Boiling Scratched DVDs

[The Master of Tarquin Hill]

Has anyone heard of this being a good answer to skipping/freezing/all other problems?

This solution was recently suggested to me, and needless to say, I was very skeptical.

 

[Rii]

I know that they don't take kindly to being microwaved.

 

[The Master of Tarquin Hill]

I know that they don't take kindly to being microwaved.

Yeah, I love that episode of Mythbusters.

 

[RobertVA]

Has anyone heard of this being a good answer to skipping/freezing/all other problems?

This solution was recently suggested to me, and needless to say, I was very skeptical.

I'd be surprised if that procedure didn't either delaminate the disk or cause a serious case of disk rot (reflective material corroding).

If a gentile cleaning with mild soap or detergent (don't use anything with abrasive qualities and don't immerse the disk in water) doesn't work check your video/audio media dealer for polishing kits. While the motorized kits and hand operated mechanical kits might be a bit expensive they might have a modestly priced kit that uses foam swabs and a polishing cloth.

In any event make any cleaning and drying motions in a radial direction (between the hole and the edge) instead of parallel to the edge.

I started having skip and freeze problems on multiple disks at one point while my DVD player had no trouble playing CDs or reading CD-Rs with digital photos. I suspect that player developed some deficiencies with one of the lasers (or its separate optics) and replaced the player (A cleaning disk didn't help). The same disks play fine on the replacement player.

Some disks will have a single hesitation point while the player changes tracks at the layer change. Considerate authoring services hide this phenomena in the transition between two scenes.

 

[NCC-1701-B]

I have some discs with severe gashes that still work perfectly, even on the recorded part of the disk. its strange how some things work and others dont

 

[Allyn Gibson]

I know that they don't take kindly to being microwaved.

I set an AOL CD on fire doing that. Five seconds was about one second too long.

 

[Trekker4747]

Has anyone heard of this being a good answer to skipping/freezing/all other problems?

This solution was recently suggested to me, and needless to say, I was very skeptical.

Doesn't strike me as a good idea.

There's companies you can ship a disc to and they'll put a new coating on it to get rid of any scratch. Service should be fairly cheap and quick.

 

[Turbo]

Get a Skip Doctor. I've used this for years and it gets out all but the really deep scratches and gouges. My parents just got a motorized Skip Doctor and it works even better. (Doesn't kill your arm either when you're fixing a batch of 'em.)

 

[Canadave]

Yeah, you'll want to boil them for about ten minutes, then I like to serve 'em over a bed of penne and put a nice white wine sauce overtop. Quite good.

 

[Argus Skyhawk]

If a gentile cleaning with mild soap or detergent ...

How about a kosher cleaning instead?

 

[Mistral]

I am cheap. 1 tube of Colgate. Rub toothpaste on disc(NOT in a circular motion!) Wipe clean with a dry, soft cloth(old tshirts are perfect). The toothpaste fills the scratches and the discs usually work fine after that. I saved my kid's Spiderman 3 that way.

 

[Christopher]

It's weird. I'm old enough to remember when CDs were a new invention, and they were touted as this revolutionary technology that was virtually damage-proof; the data were supposed to be so multiply redundant that you could put deep scratches in the surface and it wouldn't interfere with the perfect playback and sound quality. And yet now we know DVDs as these fragile, flimsy things that go wrong if there's any scratch on the surface at all. Were the early promises just hype, or is DVD encoding somehow more delicate and damage-sensitive than audio CD encoding?

 

[Carpe Occasio]

A trick to use on old VHS tapes is to carefully unwind the tape, steam iron, and rewind.

 

[Turbo]

It's weird. I'm old enough to remember when CDs were a new invention, and they were touted as this revolutionary technology that was virtually damage-proof; the data were supposed to be so multiply redundant that you could put deep scratches in the surface and it wouldn't interfere with the perfect playback and sound quality. And yet now we know DVDs as these fragile, flimsy things that go wrong if there's any scratch on the surface at all. Were the early promises just hype, or is DVD encoding somehow more delicate and damage-sensitive than audio CD encoding?

It might be that we notice the damage on DVDs more easily since there's much more data, and a scratch would therefore a larger portion of the content than on an audio CD. But I always recall attempting to treat CDs with care and don't remember them as "damage-proof". (That'd be since the early 90s, so YMMV.)

 

[barnaclelapse]

I use window cleaner, and it hasn't steered me wrong yet.

 

[Geckothan]

You've gotta be pretty careless to scratch a DVD to the point that you get any noticable artifacts. The best approach to scratches is prevention, don't let idiots/kids get anywhere near your collection and put stuff back in it's case as soon as you've finished playing it. Can't say I've ever had to repair a scratch, however on an unrelated note, washing up liquid + lint free cloth + water works wonders on dirty discs and those Technicolor discs that have the weird cloudy/fingerprinty stuff on them (at least in R2).

 

[RobertVA]

If a gentile cleaning with mild soap or detergent ...

How about a kosher cleaning instead?

Sigh....
Now you know why I use a spell checker. Unfortunately they aren't much good when a misspelling ends up being another word.

I am cheap. 1 tube of Colgate. Rub toothpaste on disc(NOT in a circular motion!) Wipe clean with a dry, soft cloth(old tshirts are perfect). The toothpaste fills the scratches and the discs usually work fine after that. I saved my kid's Spiderman 3 that way.

I really doubt toothpaste is filling the scratch. More likely the abrasive content is removing enough material to soften the scratch's edges or bringing the surrounding area down to the scratch's level.

 

[John Picard]

It's weird. I'm old enough to remember when CDs were a new invention, and they were touted as this revolutionary technology that was virtually damage-proof; the data were supposed to be so multiply redundant that you could put deep scratches in the surface and it wouldn't interfere with the perfect playback and sound quality. And yet now we know DVDs as these fragile, flimsy things that go wrong if there's any scratch on the surface at all. Were the early promises just hype, or is DVD encoding somehow more delicate and damage-sensitive than audio CD encoding?

Ain't it funny how new technology isn't always best? I remember those days as well. I like that DVDs and CDs hold more data and take up less space; however, I've read that minor scratches in the top coating will cause the metallic portion to oxidize and destroy the disc.

 

[Mistral]

If a gentile cleaning with mild soap or detergent ...

How about a kosher cleaning instead?

Sigh....
Now you know why I use a spell checker. Unfortunately they aren't much good when a misspelling ends up being another word.

I am cheap. 1 tube of Colgate. Rub toothpaste on disc(NOT in a circular motion!) Wipe clean with a dry, soft cloth(old tshirts are perfect). The toothpaste fills the scratches and the discs usually work fine after that. I saved my kid's Spiderman 3 that way.

I really doubt toothpaste is filling the scratch. More likely the abrasive content is removing enough material to soften the scratch's edges or bringing the surrounding area down to the scratch's level.

Maybe-but if you clean the toothpaste off too thoroughly it doesn't work, in my experience. Try it before you knock it-I did, and was pleasantly surprised. Spiderman 3 was so bad the Sandman vs the armored car scene was about7 stop-frames without any motion. now it plays.

 

[Garth Rockett]

But I always recall attempting to treat CDs with care and don't remember them as "damage-proof". (That'd be since the early 90s, so YMMV.)

That's my memory as well. I started buying CDs in 1990, and I remember all those early ones I bought had some text included about caring for your CDs to ensure a lifetime of enjoyment. I certainly treated all mine with kid gloves until I got a CD player in my car, but even now I'm still probably much more careful with mine than most people.

I also remember all CD inlay books at the time had a chart explaining the difference between AAD, ADD, and DDD. Do CDs even still label themselves as such anymore?