Has CD Quality Control Slipped?

morris57 asks: "In the past few months, I have had at least 3 brand new compact disks or DVDs not work right out of the box. I don't mean that any sort of copy protection on the disk prevented me from using them; they were simply defective disks. I was able to exchange my DVD of 'The Matrix Reloaded' at Best Buy for a working copy, but some disks I got for Christmas I just recently opened and they are either unplayable or garbled. It is not a hardware issue, either. I've tested the disks in several types of players: new, old, component, computers, etc... It seems to me to make a very good case for downloadable media files, although I know these tracks are not available on iTunes or audible.com. So, I guess I'm wondering if the Slashdot community has noticed a decline in quality control of CDs/DVDs. What can be done (individually or communally) to not get burned by defective disks?" The solution for this particular type of problem boils down to simple consumerism. If you get a defective product, return it! If manufactures notice a high rate of return (and they should), they'll hopefully address the quality of what they ship. Has anyone else noticed an increase of non-working DVDs or CDs?

Comments

I haven't noticed much

[DetrimentalFiend]

I've only had one new DVD ever have any issues. That one DVD would freeze up at one spot, but it only did it on one DVD player. I suppose that it's probable that manufacturers are taking more and more shortcuts, but I haven't been affected by it yet. I hope it stays that way too.

Re:I haven't noticed much

[Vokbain]

This happened to me with my Predator 2 DVD on my Powerbook. The dumb thing is that I exchanged the DVD, and the new one had the exact same problem at the exact same spot on the DVD.

I'm not sure if that's a problem with the DVDs, or if my DVD player is extra sensitive to the defects, or who knows what. I've never had any other problems with any DVDs before.

They don't care

[!the!bad!fish!]

If manufactures notice a high rate of return (and they should), they'll hopefully address the quality of what they ship.

Has any one noticed the record industry showing any sign of caring about what it's customers think?

Re:They don't care

[Jerf]

Technically, this would not be "the recording industry" but "the manufacturing industry". I don't know but I'd bet significant money that physical CD production is outsourced by all RIAA members; it makes zero economic sense for them to do otherwise.

If returns become a problem, be assured that that information will wend its way back to the CD manufacturers eventually, with direct economic consequences.

Direct economic consequences is why this occurs; I posted about this on my weblog in relation to a similar Ask Slashdot regarding hardware. The CD manufacturers will be using the exact same statistical techniques I mention in my post on CDs that electronics manufacturers use on their stuff.

About two years ago [now more like three], I took Statistics in college. The second most interesting part of the course was the industrial manufacturing focus, specifically quality control.

Even more specifically, reliable ways to determine how much quality you can take out of the product and still meet some specification with some good probability....

On the other hand, these are the techniques used to reliably manufacture a device that will fail in 2 years, plus or minus 3 months, with 50% probability. This is the source of the flood of cheap garbage that has really only been gaining steam in the past four or five years; yes, in the 80s and 90s people were decrying "consumerism" but it's gotten several times worse as some of these techniques become refined and universally applied.

The upshot of all of this is yes, the quality of consumer electronics has been steadily declining for a decade or two now, along with everything else that comes off the factory floor, and the better the statistical techniques get, the closer to the consumer rejection threshold this stuff will get.

(New emphasis; as I'm quoting myself "emphasis mine" doesn't make too much sense ;-) )

Sadly, its not the disc

[Hardwyred]

Sorry man, it's not the disc. Back Street Boys really do sound like that, no matter how many times you return it.

Remember folks...

[Trolling4Columbine]

...this is quality control. That latest Britney Spears CD sounds bad for reasons beyond the scope of QA.

Stating the Obvious

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

"The solution for this particular type of problem boils down to simple consumerism. If you get a defective product, return it!"

Does this really need to be said? I mean really, who gets a DVD or CD that doesn't work and simply keeps it?

Re:Stating the Obvious

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

Well, any "exchange" includes a "return" but not every "return" includes an "exchange", if we are defining an exchange to be the reception of the same DVD or CD. When I exchange a product, I return the defective product to the store and receive a new copy of the product.

And if all they want to give me is store credit after two defective copies, I will immediately be placing calls to the Better Business Bureau and never shop there again. I can usually create enough of a stink before leaving the store that I get my money back. Sure, they'll initially try to stick you with store credit but if you push, you can get your money back. Ask them what the store would do if they got a shipment of the wrong product and sent it back to the manufacturer who then told them, "Oh, we'll cover you on the next round." It doesn't fly with the store and their suppliers and it sure as hell won't fly with me.

The only time I would try to get my money back would be, again, when I've found that a same title for same title exchange results in another defective copy. Of course, all this talk of getting my money back hinges on me not being able to find any other product in the store that I want - sometimes a reality, but oftentimes not.

Re:Stating the Obvious

[GoRK]

I have never been to a store that would not exchange an opened copy of a CD or DVD for the exact same item if it was defective and included all the original materials.

Re:Stating the Obvious

[Mattcelt]

It's a shitty policy, but this is a perfect example of how a few bad apples can ruin it for everyone.

No, it's not. Let's make this clear: the RIAA et al. are not afraid of people. They are afraid of technology. If they had their way, they would make a technology illegal even if it were impossible for more than one person in the world to use.

What is is a perfect example of how the realization by many corporations that they can piss a lot of customers off while still making money has changed the way they do business.

This is no different than being unable to return a software package which has licensing terms with which you don't agree. If they make the barrier high enough, most people won't bother, and the companies get to keep their money, despite irritating their customers.

