New, scratched, DVDs

I got 'Angel' DVDs for christmas. All 5 seasons. It's... going to be fun to review. I'll do it another time, today, I want to talk about DVD pressing.

DVD pressing is the industrial replication of DVDs. I honestly don't know how it's done, but I plan to look into it and edit it in if I find it. You'd think, me being in video and all (specifically post production), I'd know, but I send that type of work out in my freelance work, and we have no need for that at the agency. I do hypothesize, though, that it works something like how we make small quantities of copies in a replicator at the agency. Insert master, insert blank DVDs in the copy drives, hit copy and when it's done, take them out, and case them. Silk screening can be done with some of the more expensive replicators. Since pressing companies deal in hundreds of thousands, I expect they remove as much of the human element as they can. Apparently not enough.

One of my Angel disks kept skipping the first time I put it in, so I inspected the bottom and it was significantly scratched. I cleaned it with a mircofiber cloth and it more or less plays now, but that really pisses me off. I kick out maybe 50 DVDs a week at work and I've never seen a single scratched bottom, and absolutely never had one not play or skip. And this is with more of a human element, too. It goes from DVD drive, to printer to replicator to case rather than just 1 or 2 steps. It's absurd that I could open a shrink wrapped DVD box and pull out an already scratched DVD. It's like those jeans that are already worn and have holes in them. I can wear in my own jeans, and I can scratch my own DVDs.

This, of course, is not the first time this has happened. I once worked at blockbuster where we would check out movies not yet available for rent. On several of these I ran into skipping and scratch problems. And I'm positive they were right off the press, many times I signed for them myself and rented them before we (blockbuster employees) had a chance to screw them up.

This all may seem petty, but it's part of a growing trend of corporate irresponsibility and no pride in workmanship. Also, I fuckin hate it when things don't work the way they are supposed to.