Hello. Dr Who Laserdisc. Need to test! Rotted?

Hiya,
I have recently aquired a Dr Who Laserdisc (The Brain of Morbius, which is a totally awesome story BTW) and am pretty sure that it is bolloxed. Visually, there are a few dark spots around the rim of the disk where the aluminium backing has come away. I do not own a laserdisc player (But am a doctor who collector). My questions is thus: Does this indeed mean that it is unplayable; if not is anyone on this forum from South Wales/ can i be a cheeky git and use your laserdisc player. If not can i send someone my laserdisc to play-test?
Many thanks for reading and all the best
Ed

Hello iggo,

Just to clarify, you said that...

there are a few dark spots around the rim of the disk where the aluminium backing has come away

...do you mean that it looks a bit like this?



(Though this is actually a Bluray disc, the principle is the same.)

It this is the case, then yes it is laser rot and the disc would probably not play unaffected. The only machines I know of that seem to play 'through' laser rot are the really expensive (even 2nd hand) are the PIONEER LS-X range of machines. I suspect that even if you did have access to a more regular LD player, that it would look something like this on playback...



...with those streaks and pin-lights all over the picture, as the laser lens gets to that section. The outside egde is the end of a side so probably at around the last episode of your WHO LD.

There were some LDs that were notorious for rot, ERASER is one, TRUE LIE seemed to have a fair amount and the DEFINITIVE STAR WARS CAV BOXED SET was infamous!

I know that this is only speculative and all negative, so probably not what you wanted to hear...sorry!

Hiya,
Thank you very much for your response. It doesn't look like that. Instead it looks like a single black mark where i presume the backing has come away. It is roughly 2mm by 2mm. Any ideas?
(Would supply picture but my camera has gone walkabout)
All the best and thank you once again.
Ed

This is very informative...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disc_rot

Any closer?