DVD-Failure Due to Prolonged VCR/DVD Heat Exposure

Being (formerly) a fan of videotaped-media--I later opted for commercial-DVD because repeated use DID NOT CAUSE signal-degradation, even after years of use.

However, only recently did I discover (after a very expensive course in DVD-player replacement) that the source of my ills was in-fact Player-Defective DVDs...

Let me explain...

Sustained heat from the PLAYER (in this case because I have a nasty tendency of watching movies or TV-shows-on-DVD while drifting off to sleep) wrought havoc on my poor DVDs.

I realized after years that my DVD-collection was failing.

Granted, this took years to realize (like most folks I think of DVDs as being virtually permanent, with proper handling and cleaning).

But when I started "testing" my DEAD-DVDs, on my laptop PC, I found to my surprise that almost ALL of them still worked. The problem (I surmised) was that the sector on the DVDs that tells the player that there's a DVD waiting to be played: was damaged from excessive time-of-residence IN THE DVD-PLAYER.

Obviously, I found this hard to believe.

But this was only possible by testing the dead-DVDs in my LAPTOP (I'm fairly cut-off from all my former-friends-with-DVD-players for various reasons) and none of the NEW DVD-players I purchased will connect to the F-type (coaxial cable) connection on my 20-some-year-old GE-TV (without an independently-powered RF-converter...which I own but have a lot of trouble plugging-in to the vast number of UNGROUNDED AC-OUTLETS in my similarly aged place-of-residence [I've cautiously reserved the GROUNDED outlets for my computer-equipment]).

Anyway, who'd have thunk DVDs would fail by sitting in the TV-DVD- player for too long...yet still work fine in a laptop-DVD-player?

Remember, even though I'm a fairly well-qualified A/V-technician; having MS, I can' t handle excessive RCA-cables and move my furniture around like I used to...so this "trial-and-error" troubleshooting took a LONG time.

Oh well...I guess I'll have to rebuild my DVD-collection as my minimal Social-Security income permits...having neural-damage (even the non-cognitive white-matter) is a B****, even for a genius.

ADDENDUM/CORRECTION NOVEMBER 8:
I sometimes make errors in logic when there are multiple variables to consider...my 2 year-old DVD/VCR combo-player has since been discontinued by the manufacturer, so I also have to consider the possibility that the device itself has failed in an odd way: playing SOME DVDs without problems, yet rejecting others nonsensically, for no reason other than the DVD-player having developed an unusual read-error.

The possibility both that the player has failed OR some DVDs have failed is weighted toward the PLAYER having failed...but the PHYSICAL problem of replacing the PLAYER makes THAT problem rather undesirable to consider...so cognitively my error MAY BE a result of my unwillingness to accept inferior hookup-solutions (the added complexity of adding a separate RF-modulator) to solve a physical problem.

ADDENDUM/CORRECTION JUNE 11, 2010
Ultimately, it turned out that there WAS NO problem with anything but the Author's awareness that the entire industry had abandoned RF-modulation internally...necessitating a SEPARATE RF-modulator...that I had desperately been trying to avoid adding to my already-limited table-space.