feeling listless

dvd I was shocked to find the other day when I put my copy of the Buffy episode Restless into my dvd player that it was covered in pixalisation and was basically unplayable even though it had sat on my shelf for a year. According to Wired its a fairly common problem:

"DVDs are a bit tougher than CDs in the sense that the data layer (or layers -- some discs have two) is sandwiched in the middle of the disc between two layers of plastic. But this structure causes problems of its own, especially in early DVDs. The glue that holds the layers together can lose its grip, making the disc unreadable at least in parts. Users that bend a DVD to remove it from a hard-gripping case are practically begging for this problem, because flexing the disc puts strain on the glue.

The Buffy boxsets are series of tight cardboard pockets bound together like a book. Its actually nigh-on impossible to remove them without bending to some degree. Coincidence?