PS3 "Grill" Effect - Now with New Pics, Actually "bubbly"

[Dangerboy]

Hello All PS3 users,

Humor me for a moment...is this....natural?

I finally broke down and got a PS3 60 gig (with multiple blessings all around), and I gave it a few trial runs. Plays PS1, 2, and music CDs all swell. NO problems, no scratches no nothing. It even came out singing after the 2.4 update. IN fact, I'm starting to like the system.

I figured I'd give the 1080p a run for it's money with a Blu-Ray. Having watched RoboCop on BD the other day, I decided to give a modern movie a try. I tossed in Pan's Labyrinth BD, loved it, enjoyed, etc.

Went to pull the disc out after watching, and as per usual habit, flipped the disc to check for scratches...and found this:



While its a tad hard to discern in the pic, the Pan's Disc now looks like it was dipped in oil. Instead of that smooth odd blue tone, it's almost psychadelic; like the same effect when you have a CD that's partially cracked and the colors start to bleed. Except this is the entire disc, and there's no cracks. The disc was hot when I ejected it, but I've had hot PSX / 360 / PS2 CDs and nothing looked like this.

I checked the running times on both movies and P'sL is only 10 minutes longer.

I checked all my other CDs / games I've played and all look perfect.

Which leaves me with two questions...

1. Did my PS3 just cook...this CD?
2. Is the DVD still within return policy at Best Buy so I can get a non-cooked CD. ^o^;;

I'm going to leave the disc case open and see if the odd coloring disappears by morning, and if not, this disc is getting exchanged, and the PS3 us getting its own personal air conditioner.

Somewhere curiosity is stalking the cat...
Jason

[Lothars]

I've never actually seen something like that happen but I would definitely recommend to exchange the disc especially if that spot hasn't removed

very strange though.

[G-Boobie]

Yeah, that IS weird. I've never had that happen...

All I can think is you got a bad disc, though that's just a guess.

[Nophix]

I've seen that happen when the disc is poorly manufactured. The "plate" that stores the data is actually glued between the 2 plastic layers. If it was manufactured wrong, the speed at which the disc spins can cause it to warp inside the disc. Take it back and exchange it, BB should honor it.

Btw, this happens a LOT with cheap off-brand CD-R's and DVD-R's.

[walrusmonger]

It's nothing to be worried about, I would say 1/2 of my blu ray discs look like that.


Edit with more info:

The discs sometimes just look like that. I have some movies I've never watched that look like that, and some that I've watched 10 times that don't look like that. I have games that I have hardly played look like that, and games I have played hours that don't.

Nothing is wrong with the disc, at least I hope not, because if so at least 1/2 of my blu ray discs are messed up.

[Poofta!]

does it still work?

[walrusmonger]

Yeah they all work. I went through my discs again, it seems like newer releases are the ones with the "oil slick look."

[Dangerboy]

a. Well here's the problem Monger; it didn't have the oil slick look when I put it in; it looked normal.

b. It obviously worked, since it was still paying the movie in that state.

Anyway...

So this morning I checked on the Blu-Ray and still looked like shit. I grabbed the receipt and stopped by the best buy that's on my way to the GF's house (about 20 minutes to BB) with 2 brief stops on the way there.

I walk in, and as I head towards the Returns counter I open the case to show the lady, and wouldn't you know it, the disc looked perfect. Not an hour ago it was 5 shades of rainbow, and now it looked like a minty new Blu-Ray. I'm not sure if it was from being in the car's glove compartment (it's a hot day today), or what.

Basically, from point of remova from PS3l, to point of seeing it the final time, 10 hours have passed - and the disc is once again "normal looking".

I exchanged it anyway.

I may play a Blu-Ray game for 2 hours to see if the game disc does it.

Nothing like having a inconsistent state media.

[Poofta!]

i meant if it worked after being turned into that state. well anyway lets keep a closer eye on this state of blu-ray warping and if it actually doesnt anything to the media or if its a common occurance due to heat/humidity.

[Dangerboy]

I decided to test a theory this evening, and sadly it worked.

