[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thought this might be useful for you other collectors of music, movies, data etc.....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

fyi

[Responsibility2nd]

And remember: Always rewind your DVD's after watching them.

[staytrue]

dvd's are usually cheap enough and your time and labor dear enough that you should just buy another copy rather than do this.

plus, the dvd/cd may be obsolete in 5 years so why bother.

[eleni121]

Useful information. Thanks. But rubbing alcohol? I clean CD's with a NON alcohol cleaner because alcohol can harm the CD.

But there must be an easier way to do this?

[weegee]

If they'd sell us memory sticks/cartridges with movies on them, there would be no moving parts to need cleaning.

[Tijeras_Slim]

My Matag Neptune has a CD/DVD cycle.

[Drango]

I scrub mine hard with a stiff wire brush using Ajax and then rinse with Comet to get the "stuff" out of the groves. (not)

[MattinNJ]

Thanks, I have an extensive DVD collection and appreciate this.

[Malsua]

I have a couple hundred DVDs. First thing I do when I get them is rip to DVD files(dvdFab), re-author with DVD shrink to just get the movie instead of the all the "non fast forward" garbage you have to sit through. Then I put the original back in the case and burn the ISO to a Taiyo Yuden blank. If my neice wrecks it up with peanut butter, I just burn another. The only downside, I have probably a terabyte worth of hard disk space filled with ISOs.

[Quix]

My understanding is . . .

Yes, it's wise to avoid circular motions. No need in scratching a scratch into the surface along the line of a track and messing up the 1's and 0's in a row such that the music might be noticably compromised.

However, I don't believe that there are any "grooves" per se. The tracks laid down are all coated with a clear protective coating.

And, one can buy liquid to repair scratches in that coating.

But, yeah, I'm a great one for media that doesn't move.

[Gucho]

Bump!

[boris]

I use a belt sander with fine grit. Real quick, too.

[lowbridge]

I hate the fact that DVDs are sooooo incredibly sensitive to scratches. I mean, I have VHS tapes that are 4-14 years old of shows and movies that I taped off of tv (not porn, keep your minds out of the gutter :-)). And those tapes have been through alot. Been stuffed in cardboard boxes, bounced around, dropped, exposed to alot of dust, even my cats pissed on a few of them. And they still play beautifully.

But with DVDs.....about a month ago or so I bought a brand new copy of the movie musical West Side Story. When I got it home, I realized that the DVD was moving around inside the packaging. It had somehow come loose from that little center nub that is supposed to hold the DVD in its place. My heart dropped because I just knew that the DVD was probvably getting all scratched up everytime it moved against that center nub thing. I ripped off the plastic, opened the casing, and took the loose DVD out, and put it in my DVD player. At first I noticed that when a scene would change from one to another, it would freeze for a split second. At first I thought this was the movie, and not the DVD. But then these freezes began to occur not in between scenes, but during scenes and these freezes would last more than a split second. Then, during the numbers "Officer Krupke" and "Maria" it REALLY got bad. stopping, starting, skipping, etc. Then after that number, I stopped having problems with the DVD after the Maria number.

Right out of the package, a brand new DVD (and this isnt the first time something like this has happened).

[monkfan]

Back in the day, when CD media was brand spankin' new, my uncle, being the rich and stylish man that he is, went to shop for a player. The salesman, as part of the pitch, took a CD and tossed it on the carpet. He used his foot to slide the CD back and forth. Then he picked it up, put it in the player and pressed the play button. It played just as before.

Of course, we now know that CD media is hardly indestructible. :)

[SunkenCiv]

I gently wash them under running water, with a little liquid soap, and pat dry.