Until up until about 2007 I had never owned or even seen a rotted disc. Most of what I've owned has been import stuff from Japan, usually anime.

Now that I've massively increased the size of my collection thanks to Craigslist I've noticed that when I enter stuff into the LDDB I'm seeing all sorts of warnings for rot, and of course people complain about it here a lot.

I still have never seen a rotted Japanese release, and although my experience isn't as vast as many others, it seems that the vast majority of rotters are US releases which leads me to wonder if the guys in Japan give this problem any thought at all since they could evidently collect 1000 or so LDs before seeing their first rotter.

This is of course unrelated to the whole concept of laser rot being hugely overrated in general. I have 239 different releases, some of which are as many as 7 discs, and I *might* have 5 rotters. While those rotters are a bummer, it's hardly worth making a big deal about the phenomenon. The way some people talk you'd think LD was un-collectable due to the rotting eventually killing all our discs. The only disc I have that I literally cannot watch is the Discovision version of The Jerk. I added Heavy Metal (1981) [74656] today. The entry on LDDB says, "Avoid this release" yet it plays flawlessly.

Sure, there are Japanese rotters. The original (disc-by-disc) release of Record of Lodoss War was notorious for rot, to name one example. But, for whatever reason, the episodes of bad production in Japan are rather few & mostly brief ; I believe Mitsubishi had a couple. There's nothing like the long-term record of Sony DADC USA or PDO UK among the Japanese manufacturers.
As an anime fan myself, I've always been exasperated by the fact that ADVision made so few LD releases, & every single one pressed by DADC USA. To get a copy of any of their double-sided discs, such as Devil Hunter Yohko or Battle Angel, which has both sides good is a practically Sisyphean task. It's especially irritating because, when a DADC USA pressing is clean, it typically looks excellent.

I've been told that the Japanese LD release of Blake's 7 (the only LD release it got) is a really bad rotter, but as they seem to be hard to come across I've not been able to validate this myself.

They do: on numerous occasions (but mostly for US-pressed LDs), I brought back my LDs to the shop where I bought them, explaining in Japanese that there was "noise" in the picture and the refunded without a question...

And put them back in the "for sale" boxes the next day! Looking for a less caring buyer?

Julien

i agree, i have over 350 discs and only about 3-5 discs that have Super light speckles.
so i can't even bother since they are really old pressed discs.
Japanese discs from 1981-84.
any of the US discs i try to get better copies of, i don't believe i have any rotted ones now.

but there should be a percentage to collection to stay away from a title, or if it's a higer priced one make sure it's checked out first.
like the beatles let it be.

didn't anyone ever buy official VHS tapes that had issues, i have.

Actually, rot was a major problem in both the US and Japan - the UK especially due to PDO's horrific pressings in the early days - some people lost hundreds of discs. It got so bad that Pioneer assigned a special person to deal only with rot, Donna Gaskins, and for each title you returned for rot, Pioneer would send you a check for the full retail price of the disc plus the cost of shipping it to them. They took back anything, even MCA DiscoVision, which some people took shameless advantage of by buying rotted or defective titles for a few dollars and then returning them to Pioneer for a full-retail refund. Pioneer quickly wised up when they started getting stuff like 10 copies of the CLV Psycho from a single person, so they switched to providing replacements with the same title - you had to list 5 alternate titles in case your title was no longer available. They no longer took DiscoVision, but they were still generous because your alternate titles didn't have to be the same price as the disc returned. So, for a rotted $24.95 Eurythmics Sweet Dreams that they couldn't replace for me at that time, I got the $49 CAV version of The Color Purple.

Rot seemed to be worse in areas that had highly fluctuating humidity. In New Mexico, which is always dry, I didn't suffer too much rot (Cujo and the reissue of Xanadu were the first two titles that rotted on me). Here in Missouri, outside Kansas City, I've started to have problems with rot in the last year or so - discs that have been fine since I bought them in the 80's and 90's, like ABBA Gold, are now rotting. I recently got the 8-inch Japanese version of Olivia Twist Of Fate and it was a beautiful pressing that I watched all the time. A few weeks ago I put it on one morning and Side 1 was filled with the red and blue rot speckles and the audio sounded like a mistuned FM radio with constant static. My American pressings of the Berlin videos and Rick Springfield videos were perfect when I got them in the mid-80's and in the past year both have started to rot, with Berlin now at the stage where the television can't keep a lock on the color signal, so it flashes to black and white every few frames. Our humidity often goes from 30% to 90% in a day and stays humid for weeks, followed by weeks of dryness. Our AC unit keeps the house pretty constant, but can't eliminate all the changes. I never felt rot was a big deal while living in New Mexico, but now here in Missouri, I worry about all my discs. Every 5-inch CD-Video, except for a demo pressing by Banannarama and one by David Bowie, has rotted, yet the CD tracks are fine - it sucks too because both copies of Moody Blues Your Wildest Dreams are completely unplayable and it was one of my favorites. Madonna's Papa Don't Preach was the first CD-V I ever got in January 1988 (the 5-inch titles were 6 months late to market) and its now unwatchable. Oh, one other CD-V is still good, Men Without Hats Pop Goes The World - my other 20 titles are gone.

