... i got that collection back and well... most of it works except for one box set of Aqua teen hunger force :< buuuuttt my blurays have been fine, it takes while for them to rot.

I take steps to make sure that problem doesn’t happen

I know this exists, but I haven't had this happen at all, in 30 years of collecting CDs, DVDs, and Blu Rays. But,i have always stored them well.

At 47 minutes this video had 1.2k views, that's over 25.5 views every minute and 1 view every 2 seconds if I did my math correctly. Jeff, your channel is kicking ass and I'm so happy to see it :)

I just discovered your channel. I really appreciate the video. I'm a movie collector but I don't have a large collection. It's nice to know how to take some precautions to discourage disc rot. Keep up the great work on your videos.

Disc rot is a serious problem with laser discs. As for CDs-DVDs, I have the feeling that the older ones get along better with it than the newer and cheaper made ones. the best thing you can do is to store them in a cool dry & dark environment ( and make some safety koppies )

Hi thank you very much for taking the time to make this video it was very useful and informative!

Disc rot exists on Warner Bros HD DVD’s.

I'm 45 years old and 99% of my optical media has survived since the early nineties. I definitely consider low humidity to be a factor.

I melted some CD's in my car one time. Luckily, they were just CD-R's, so nothing was really lost. I did learn that direct sunlight does destroy 'em.

All of my cds are fine, including the first ones I bought in 1984. Store and handle properly...no high heat , water humidity, and keep them in plastic (not paper) cases...and don't loan them to anyone.

I’ve got one blu ray that’s rotting presumably due to faulty manufacturing. I’ve never had a CD or DVD rot. I’ve got quite a few cds from the 80s and they play perfectly even with scratches. Scratches in a CD aren’t nearly as bad as scratches on dvds.

Thanks for making a video on this! I live in a very dry area and have been collecting discs since 1994. Absolutely no disc rot yet.

I've seen couple of bootleg discs that have this issue would happen to it! My oldest blu-ray is from 2007, and still works perfectly!

Great information!! I am still an avid physical media collector. Thanks again!!

Excellent video. Thank you. I heard about discs deteriorating way back in the '90s that worried me. I have CD's that are over 30 years old and DVDs that are over 20 years old and none of them have any deterioration. Let alone rot that renders them unplayable. It's not something I give much, if any, thought to. Your comments regarding media device obsolescence, on the other hand, is something I've thought about many times and it does cause me concern.

I have a CD collection I started 30 years ago, DVD collection I started 20 years ago, the first Playstation discs, Blu-Rays. And I've never even heard of this issue.

The only disc rot I've experienced has been from burned discs in the early days of CD-Rs and some low quality bootlegs that turned bronze (still played). It can certainly happen but as long as you take care of your discs and there isn't a manufacturing problem, there isn't much to worry about much like the video discusses.

The only disc I’ve ever had that stopped playing at a certain point is my inception blu ray it had 0 scratches that I could see so I just replaced it by getting a used copy.

I have DVDs that are 24 years old and look as new now as when I bought them. As long as they’re kept in room temperature you have nothing to worry about.

Thanks for the reassurance Jeff. Much appreciated 👍🙏

True! I'm more worried about the availability of the necessary hardware to play the various physical media and how to get replacement parts for them. What I'm most worried about however that negates all those worries is how shortlived digital media and streaming services can be and how for example even singleplayer games today can't be played in 10 years from now because the servers/service they run on might be shut down and movies and series can be removed because of licensing issues or stupid things like cancel culture. I try to limit my collection of physical media because it will get harder and harder to actually use and play them over time. But the things I really enjoy and care for I must have physical. I don't trust digital media and how it is currently run.

I’ve never once worried about disc rot. I’ve also never experienced it in 30 years. It doesn’t seem that common to me.

I used to burn thousands of DVDs, and disc rot was a concern because the layers that are burned are chemicals. Retail Blu-rays and DVDs are pressed like you said. You don't have to worry about the chemicals breaking down due to age, light, normal heat, etc. It really depends on how the manufacturers make them. You expect them to be hermetically sealed, but you still shouldn't wash them. Only a little alcohol (not dry wipe cloths which scratch the plastic surface).

Funny thing, I just experienced this recently. I bought 3 seasons of the tv show "Just shoot me", watched the discs once at time of purchase like 8 years ago and they've been sitting on my book shelf ever since. Away from sun, air conditioned. Well, I decided to revisit them recently and to my surprise I pull out discs one and two of season 1 and they both look screwed up. Like not scratches, but like the silver ink of the disc is all swirly and weird. Season 3 also had a disc that looks like it's getting hazy splotches. Anybody else experience this? I think it was shoddy manufacturing. Or can maybe unwiped fingerprints cause mold or deterioration after years?

