Yesterday, I took a trip down to my local Circuit City to buy a copy of 'Transformers' on DVD. As I picked up the box in the store, I heard some noise coming from it. It sounded like the DVD was sliding around inside the sealed box. I didn't pay much attention to it. I just bought it and brought it home.

Last night, I sit down in my nice comfy recliner, cranked up my thumping surround sound system and fired up the movie. About 20 minutes or so into the movie, it just suddenly pauses and jumps ahead a good 15 seconds in the movie! This is usually a sign that the DVD player is having trouble reading the DVD. I knew instantly that I had bought a bad DVD. I took the DVD out, turned it over, and sure enough there were several large scratches on the bottom of the DVD. Darnit, just when the movie was getting good, I had to stop, pack it up and head back to Circuit City to exchange it for another one. I brought the DVD in, and went back to grab another copy to exchange it for. I picked up several copies, only to hear that same noise of the DVD sliding around inside the box on each. Finally I found a 'silent' box, so I exchanged it and brought it home. I checked the DVD and it was perfect. No scratches and the movie played flawlessly.

The moral of the story is, when buying DVDs in the store, shake the box a little. If you hear a DVD moving around inside the box, don't buy it! Buy another copy that doesn't make any noise when you shake it. It turns out that the DVD I originally bought was not properly seated in the holder inside the box. This caused the DVD to get bounced around inside the box and get scratched up. From now on, when I buy a DVD, I'm going to do the 'shake test' before paying for it.