Buying Japanese imports in the 80's was a total crapshoot because of rot. I had to return Brainstorm to Sight and Sound 5 times because of rot and they finally gave up trying to get a non rotted copy. It took NY Laser 3 copies to get me a non-rotted disc of Soft Cell Non-Stop Exotic Video Show. The Japanese CLV Duran Duran videos took 2 tries for a non-rotted copy - which has now rotted, forcing me to get the American CAV edition, which doesn't have as good an image as the Japanese release (thanks to my great friend Ratkins for finding me a superb copy of the American version). I was once told by the Japanese buyer at Sight and Sound that rot was a terrible problem in Japan but that people didn't complain and the Japanese magazines didn't discuss it because it would be disrespectful to the companies/advertisers. Pioneer routinely pulled all advertising from American video magazines that discussed rot. Video Magazine lot all Pioneer ads for 6 months because they ran an article about rot, as did The Perfect Vision - and all TPV did was reprint an article from Disc Deals about rot. But Pioneer pulled their ads, saying such articles were "irresponsible journalism".

So, in Japan, it seems to have been kept quiet. One thing is for certain though - Pioneer and the other LaserDisc manufacturers never knew exactly what causes rot and still don't, otherwise modern formats like Blu-ray, DVD and HD-DVD wouldn't be suffering from it.

The CDV thing is really sad. I think there weren't very many facilities in the world making these to begin with, and all the ones made for the US and EU are apparently gone now.

I only have one CDV, Best of Bubblegum Crisis Music 2 [CTV24-112]. It plays perfectly. Unsurprisingly, its a Japanese release. I really want Vol 1 bad, but its hella pricey and hard to find in general (the only copy on LDDB is going for $250) so now I'm a bit worried...

Another thing that is probably effecting my rot/no rot experience is that I rarely buy anything pre-Digital Sound on purpose. By that time (1989, whatever, something like that) it seems that Japan really got its stuff together but rotters were coming from the US right up until the very end.

One JP title I remember someone personally complaining about back in the day was Video Girl Ai: vol.2 [VILF-21]. I've avoided this title to this day because of this. Maybe I should just take a risk on it if I can find it for cheap.

Digital sound on LaserDisc starts in 1985, at least in the US. I think it got a later start in the UK and Europe.

Yeah, it started in 85, but it doesn't seem like it really took hold until 89-90. I have several analog-only post-1985 discs.

At first digital extended play discs could only hold 55 minutes per side, so if it came down to digital sound and an extra disc, or analog sound and a single disc, the analog/single disc usually won out. Analog titles were still being issued well into the 90's and it wasn't until about 1993 or so that pretty much everything but represses was digital. It was the same with CX noise reduction - it took years before Pioneer routinely CX encoded all analog tracks, which drove LaserDisc collectors nuts - CX often made the difference between an acceptable disc and one that got returned for audio noise.

holy crap i didnt know humidity caused rot???? good thing i actually have a dehumidifier right next to my LDs!

Sorry if this derails the thread, but what is the best (reasonable) humidity to keep LaserDiscs at?

I've never known if humidity itself causes rot or if it's constant changes between dry and humid that accelerates it. The plastic LaserDisc's are made of absorbs water, so discs swell microscopically in high humidity. They shrink when the humidity drops. Some have speculated that it's the alternating that eventually causes the rot. But who knows? I just know that in New Mexico rot was never a major problem. Here in Missouri it's turning out to be a big deal for me, and Im losing discs I've had since the early 80's. It's gotten to the point where I'm afraid to play a title I haven't looked at in a while.

So you're saying you shouldn't live in Missouri if you collect laseridiscs? Just another reason........

Ron

i moved from NYC to tennessee and so far have not lost any discs to rot.

some of my early 80s discs i have noticed some really super light dots but they may have been there before
but i just didn't notice since they were so light to beging with.

i have had major Japanese disc rotters in the past but usually tried to get the seller to watch them first.

I dont know what it is but I have started watching my discs over somewhat because I know of several titles that were fine several years ago are no longer. These include the Dirty harry Box set, humanoids from the deep and several other titles that were fine a few years back and I am in a pretty dry climate.

They know what rot is in Japan alright and like others have said if you send them back they just relist them in their stores for some other poor victim to buy.

I've had to send back dozens of rotted music LDs for exchange or refunds since I started collecting laserdiscs.
Since over 3/5 of my collection were manufactured in Japan I've had a lot of exposure to discs from that region.

Overall I would say Japanese LDs are more reliable than any other country and the music titles in particular (even the really old ones) are relatively safe to buy. Believe me, you get to know the risky titles after you have bought 5500+ discs!

When I switched to buying films recently on laserdisc from both Japan and the US I got a shock - it seemed like the risk of rot is much higher for films than music. I've noticed I am buying stock from different publishers though so that is certainly one possible factor. Even some recent US or Japanese titles were very rotted badly and they were not from Sony DADC. It felt like I was moving out of my comfort zone switching to buying films on LD as I know all the rotters as far as music titles are concerned.

i knew someone from st joe, then i started hearing stories about st joe.
nashville is not like NYC but you're pretty close to st joe according to the google map from plattsburg.

Yep, St. Joe is only 20 miles up the road from here - Kansas City is 45 miles in the opposite direction. When I was hospitalized in May, it was in St. Joe. They have some really good thrift shops and I've gotten LaserDisc's at the Goodwill there for 50 cents each in their LP bin. I got extra box sets of Aliens and Alien, The Star Wars Definitive Collection, Clash Of The Titans letterbox and Logan's Run letterbox, all for a buck each, again in their LP bin.