My wife and I have been media hoarders since CDs in the mid 80’s. We collect records, CDs, DVD and Bluray including 4K. I have never lost a single disc to rot. I have seen it though, having been thru a million flea mkt and yard sale trips. I’d say about 50% were purchased new, the rest on the secondary market. At this point we have an 11 room house and let me warn everyone, managing a huge collection, well just be careful what you wish for lol. It can take over your house, and your life if you let it. On the flip side of that coin I’ll say I’ve been isolating at home since the virus hit and there are times I feel like a genius, because if I didn’t have my collection to occupy me all this time, I would have gone crazy. I can say we aren’t just hoarders, we truly love physical media and use it every single day. Starting to feel like it wouldn’t be a dumb idea to purchase a few high end players to store away for the future. I have some decent equipment, but the transports and lasers I hear can get scarce years after a model goes out of production. I think right now it’s more a problem with higher end gear by smaller companies that come and go. I’m a worrier, wish I wasn’t. Great video, I agree with everything you said. I’m not concerned about the rot at all. I was aware of it, and I have passed on many second hand CDs that I shopped in person because of it, or being what I call “cheese grated” where it looks like somebody purposely put the underside of the disc on asphalt and just went to town on it. CDs and DVDs are delicate. Even more so than records. I say if you love physical media, let your freak flag fly. A final warning... Do NOT recommend the huge binder books that hold discs. Seems like a wonderful idea, but it wasn’t for me. I’m in the process of making a dedicated movie room, I had 10 of the huge books, just for things I didn’t use much. I also saved every insert card/ title card in a box like 20+ pounds of title cards. I just bought a huge amount of new cases so I could put them back together to display. Even though every book was labeled as a stand alone genre, that was of little help. It was a complete nightmare matching discs to their cards and putting them back together to display now that we have a larger house. Nightmare, complete utter nightmare. I’d rather be raped by Bigfoot then do that again. Those books suck. We did it out of necessity at the time living in a smaller house. Never ever again. I don’t know anyone that ever wants to flip thru those books looking for something to watch. Physical media collections in excess of 10,000 discs are not a lot of fun managing. Yet, mine is still growing because I can’t stop. Truly a curse and a blessing. Take care!

Thank you for this important information you and I have large collections and I have discs from years back and don't want to loose any of them. Stay safe.

Nice going Jeff. Very informative as always. I agree nothing to worry about unless u don’t take care of ur discs.

Good stuff! I'm not sure if I got disc rot here, but my cherished Looney Tunes Golden Set has issues with Disc 1 now. In that it immediately plays the 3rd to 6th cartoons when I insert the disc. If I hit the Menu button, it does go to menu then. But selecting say the 1st cartoon, or any of the extra features - it just spins idle for like a minute, then starts playing the 3rd cartoon again? The disc appears fine under the light, with no visible scratches or discoloring. I even gave it a gentle cleaning with light soap and water, and still acts the same on my numerous players? Any ideas what might be the cause of this? The set must be getting near 20 years old now, and had certainly played fine for the majority of those years. can one 'overplay' a optical disc? We're talking lasers and liquids here still with these discs, so they must suffer a bit when getting played repeatedly? Maybe not as bad as a stylus and vinyl. But centrifugal force, lasers, heat as they play must loosen things up a bit...?

My DVD copy of the grim adventures of Billy and Mandy and zathura both fell victims to disc rot for no apparent reason and good luck trying to find Billy and Mandy now it's over $100 for that set

I’ve been collecting movies on DVD since they first launched about 20 years ago and I have well over 1000 movies across DVD Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray, I have only experienced one DVD not working correctly anymore. The odds of this happening Are ridiculously low

I’ve only had two instances of disc rot in over twenty years of collecting movies on disc. One was a public domain copy of a Flash Gorden serial from a small company. The second was Steven King’s The Stand on DVD for some reason messed up after several years. We used to have a lot more problems with rot when music CDs first came out back in the eighties. Love the channel Jeff.

Great video! Love your channel. My own discs of various formats have been absolutely fine. I also recently was gifted old AOL and old computer CDs from the early to late 90s that were kept in a garage since they were obtained. They were all still in their protective sleeves and or cases and still all in perfect condition. Keep your discs in their case or a case of some kind and you will MOSTLY be fine.

Member the days of VHS tapes when people put them on their car’s dash and they would just warp and bend in all kinds of funky ways.

I have 400 laserdisc’s from the ‘90’s. They cost $29 to $129. Way over 90% have rot. I stored them in the house, in custom shelves, on their edge, disc’s have envelopes, jackets have envelopes. It’s now a useless collection. My huge collection of CD’s (1500) , DVD’s (3000) and Blu-rays (couple hundred) have no issues at all. Rot sucks.

