Although digital media has surpassed physical media in popularity, there are still plenty of reasons for movie buffs and TV fans to hold onto, and even continue buying, DVDs. With physical media, owners are assured that they’ll always be able to play their favorite titles, so long as they take care of their discs. While digital copies are sometimes abruptly ripped away from viewers, physical media owners don’t have to worry about a corporation ruining their Friday night movie plans. At least, that’s what we thought.
It turns out that if your DVD collection includes titles distributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, the home movie distribution arm of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), you may one day open up the box to find a case of DVD rot.
Recently, Chris Bumbray, editor-in-chief of movie news and reviews site JoBlo, detailed what would be a harrowing experience for any film collector. He said he recently tried to play his Passage to Marseille DVD, but “after about an hour, the disc simply stopped working.” He said “the same thing happened” with Across the Pacific. Bumbray bought a new DVD player but still wasn’t able to play his Desperate Journey disc. The latter case was especially alarming because, like a lot of classic films and shows, the title isn’t available as a digital copy.
DVDs, if taken care of properly, should last for 30 to up to 100 years. It turned out that the problems that Bumbray had weren’t due to a DVD player or poor DVD maintenance. In a statement to JoBlo shared on Tuesday, WBD confirmed widespread complaints about DVDs manufactured between 2006 and 2008. The statement said:
Warner Bros. Home Entertainment is aware of potential issues affecting select DVD titles manufactured between 2006 – 2008, and the company has been actively working with consumers to replace defective discs.
Where possible, the defective discs have been replaced with the same title. However, as some of the affected titles are no longer in print or the rights have expired, consumers have been offered an exchange for a title of like-value.
Consumers with affected product can contact the customer support team at [email protected].
Collectors have known about this problem for years
It’s helpful that WBD recently provided some clarity about this situation, but its statement to JoBlo appears to be the first time the company has publicly acknowledged the disc problems. This is despite DVD collectors lamenting early onset disc rot for years, including via YouTube and online forums.
YouTuber Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader, which said he conducted research through his own vast DVD collection and via forum discussions, claimed in November 2021 and May 2022 that the affected discs came out from 2006 to 2009, differing from WBD’s recent statement. The YouTuber said that the problems “centered mostly around classic films and box sets but also extends to some TV seasons and standalone releases.”
Explaining the problem, he said:
In the worst case scenario, you pop in the disc and it’s absolutely unreadable. Sometimes, you look over on the bottom and there can be some slight bronzing, but not always. You can’t really rely on that.
Then you have most discs, where it’s going to freeze up or lock up somewhere in the middle of the feature, the end, [there’s] no telling where. There are some discs that get to the menu [and] won’t play the feature at all. There are some where it’s the extras that won’t work or freeze up. There are some where the extras work, and the feature doesn’t. It also affects discs that are double features. So, there are some discs I have and some that have been reported that will play one feature, but the other is rotted.
The theory, which has not been substantiated by WBD, is that the defective discs all came from a specific manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania that used subpar materials and cut corners, resulting in poorly made discs.
“They all go bad. They curdle like milk,” YouTuber and DVD collector RetroBlasting said in a March 2024 video.
Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader noted that owners of WB DVDs can check to see if their discs were manufactured by the maligned plant by looking at the inner ring codes on the DVDs’ undersides.
Ars Technica reached out to WBD about why it didn’t publicly disclose the problem earlier and why it’s not offering refunds (especially in cases where replacements aren’t possible). We’ll update this article if we hear back.
We also asked WBD about calls for the company to share a master list of affected DVDs in order to help collectors and the secondhand market. Damn Fool Idealistic Crusader made his own list, but without WB confirmation, it could have inaccuracies.
In the meantime, though, if you have DVDs distributed by WB that you haven’t played in a while, now is a good time to double-check if they’re still functioning.