Hi,

I like to put videos I record with my camcorder on DVD.
That part is no problem. I use Sony DVD-R. Even though
I'm careful with them, they still manage to get scratched
up some, and then they freeze up and/or jump around
to different sections of the disc. I never have that problem
with commercially copied discs. Sometimes even when
there is no noticeable scratching or damage to the disc
it will still freeze up and act like there's some horrible
damage done to it. Does anyone have any advice about
this? If they do get scratched, is there a way to buff the
scratches out and get them working right again? When
there is no apparent damage done to them, then what?

Thanks!
David

dh@. wrote:

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could be the quality of the discs you're using, quality is better than
quantity. of course if you're using the best you can ignore that :O)

If you have a scratched disc there are a few ways to remove the
scratches but I have used brasso on a very soft cloth, rub it on the
scratched area for a little while and voila!. I have heard of a method
involving hot water but I don't know exactly how to do that.

Consumer burned DVDs and CDs are not very harty. Commerically pressed discs
not only have the data stamped in to the recording layer, but also have a
second layer of polycarbonate over it. Consumer burned discs record the data
using a dye layer which is highly affected by light and air. The second
layer of polycarbonate is also replaced by a layer of laquer which isn't as
durable.

In the end unless you handle consumer burned discs with kit gloves they
aren't going to last anywhere close to how long a commerically pressed disc
will. Even if you don't ever touch the consumer burned disc it will fail
pretty quickly because of the light and air oxydizing the dye layer.

CDs and DVDs (consumer burned ones) are very temporaroy storage. They will
not last anywhere close to the 50 to 100 years or more manufactureres
claimed early on in the adoption of the technology. Even commerically
pressed ones won't make it that long.

The Spider

On Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:35:57 -0400, dh@. wrote:

While I was skeptical, I picked up one of those electric disc cleaners
after trying everything to read some data off one of my classic CD's I
was trying to convert to MP3. I must have played the disc hundreds of
times over the years, so it was pretty beat up. While I used Roxio to
try to grab the tracks it always hunk up and failed about 3/4 of the
way through after multiple tries.

So I was in Fry's just bumbing around and saw a Memorex Optifix Pro.
It looks like a portable DVD player. It comes with a set of
cleaning/polishing pads and some solution for each. You first put the
cleaner pads in, it spins the disc for a couple minutes then repeat
the process to polish.

Did it work? Yep, so was worth the $20 to me. I've seen several brands
of the electric disc cleaners, manual ones too in larger computer and
electronics stores. I later tried to fix another disc that wasn't
nearly as bad and that one it wouldn't help. So a crap shoot at best.
Sometimes it works, other times not.

For less severe damage you can CAREFULLY do it manually. Do NOT go in
circles that can ruin the disc beyond repair. Just a few GENTLE wipes
from the center rim out straight to edge, repeat going around the disc
work a small area at a time. They sell various cleaning solutions by
the bottle and cloths as well.

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