Didn’t know that disc’s rot, since I’ve never seen this on any of my dvds

I have movies since the 70s & still collecting

if I was rich , I'd just buy 5 bluray players as backups and hope they last for 10+ years.

I’ve seen this before. It usually happens with games that are left in the elements in a garage, flea market or basement. It’s just moisture getting between the layers of the disc and peeling them up

I have CDs that I bought in the 1980s that are still perfectly fine. Just take care of your stuff, and it'll be fine.

All my dad’s CDs from 30 years ago still work fine. Disc rot is supposedly much more rare for new formats including blu rays and 4K blu rays because of better manufacturing techniques.

Only times I have encountered any forms of "Disc Rot" has been with used media discs I came across that had been improperly stored and or handled. Mostly it has been CD and DVD media discs that had been exposed to either or both high temperatures or direct sunlight. A friend of mine at turn of the century literally stored his DVDs in the trunk of his car, and I recall him having issues with some them turning dark colors and becoming unreadable, this for the very reasons provided in your excellent video.

The one format that I've the most problem with is HD DVDs - about 4 out of 80 in my collection. Although having a clean surface & no scratches, they would hang-up or skip. And, yes, I do clean the player's lens. I've had 2 blu ray discs out of approximately 400 not work at all. Of my 300 DVDs (some 20 yrs old) not a single one has given me issues. Is it because of rot or some other issue (firmware/software)?

Since day 1, I have always kept discs away from windows and areas like near the bathroom or a kitchen for example, keeping it away from moisture is key to its longevity

Thanks for the video, this is something I’ve been thinking about when I found out about this topic. Is disc rot harmful for human health? Do I need to wear gloves to dispose the discs?

Thanks for the video!

The very first DVD I bought over twenty years ago still plays fine. Even the first CD I bought thirty-five years ago still sounds great. The only issue I've had with disc rot is with recordable media, especially with burned CDs that were left in the car.

Your video hits on what i've always thought.The biggest threat is if Bluray/Dvd players are phased out over worries of rotting.

Thanks for the advice. I'll make sure to store my cds better.

Very sensible video...👌🏼💯✔ Just make sure to take care of your stuff and things will holdup and maintain...👍🏼

I stored my cd wallet in a greenhouse for a week when i became homeless and every single copied disc started to peel and flake away with a type of mould growing inbetween the layers 😢

Only had one disc ever get disc rot. An was in a TV show set that I bought on ebay.

I live in the upper midwest, about 70 miles west of Chicago ..... our winters are unbelievably, bitterly cold and dry (wind chills of -35 in January) .... and our summers are horribly hot and hella-humid; for instance, today is July 27, and it's going to get up to about 96 degrees today, with very High humidity. My point is that we have horrible heat and humidity, in summer, and I have been collecting (and, therefore, storing) CDs for 34 years, now, and I've never had a CD with disc rot. Ever. Most of my music CDs are stored inside large, closed plastic tubs, as I have cats, and .... as I say, I've never experienced disc rot .... if anyone cares lol

I’ve got 35 year old CD’s which are all perfect like you say as long they are stored sensibly no issues 👍🏻

hi i am a audio cd collecter which is the best way to store the cd's ? in the jewel box or in the cd wallet?

I knew I wouldn't regret keeping all my stuff at room temperature 24/7/365. Heated storage units are expensive but worth it.

Just moved into new home. I have no room for the 500 physical media movies. Can I store them in my garage? Its been in 30* these last few weeks inside garage and teens outside. Im sure it will be hot during summer. Will I have to store them in boxes?

I worked for HMV records. We rarely had returns for this but it did happen a few times even if the title was fairly new. Back in the day, there were (Toll-free) 1-800 numbers from the manufacturer for quality control if there were issues. However, we were loose on the return policy and usually exchanged it for the customers. With time, we had fewer and fewer issues. ( PS , HMV is no more in the US .)

Yeah I have a copy of it's a wonderful life that I bought about over 20 years ago. I watched it last Christmas it's still fine. Never encountered this problem but still thank you very much alerting me of this problem. I'll keep this in mind and keep my eye out

Great video Jeff. Disc rot is the oxidation of the disc's silver data layer. It was a big issue for the Laser Disc format (laser rot). It greatly affected Laser Discs manufactured in Mexico, presumably due to the humid salty environment, while discs pressed in the US and Japan especially had fewer instances of laser rot. Discs released by Columbia/Tri-Star Home video had a higher rate of rot (manufactured in Mexico) but technically discs by any studio or manufacturer could be affected, even brand new shrink wrapped discs. I remember holding my breath while spinning up a new disc side waiting to see whether I would be rewarded with a pristine image or an image covered with the dreaded white or colored speckling resulting from laser rot (there were rarely any visible signs of rot on the discs themselves). Laser Disc was an analog video format and the discs were much larger (12" platters), so the chances of manufacturing issues was much greater when compared with the smaller 5" platters of subsequent digital discs. Digital disc players (CD/DVD/BluRay/UltraHD) all include error correction so they are to a certain extent able to recover from errors introduced by manufacturing defects and disc rot.... there are of course limits, heavily damaged discs will be unplayable.

