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 Having problems...laser rot?

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PostSubject: Having problems...laser rot?   Having problems...laser rot? EmptyMon May 16, 2011 12:44 pm

Hi,

I finally got around to having a quick peek at my new copy of the Criterion Special Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and noticed at the end of side 5 there's a chapter of Spielberg talking about letterboxing. I thought it sounded interesting to popped the disc in and skipped to the chapter, but all I got was a black screen and some strenuous noises coming from my player...

I immediately tried a different chapter, played fine, skipped through some other chapters and most played fine until the last few where it would sometimes play fine until a certain point then just drop out to a black screen with a few thin white vertical lines and a high pitched whining sound coming from my player, other times it would play the same chapter but jerking and glitching so bad I couldn't get to the point where it dropped out previously.

I've checked the disc and I can't see any signs of laser rot, there's a couple of very light scuffs around the very edge of the disc but nothing on the actual play area. I flipped the disc and tried the other side and again skipping through chapters everything seemed fine until I got closer to the end of the side...

I'm fairly new to laserdiscs, so far I've only encountered one instance of laser rot and it was very visible on the disc yet hardly affected play, so I'd appreciate any help with this.

Is it possible for laser rot to be "invisible?"

I also noticed on lddb someone posted about this disc:

"Initial pressings had some mastering problems and chapter stops miscoded, particularly on Side One."

Could this be something to do with it? I don't think my copy is an initial pressing as early ones came boxed and mine is a gatefold.

I don't think it's the player as I've had no problems playing anything else, but I will try and sit down and watch a whole film on it sometime soon just to check. If it is the player then I guess I can't complain too much as it only cost me 1p (almost £20 postage though lol!) so it doesn't really owe me anything.

Thanks for any help : )
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laserkb

laserkb


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PostSubject: Re: Having problems...laser rot?   Having problems...laser rot? EmptyMon May 16, 2011 1:57 pm

Hi, I can't speak with any certainty about this particular edition, but I DO know from my own experience that laser rot is nearly always INVISIBLE. Most of the examples I've encountered have come from Sony's pressing plant in Indiana and were manufactured around the mid-90s. These discs, always NTSC, often bear the matrix LDVS (followed by several digits) - sometimes it's DADC - and most of the affected titles were for Columbia-TriStar titles, sometimes for Warner Home Video and, yes, a few Criterion releases.

Check out: http://www.lddb.com/laserrot.php

There is a form of disc-rot affecting earlier analogue laserdiscs (including PAL) and this can sometimes be seen as blotches on the disc's surface where bits of the lacquer have come away, but for most affected laserdiscs there is NO way to tell simply by looking at the disc. I've had a number of infamous titles - ERASER, DEMOLITION MAN, MUTE WITNESS, GHOSTS OF MISSISSIPPI, COPYCAT and loads more - and they've all looked perfect until you pop them in the old player. Sometimes only one side will be affected so you might not know until you get to Side 2.

I recently had a title called CARRINGTON which played perfectly on Side 1, but Side 2 - oh dear, barely watchable. And there is still new and sealed stock around: I recently got a kid's action pic called LEGEND OF THE LOST TOMB which looked mint and unplayed - which it was - until, again, I flipped to the second side and it was just speckling and crackle. The corrosion eats through the inner encoded layer from the inside, so there's no reason to expect any visible signs on the outer layers.

As for CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, you might be better off with the 3-disc Collector's Edition BOxed Set which has all the extras from the Criterion release and combines all the elements of the previously released versions (1977 Theatrical Cut and 1980 Special Edition) into one definitive version. It's THX mastered and, although it comes from Columbia-TriStar Home Video, it was manufactured in 1998, long after the disc rot problem had been identified and corrected. I don't know where the discs were pressed (somewhere in the USA) but the disc matrix numbers do NOT bear the LDVS code, so I'm sure these will be rot-free. Mine are.
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PostSubject: Re: Having problems...laser rot?   Having problems...laser rot? EmptyTue May 17, 2011 3:17 am

Thanks for the useful info, certainly sounds like laser rot.

Oh well, these things happen. I haven't checked the other discs yet but even if they're all the same as disc three then I'll at least be able to watch the Theatrical version of the film. Once I've watched the other discs I'll let you know how they are.

If anyone hears of an orphaned third disc lying around somewhere please let me know : )

I'll have a look out for the Collectors edition too. Part of the reason I wanted the Criterion edition is that I'm still not sure what scenes belong in which version because I have never succeeded in sitting down and watching the film in a oner due to various interferences...I think I'm cursed when it comes to this film.

I think I've seen the beginning of the Theatrical version and the ending of the Special Edition several times.

Thanks again.
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PostSubject: Re: Having problems...laser rot?   Having problems...laser rot? EmptySun May 22, 2011 4:38 pm

Watched through the film tonight, sides 1,2 and 3 played fine with no problems, but 4,5 and 6 all had such bad laser rot that it stopped playing. On side 4 I got the tell tale speckling and dots before it dropped out so it's definitely laser rot.

Oh well, I can at least watch all of the Theatrical version of the film spare for a two minute bit at the end of side 4.

Need to decide what I'm going to do with it now; keep it or try and get a better copy then bin this one...binning just seems wrong though.

Thanks for the help.
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PostSubject: Re: Having problems...laser rot?   Having problems...laser rot? EmptyThu May 26, 2011 1:23 pm

I'm experimenting with hooking my LD player up to the computer. Early days yet but I have managed to get a screenshot of the laser rot (at the top and bottom of the picture):

Having problems...laser rot? Close_10
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MOTLEY1972

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PostSubject: Re: Having problems...laser rot?   Having problems...laser rot? EmptyThu Jun 16, 2011 3:35 am

to be honest looking at the pictures it does not look like laser rot it could be an alignment issue with the laser have you had any problems with discs skipping back a few seconds then just repeting the same scene over and over i had this problem with my old pioneer 515 some discs played fine others displayed these problems i now have got a pioneer 925 which so far knock on wood plays all the discs with no problems
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PostSubject: Re: Having problems...laser rot?   Having problems...laser rot? EmptyThu Jun 16, 2011 3:54 am

The only problems I've had with skipping are on this laserdisc when it reaches the end of a side. Unfortunately as it's a NTSC laserdisc and it's interlaced I'm only getting half the lines that are in the final picture in that screenshot so it's missing a lot of detail. When I play the effected scenes I get strong coloured bands along with the distortion at the top and bottom of the screen, this isn't really showing up in the screenshot.

I assume since it's only effecting one laserdisc that it's a problem with the discs rather than the player, but I could be wrong, I'm still new to all this.

EDIT: I have however had one problem with another disc, the Flight of Dragons, which is a notorious rotter. Most of the time the disc won't play, I press play it whirrs for a while then throws back an error. The error is P5 which apparently means there's a "spindle error" during startup. Other times it will play fine. "Spindle error" does sound like a hardware problem, but again it only effects one disc which has heavy laser rot.
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