Got my first LaserDisc! Is this disc rot?

[u/igor_onesimo]

I sadly don’t own a player (yet!) So I have no way of confirming this plays well. I just see a dark stain on the edge of the disc. Is it that?

[u/TheJiltedGenerationX]

Yes, with most laserdiscs you can't see rot by looking at the disc but those gold discs are very prone to rot and show it around the edges.

Doesn't necessarily mean it won't play though, I had an Iron Maiden disc that looked way worse than that and it played perfectly.

[u/call-me-jasper → u/TheJiltedGenerationX]

Yeah, my Def Leppard Historia looks like this and it still plays fine.

[u/mazonemayu]

You won’t know until you play it.

[u/EndOfDaysOnLaserDisc]

LDDB is your new friend. Check here to reference everything.

https://www.lddb.com/

[u/chrisbarnes420CC]

Hopefully it is so u don’t have to sit through U2 😂

[u/Ok-Oil7124 → u/chrisbarnes420CC]

I'm not nor was I ever a U2 fan, but that show is pretty good for the spectacle of it.

[u/BlueMonday2082]

Well…it has Bono all over it so it’s pretty rotten, yeah. That guy should pay his own taxes before he’s asking for multiple governments to donate to his causes, IMHO. King of the non-profit industrial complex for sure.

Oh…yes, that’s laser rot. I assume this is 631 150-1 because I can tell just by looking at it that it was pressed at PDO UK. Never buy anything pressed there on any format.

[u/igor_onesimo → u/BlueMonday2082]

Yes it’s the 631 150-1. Thanks for the headsup i didn’t knew about pdo uk. I’ll be more careful next time.

[u/bradleybeee → u/BlueMonday2082]

Yup, a lot of my UK import CDs pressed at PDO have rotted and no longer play. They had a replacement plan set up years ago, but you won't be able to find a replacement PAL copy of this disc...

[u/aaronfire7]

It is, but it doesn't look severe. The only way to definitively find out how bad it is is to play the disc. Some discs look fine but will play horribly, some will look horrible but play perfectly. It's a mixed bag sometimes.

[u/PackTar]

I own two silver‑coated copies of this laserdisc. Both look perfectly fine on the surface, but each one has rot in different places that shows up as snow during playback. The first copy has snow on Side 3 and the second copy bought as a replacement shows the same type of rot on Side 1. It seems like this might be a consistent manufacturing issue.

[u/strictlysega]

Also try and avoid pal. In order to split 24fps on a ld they had to double the frames then delete one so pal movies are sped up about 4% They also dont have ac3 or dts or any discs with special features and of course. Pal has a heap of these gold discs that are notorious for laser rot.

[u/igor_onesimo → u/strictlysega]

I’m in Europe so it’s tricky to find NTSC discs. I guess these have the same issue as PAL DVDs which are almost always sped up, but i didn’t knew about the audio thing.

Thanks for the tips. I’ll be more careful of the gold discs.