Falling life of CDRs

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a 100 pack of Philips CDRs and I thought it was a freak case - perhaps it is not.

Almost 30-40% of the disks scratched easily, and didn't work after 2 months of safe storage. They seemed to develop scratches for no reason at all.

I have read that the normal life expectancy of a CDR is about 2 years, in my case, the life expectancy seems to be 3 months.

Note: Other brand CDRs bought more than 2 years ago record just fine, and have survived for 2 years or more.

Has anyone else seen this trend? Cost cutting perhaps? I know that CDR manufacturers are experimenting with cheaper variants of pthalocyanine to get more bang for the buck.

Holiday Season

[Merlin42]

I haven't noticed it with [C|DV]D's personally, but I have had problems in the past with electronics I purchased around the holiday season. My guess is that on occasion a manufacturer will push manufacturing beyond what QA can handle in order to meet demand at the end of the year. The only choice is to return, of course at this time of year the manufacturers expect high return rates so it might not make a difference.

New DVD Rentals

[GeckoX]

I've deffinately noticed HUGE issues with DVD's.
I rent probably 3 new DVD's a week on average, and without fail, one a week won't play in either of my players (Component and PC).
Brand new discs, very often the very first use of the disc no less.

I've also noticed that looking at the edges of the disc, that they are way less than perfect. Usually the layers don't line up very well, there's usually a very obvious seam, sometimes even with adhesive squeezed out the edge. I'm thinking super cheap-assed production.

I haven't noticed similar problems with CD's, although I've almost entirely stopped purchasing them because they're almost all NOT cd's anymore.

yup.

[Garfunkel]

My parents got the Indiana Jones trilogy for Christmas. I tried to play Raiders on my laptop DVD player with mplayer, and it froze up after about 1-2 minutes while it was displaying the "Raiders of the Lost Ark" title. I thought it was odd and tried again. Died in the same spot. Odd. Put in my parents' console DVD player and at the same spot everything went blue, sound quit and then after about 2-3 seconds it kept going. Definitely a defective disc. Couldn't convince them to take it back though, they decided they could live with that little glitch.

I thought it was just videotapes...

[Anonymous Coward]

I noticed this with recent purchases of videotapes. The older ones worked fine, so doesn't seem to be the fault of any of my machines. I wondered whether the quality deterioration was intentional to push people towards digital, or just not caring anymore (people left for digital, not the same profit/volume in videotapes). So, I'm actually glad to hear this quality deterioration isn't limited to just tapes.

Hey, maybe it's a conspiracy so people will buy downloaded services :)

A different kind of DVD failure

[ralphb]

I recently bought a copy of K-19. I went to play it the other day, and the disk inside was actually of K-9.
Yikes, talk about your shock to the system! The store made it right without the slightest fuss.

Re:Also had Matrix Reloaded DVD issues...

[Anonymous Coward]

I had a problem with the first matrix DVD. Towards the beginning the girl jumps up in the air and then it freezes. The odd thing is, the sound and the girl keep moving. Luckily it re-synchs itself, but it happens more than once.

It may be more than manufacturing flaws

[Go Aptran]

This may be my imagination, but CDs that I bought in the early 90s felt a little heavier and appeared a little bit thicker than CDs that I buy now.

I noticed the same thing with videotapes and floppy discs.

In the case of CDs and DVDs, I think that cheaper material translates into higher flaw and failure rates... as the data has less plastic to protect the data from wear and tear.

Has it occurred to anyone that the machines that use the media also use cheaper parts as well? Portable CD players that I've used in the recent past seem less forgiving of scratches than the big clunker that I owned ten years ago.

Re:It may be more than manufacturing flaws

[hankwang]

>This may be my imagination, but CDs that I bought in the early 90s felt a little heavier and appeared a little bit thicker than CDs that I buy now.

That's not imagination. I once attended a talk by someone from Philips Research. Accordig to the CD specs, the plastic layer on the playing side of the disc should be 1.0 mm thick with a tolerance of +/- 0.1 mm (I don't recall the exact numbers). According to him, after a few years, all CDs on the market had 0.905-mm-thick plastic layers because it was possible to manufacture them with much tighter tolerances and this way, the manufacturers save 10% on the raw material.

In the DVD specification, the tolerances are much tighter, which is necessary because the laser needs to be focused onto a much smaller spot than in a CD.

Cheaper CDs?

[jeffkjo1]

I feel like this has been occuring, but I don't know enough about the technical specs of how cd's are made to prove it.

However, in the past 6 months, I have purchased several CDs, and have had to reburn (checks disc box) 4 of them. I've also reburned several of my recent CD-R mix cd's. I don't know why, but after only a few weeks of use, these CD's have begun to skip. I have many CD's that are pushing 10 years old and are still going strong (which is amazing, considering some of them look like I scraped them across pavement.)

For some reason CD's I've purchased recently aren't holding up as well. If anything, I'm treating my CD's better than I used to, I just don't get it.

Are they making the actual data layers out of thinner/cheaper metals? Whats going on? I can't be the only person that's noticed this.

A conversation with the MPAA...

[SomeGuyFromCA]

"It's... uh... Piracy! That's it! Because of our losses to piracy... uh... we had to cut back QC! This is not, repeat, not a misguided attempt to blackmail pirates by punishing the paying customer."

"Won't that just encourage people to download the work instead of going to the store, possibly several times, and using up time and money?"

"No it won't. Truth is lies! Love is hate! War is peace! 2 + 2 = 4!"

"Actually, it seems to me that it will..."

"You must be one of those evil FILESHARERS, aren't you?!"