I just got the Criterion Bluray of It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, this is one of those films you really need to see on BD, they did a full restoration and scanned the film in 4k, it just looks incredible.

Tempting me to buy that!

I have the widescreen version standard DVD and it looks pretty darned good.

I still buy Blu-Ray discs, as I have since the format started in 2006, hundreds of them. Also, a few DVDs since 2006, when I really, really must have something and it is not yet available in Blu-Ray.

I do not subscribe to any pay-TV service at all, online/cable/satellite, any of them.

I rather have a legit hard copy then a digital download copy of something I really like since I dont trust computers and hard drives storing them.They can go awol any time even if I had 5 backups. I rather have the analog copies.Atlease they will last.

Way I do it too, with DVDs, but unfortunately I'm finding more than one DVD that won't play now that are about 10-15 yrs old. "FM" and "Cream - Royal Albert Hall - London May 2005" for two. Both are dual layer DVDs. Not happy about the slow rotting demise of some of my DVDs.

5 Backups! If you have more than 3 (of different brands/types) fail before you can replace the first to go bad, then you must be being hacked by someone, or in some kind of natural disaster, or something!...There is no way 5 dupes can die like that under normal circumstances!

ED, you should rip your older DVDs to your computer and back them up so you can still watch them after they die of rot....You might even be able to burn replacements as needed.

Yes.I probably exaggerated with the 5 . I probably sound hard on digital stuff but dont trust it.If they can make it rock solid .I might reconsider in trusting it.Its great for editing audio/video and photos .I agree on ripping the old DVDs.I'm lucky that I dont have a big DVD collection.BS as they say they last for 50 plus years.No QC on the blanks and end up with coasters .I have not burn a CD in years. I'm already having external drives and SD cards failing.

I remember when I was gung ho when the CD burners came out and when the DVD recorders came out but when they started to spit out coasters.Thats when I started to loose interest in it.VHS,Beta, cassettes,Reel to Reel ,8track and vinyl last almost forever and digital dont.I feel sorry about the families that got their entire home video video tape ,8mm film and photo collection transferred to DVD and more likely thrown out the VHS,VHS C and 8mm tapes.I always say to people that do it to keep all of your photos and home videos for backup.

Might be more down to the player than the discs, I've found some players have trouble with certain DVDs while other players have zero issues with the same discs. The only DVD I've experienced total failure across multiple players is a 1997 disc of Platoon, although I have a bunch of other really early DVDs that still play just fine (I collect them), even the dual layer ones.

With most digital media I'm convinced it is the quality/size of the hardware more so than the signal on it. Businesses still use tape backup for their data since most tape systems are physically much more robust, and the media can survive it's player. LDs rot just like DVDs. Hard drives would be worlds better if they were not SO DAMN TINY/sensitive to dust....Many of their internal read parts are ridiculously fragile. That would be forgivable if the discs did not need a semiconductor fab grade clean-room to handle and could instead be user swapped from drive to drive when the read components die. Soild State memory can be fairly reliable (some variants are worse than others), but each bit has a rated number of write cycles....So for applications where your are erasing and re-writing repeatedly life span is finite...I've also seen Linux/Windows devices use the same device and have a hidden war over data formatting till the device surrenders. Bad software can brake some devices...

Right now I'm pissed with Windows Especially Windows10...They have been doing auto update restarts with NO warning to let me save my work, and since last night my damn laptop ain't reading ANY USB memory drives (I'm sure the drives are fine), despite still working with my USB mouse....About 2012 every bit of software I had was ROCK solid stable and reliable...Lately it feels like Windows and Mozilla are not trying or testing so much as throwing crap at the wall in hopes something will stick....

On a positive note there is a special variant of DVD-BD that is supposed to have much longer life than normal variants. I forget the name, but it uses a modification of read-write tech/format, and disc material IIRC. It is a good bit more expensive though.

Guys must have horrible luck with the format. I watch discs from over the years all the time and find as long as the disc is scratch free or not corrupted with fingerprints it'll play like new. Also helps to not use a cheap DVD player which seems to be the norm nowadays.

You must not have any of the defective Anchor Bay-made dual layer DVDs. They have a reputation for failing. My years out-of-print "FM" disc failed in less than 5 years.

DVD player? No player I have from a cheap Sony and mid-range Pioneer, to my Oppo BDP-83SE play those discs any more.

I have quite a few, but that was a known defective run from Crest National that Anchor Bay corrected once they switched replication services in 2001. Not reflective of the format's longevity as a whole.

My "Cream Royal Albert Hall" made in 2005 by Rhino has the same rot as the Anchor Bay "FM" disc, but it was mfg'd 2005-06. Both dual-layer discs. Just not a reliable format.

The only real manufactured DVD's I've had a problem with is a box set of Six Feet Under that I bought used, many of the discs in the set won't play, or play a bit then freeze up.

They look perfect but there's something wrong with them, got them used so I have no idea how they were treated prior. the place I got them from buys a lot of estate and storage stuff, they might have been stored for years in a hot So Cal storage unit.

Optical discs are more vulnerable from the label side than the read side, a scratch on the read side can usually be polished out, but on the label side a scratch can easily damage the data layer.
This is probably why stick on labels were such a problem for DVD-R. Most all my DVD-R's that had labels put on them 10-15 years ago won't read.

Oh the stick on labels.I done the same .I just put a piece of paper in the jewel case with the title info.I'm even afraid to write on the DVDrs and CDRs with a marker.If I have write on them.I just write around the edge and never write in the center and around the TOC band area where the table of contents is read by the player.They should of have a better protective coating on top side.