After going through my whole collection over the past few days to procrastinate instead of revising for exams better catalogue the condition of the discs and more generally check for rot (though obviously I might have missed some issues, since I haven't watched every single film; just the starts and ends of each side), I've noticed that, by my calculations, all but one of my (significant) PDO UK collection has at least some degree of rot; three sides have rotted so badly that they'll only play in test mode. Many of the remainder have significant distortion to the picture and sound (thank heavens for the small mercy that most PDO UK titles were produced in the days of analogue only sound for the PAL region, so it's not as destructive as glitches in the digital sound would be). That the remaining one title doesn't have rot is likely only because it comes from a different collection, where the people likely cared enough to replace a rotted copy, based on the good condition of the rest of the discs I got from them.

Now, I know that Sony DADC USA has a bad reputation, but not being exposed to too many American discs, I'm not sure — were they really THIS bad, or is the feeling that Sony DADC USA are the worst just based on the fact that most collectors on English-speaking sites are from America and so were more exposed to these titles? Based on the small sample that I have, it seems that a significant proportion (perhaps the majority) of LaserDisc releases in the UK from the 80s were made by PDO UK, so I suspect any collectors trying to get a complete and fully working collection of UK releases will have gone insane long ago!


It would be interesting, I feel, to see what happens if you divide the rot reports by the number of titles owned...

Both plants had a very poor reputation & for good reason, so many bad pressings with many titles from the aforementioned plants now lost on the LD format.

Sony DADC US look as though they did not care as long as the plant machinery was running & the product went out the door.

PDO UK had real issues (among many others) apparently understanding clean-room procedures till late '89 but even when they got that sorted (if they ever really did) it do not help much, very poor indeed & it was not just the LD production that was a problem at PDO Blackburn as almost all (perhaps all) the formats they worked on had issues at some time or other often manifesting years later.

One other manufacturer that had a poor reputation was Technidisc. Pressings were also problematic & the plant apparently retooled twice during their operating lifetime (closed Aug or Sept '96?) though it did continue to have problems until it finally stopped LD production. I do have a few discs pressed by them that play with no issues but they did have a high fail rate reported.

As for who was worse PDO UK or Sony DADC US that is a hard one to answer I think, both producers of many nightmare pressings. What surprises me is that their problems were ongoing for years & many discs went out to retailers faulty from new, customers appear to really have been taken for granted & it must surely have been rather frustrating for customers back in the day.

Most of the DADC US titles released are findable on other formats but PDO UK pressed quite a few titles (mostly music one) that have never been issued on any other format & finding good ones in some cases is now nigh on impossible. For that reason PDO UK tops the list for me.

Some of my earliest laserdisc acquisitions were music laserdiscs produced by either PDO UK or DADC USA.
Needless to say I was hugely disappointed and it very nearly put me off the format for life.

I did however give it one last chance and started buying some Japanese music LDs and have never looked back since. I found there are good and bad pressings from virtually every country in the world but you start to really spot the trends in detail when you have bought 9000+ laserdiscs. Don't expect to be able to avoid the rotters completely though - if you own that many you can expect to have a pile of hundreds of rotters gathered along the way. It seems some sellers still like selling them on to the next guy!

I'd argue PDO is worse than DADC, and possibly everyone but early 80's Technidisc (aka Technidisc I) where the disks split apart... PDO's rate of death-rot appears to be much higher.

Especially shameful on 5" CDV's, since they made most of the disks - and they all seem to rot - and even DADC US would have made them correctly since they have no glue!

(edited for clarity)

By in large, Technidisc II and Technidisc III aren't too bad. I haven't had any rot, so it's just a matter of finding a clean copy. I've picked up several hundred Image titles with low pressing runs that are Technidisc and have been very pleased. DADC US by far is the worst - it typically takes 2 or three buys to get a clean copy if the serial number is over 1800.

I thank God that so few US titles were pressed by PDO UK. Their stuff is consistent...Garbage.

Some of the very early Kuraray pressings are not very good, either. It seems a lot of the Dutch stuff from Caspar Video pressed by Kuraray has rot issues, too.
I have a very early Kuraray pressing of the Japanese movie Violent Cop ( Takeshi Kitano ) exhibiting a substantial amount of rot.

I have a few Technidisc pressings but all of the discs play just fine.

I have many PDO UK discs and they are still playable. The earliest ones I have are discs from 1982 pressed by PDO UK and they still work OK to this day.
They all have some rot but at least they are still playable.

DADC USA is the worst in my opinion. The earlier pressings are actually quite good ( White Sands, Boyz N The Hood Criterion, Madonna Immaculate Collection
all DADC USA pressings in my collection, still play fine ) but the later ones are almost all garbage. I have a late DADC USA pressing
( Gang Related with Tupac Shakur ) that still plays fine but that is an exception to the rule.
Fortunately, my copy of Starship Troopers still plays fine and only has mild rot. But many other DADC USA discs I have seen so far are garbage.

It looks like every pressing plant had various issues at some point in their LD production life but some did work hard & promptly to sort out problems while others seem to have plodded on not caring much at all about the final product, or so it appears.

Pioneer at Carson had a few pretty serious problems at times but they acted promptly & did sort out most issues fairly quickly - they did have their plant in Japan to pick up the slack when the Carson plant were having problems though which helped. Kuraray also had a number of issues but they were in their early production mostly with only a small number of issues during latter production - they do appear to have understood the need for rigorous controls (cleanroom procedures, chemical temperature control etcetera) but the Kuraray Corporation are, among other things, major chemical & synthetics producers who did supply Pioneer latterly with plastics (& perhaps other chemical components) so they knew what they were doing on that front.

PDO UK & SONY DADC US just look to have not really cared at all & continued with poor production procedures & poor practices for ages which inevitably results in a poor final product & that was the one thing they did appear good at, producing crappy end items. I find it amazing that major companies placed pressing orders with them given that even back then they did have a poor reputation which was not just within the trade but there were magazine articles/reviews back in the day in some cases letting consumers know which pressing to buy when more than one pressing plant producing the same title so pretty poor.

Bottom line is that both PDO UK & Sony US DADC were rather crappy.

I don't own any PDO UK laserdiscs right now, but they are actually even worse than DADC USA! I think that only very few people own a rot-free PDO UK laserdisc.

PDO UK is probably worse than DADC US. We own some PDO UK discs in our collection, and almost all of them have some form of rot. With DADC USA, we do actually have some pressings that are perfectly free of rot (though sometimes containing drop-outs as well). Mostly avoid the releases who have mint markings above LDxx-1800 (and even more so above LDxx-1800).

I just recently bought a copy of "The Day After" released by Embassy Home Entertainment and pressed by Pioneer USA. The disc has rot plainly visible on the outer edges, and a few dark spots further in. I will show it in my next YouTube video, then will destroy it. I destroy ALL defective discs for that very reason. I don't want someone else to end up paying good money for one.

Mark

YOU WOULDN'T! Wouldn't you rather keep them as they go up in value?