I have a DVD of the film Circle of Iron (also known as The Silent Flute) that I purchased from Amazon back in 2005. It played perfectly fine when I watched it soon after purchase and one time a year or so later. I have not watched it since until tonight when I popped it in my DVD player and the disc refused to play  - I could see the initial studio logo animation but then the screen just went black. No menu, nothing. I then tried the disc in my blu-ray player and it immediately threw up an error about the disc being "incompatible" (my blu-ray player does play DVDs as well). I then took the disc over to my folks and tried it on their DVD player. Same story as with my DVD player. All other discs play fine in all of these various players.

This disc is in perfect condition with no visible sign of damage or wear and tear. I have over 400 DVDs in my collection and take very good care of them. Does anybody have any idea what could have gone wrong with this disc? I've heard of "CD rot" but never "DVD rot" and I've never encountered a problem like this before (except for some flaky behavior from some Netflix rentals that had obviously been used as frisbees). Interestingly, I just learned that this film is due to be released on blu-ray soon, so it looks like I'll be double-dipping. Just curious what could cause something like this. Thanks!

If it's the R0 release, it's a Blue Underground disc.  I checked mine and it played fine...for what that's worth.

If nothing else, this got me to check the profile for changes. 

Regarding what could have caused this, there have been a number of titles that have gone bad like this.  Some flaw in the manufacturing process is presumed to be at fault.  For a while, many folks had it narrowed down to a particular plant in Mexico.  Universal ran a bunch of their product through this plant and consequently have a number of titles that eventually crap out.  I couldn't say specifically what your particular problem is.  I will say that it's rare for a title like this to go bad, having been released in 2004.  By then, most all the plants had their production processes nailed down.

Just a quick followup: Contacted Blue Underground via email but they have never responded or acknowledged receipt of my message.