Bad Turn For Cds

THE SUNDAY AGE

Sunday January 23, 1994

London. COMPACT discs made for Philips in Britain are decaying in a way that has baffled the company and alarmed owners who bought believing they were long-lasting and unbreakable.

Philips has set up a hotline to advise customers that if CDs have ``Made in the UK for PdO" near the label's centre, then they may be prone to tarnishing and become unplayable.

Philips pressing factory, PdO in Blackburn, Lancashire, north-western England, produces a quarter of all CDs on sale in British shops. Each year between 100 million and 115 million discs are sold in the UK.

Philips admits it does not fully understand the process, but believes airborne sulphur is eating away at the nitrocellulose lacquer _ it has now switched to an acrylic one _ and then interacting with the CDs' silver coating to form metallic compounds. That causes dark bronzing of the reflective surface. Eventually, the CD player's laser cannot read the disc and will refuse to play it.

The Blackburn plant is unique in using silver coatings on its discs beneath the nitrocellulose layer. Other manufacturers use aluminium.

--Independent.