I've got CDs from 1983 that still play

if you see signs of disc rot (in my case i can kinda see the band logo from behind the disc when i put it in front of a light and an almost curved rectangle shaped stain which is slightly lighter color the disc itself) can the rotting stop and no longer progress if u take good care of it? or is it like, once you see signs its too late.

Love that new intro bro

Good video and great information

Cleaning up my game collection tonight. When I open my Rogue Galaxy copy for PS2, and turned the disc, I saw smudge marks on the outer circle of disc and scratch-like stains in the innermost circle. Instantly, disc rot came to my mind. I bought the game few years ago as sealed, I opened it but never put in the console. So I put it, just to make sure it's playing and shockingly, it did not. I was devastated and put the game away from my collection and deleted it from my game collection excel list. But it bugged me, does disc rot really looked like this? So I searched online, how to clean up PS2 discs, and I stumbled a WikiHow article, it said spray the disc with a deodorant and clean it up with lintless fabric immediately - but with a fair warning that depends on what deodorant you use, it may render your disc unplayable ever again. So I sprayed deodorant to my disc, and clean it up with a glass cleaner fabric-thinking the game does not play, what could I even lose? Disc cleaned up, shiny as a glass. Put the game on my console and voila! It plays perfectly. I started to watch this video in a moment of desperation thinking it was disc rot, that this could happen any other game in my collection and I should inspect every single one of them in +600 games. After all, it revealed as wasn't disc rot, but I find your insight extremely thought provoking. Good job.

Wow that's crazy I have never seen this. This is why I need to invest in a Zappiti so I can back them up as well. I would die if my disk started doing that. Thanks for video....

Great video bud! I've got over 5000 discs and i've had 5 or less have this issue so far. The last 2 were "Left Behind" and "The New Daughter" UK releases. There are no signs of disc rot on them. They just refuse to playback. Disc rot is of course and issue but as long as your sensible and don't mistreat them, you shouldn't have any issues.

I thought of keeping my collection inside adhesive plastic bags, it could prevent air getting in. Will it increase chance of disc rot

I now store my collection in two xl sized luggage cases in my closet, I moved them from my shelves to make room for my model collection.

Had a several dvds fail to this, certain brands especially early pornos seem to have been produced on the cheapest discs known to man.

I have been collecting movies for decades now, and when it comes to disc formats, the only format with really bad rot problems was the laserdisc. I live in Germany and imported many US laserdiscs in the 90s - for a ridiculous amount of money. Some day I read about the problem of "laser rot" in Doug Pratts "The Laser Disc Newsletter" (is that still around?) - and was really scared. I started checking my collection and found quite a lot of discs with picture drop outs caused by "laser rot". That was a horrifying experience, as I now feared that *all* my very expensive laserdiscs might deteriorate over time and be worthless. Another effect of my massive disc - checking was that my player broke down due to the excessive up- and downspeeding of the player. So I had to have my player repaired just because I checked if my laserdiscs were ok... 🙄 I have no idea how many of my laserdiscs are still playable, they have been sitting on their shelves now for the last 20 years or so without being watched. I should check if my two laserdisc players are even working anymore... At least laserdiscs have great LP-sized covers that can be nicely displayed on the wall in LP cover frames. So even if the movie can't be played anymore, you can use the covers for decoration. As for dvds and blu-rays, I have not experienced disc rot, but to be honest, I collected so madly for years, I haven't even opened the shrink wrap of most movies, so who knows... I remember two German releases that had problems with discs that developed a sticky foggy layer on the data side of the discs, but that was because of some issues with stuff coming out of the printing color of the cardboard cases they had ("Silence of the lambs" and a silver box of "Lethal Weapon").

Have as many DVDs as you do. Never seen any disc rot, however, I also have a sizable VHS collection of movies where transfers to DVD was not been commercially available. On the VHS, I have had to throw a few out due to oxidization when white powder grew around the tape and I did not want it to contaminate my player. Curious, I only see 1 rack behind you. How do you store your collection for easy access? I already have 2 ceiling to floor shelving on 2 walls but it's far from holding even a percentage of the collection.

The majority of my HDDVD from Warner Brothers has disk rot and makes it unusable.

Great info thanks

I’ve been collecting cds dvds blu rays and 4K since the 80’s and have never had a disc do that

Do you think, for game discs, it’s alright to leave the disc inside a console overnight/for long periods of time rather than in a case?

Any issues with standing up vs laying down storage? Can't think of any myself but someone may have opinions/advice.