A quick review and understanding of what I'm referring to.

1. After reading through the thread, I began studying all the Blu-Ray discs I have. Like a CD, they have two different 'views'. If you are looking at the blu-ray disc head on, it looks dark gray/blue. This is the same way a CD looks silver if looked at straight on.

2. Now, if you tilt both CDs into the light, you will begin to see the "pattern" caused by the reflecting light. On a Blu-Ray, it's a somewhat uniform, oil like pattern. This is akin to the prism effect you get when you tilt the CD into the light; a neat display of colors.

However, note the important word here; "tilt". The only way I can see the pattern, rather than the flat color, is to look at it with a light source directly hitting it.

Which brings us back to the original picture. Both CDs are at the same tilt; they should be both flat in color. Obviously, the Pan's disc is visually showing its pattern without the extra help.

Tonight, I took MGS4 to the task, and played it for about an hour or two, and sure enough, once I popped it out, you could see the pattern without tilting the disc.

What happened with Pan's disc went further. The descriptive word I was looking for was "bubbly" - the pattern was no longer waves of color, they were circles of color.

I tried to illustrate it here:


Note the circle pattern on the last pic; though just an illustration here, Pan's disc was even worse, like if you were looking at hundreds of flat beads across the surface. This was looking *straight* at it, no tilting at all.

As mentioned before though, after 10 hours Pan's disc looked perfect. So whatever the heat was causing the disc to do, undid itself from ever-so-slowly-cooling off.

Here's the question:
Is the Blu-Ray manufacturing process possibly at a heat risk? Laserdiscs long ago suffered laser rot from a manufacturing defect. Could heat be causing some sort of reaction to the blu-ray disc? (That so far, seems automatically reversible...)

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

I recall that a major development hurdle for the Blu-Ray process involved finding a polymer for the "casing" of the disc that would be able to withstand "standard usage" without failure.

Up to this point I thought that that may have only meant that it was highly "scratch-resistant" ... but in viewing your situation, perhaps the plastic goes through some type of safe/normal "reaction" to the intensity of the Blu Ray laser / the high velocity speeds of the motor which is self-repairing. (There are plenty of "memory" based plastics on the market that revert to a certain shape at a certain temperature.)

Just a theory ... but you've presented a good amount of evidence to support it IMO.

[Nebagram]

I've been following this thread closely as I've noticed many (if not all) of my PS3 games have gone all psychedelic on me... but the thing is, I've not had so much as a loading problem on ANY of them, no matter how hippy the discs have got, so I've just ignored it and continued.

[heybtbm]

I've been following this thread closely as I've noticed many (if not all) of my PS3 games have gone all psychedelic on me... but the thing is, I've not had so much as a loading problem on ANY of them, no matter how hippy the discs have got, so I've just ignored it and continued.

Same here. I routinely rent Blu-Ray discs from Netflix and a quick check reveals all of them have the psychedelic look to them as does my MGS4 and Warhawk discs (the two I play the most). They all work fine though.

[G-Boobie]

Same here. I routinely rent Blu-Ray discs from Netflix and a quick check reveals all of them have the psychedelic look to them as does my MGS4 and Warhawk discs (the two I play the most). They all work fine though.

Same goes for me. Metal Gear, Virtua Fighter 5, and Burnout all did the same thing after running for an hour. Oddly, DMC 4 and Uncharted did not(?).

I've played VF 5 and Burnout for easily fifty hours apiece: they still work just fine. My money is hesitantly with Frankie's theory, since we have nothing else to go on...

[CelticJobber]

None of my PS3 games look "psychadelic", even the ones I've played alot like GTAIV (which I've spent about 70 hours on) still look normal.

[Mayhem]

I have rather wondered if this was caused by heat... I've seen a couple of my Wii games go the same on the bottom after I've been playing them for hours and then eject.

[Lothars]

I have rather wondered if this was caused by heat... I've seen a couple of my Wii games go the same on the bottom after I've been playing them for hours and then eject.

I think that definitely could be the reason.

It would be interesting to find out.