I will be the first to admit that I do not go crazy to keep my DVDs in the cases and prevent them from being scratched. There are a couple of DVDs sitting on my DVD player collecting dust because I haven’t gotten around to putting them back in their cases yet. (And the cases are either near the DVD player or on my desk) But somehow this doesn’t really ruin the DVDs. They generally don’t end up scratched or broken. My DVD player will play them without a problem if I were to wipe them off and pop them in the player.
DVDs I get from Netflix on the other hand – are a whole other story! Do the people who have them before me play frisbee with them? I don’t get it. The last 3 DVDs I have gotten from Netflix have had issues. The first one, Baby Mama, actually had a HUGE crack in it but it was one of those double sided DVDs where one side is wide screen and the other is full. I figured at least one of the sides would work in the DVD player. No such luck. I had to report it as broken and wait for a replacement. The second one was fine.
Second DVD I got was Adventureland. During this time, my DVD player was being incredibly temperamental and spitting out the disc try for no reason, not closing it back up, etc. (I have since, I believe, fixed the issue) I decided to give it a try in my computer because I was beginning to think that Netflix would think that *I* had the problem if I reported a second movie with a problem. But it didn’t work in the computer’s DVD player either. The second one was fine.
Today I get I Love You Man. I flipped it over to check it out and it has at least 5 large visible scratches on it. I don’t even understand how this is possible. The crack in the first movie, fine, that could have happened during mailing if a big package somehow ended on top of it (and with USPS, anything is possible) But did Freddy Kruger try to handle the DVD? I don’t get it! When I popped it in the DVD player it said there was no disc in the tray, but luckily just wiping it down with a soft Tshirt did the trick and I was able to watch it.
I treat my Netflix DVDs better than I treat my own DVDs – but I am apparently in the minority. And as I had mentioned, even neglecting my DVDs and leaving them out of their cases for extended periods of time has never left them looking like some of the DVDs I get in the mail from Netflix!
I even had one disc fall apart in my hands when I took it out of the sleeve. Again, I’ll write that off as something going on with USPS – but maybe someone hated the movie and smashed it with a hammer? I don’t know.
Maybe I should stick to their streaming movies from now on.. then if they have issues I have no one to blame but my internet connection!