Muse

This is the last time I buy from a seller who's evidently dealing in rental disks. I'm convinced that the risk is just not worth it. I've gotten some OK disks, but the clunkers are disappointing. I got 3 such disks from one seller:

They have a peculiar scratch pattern that is symmetrical and covers the entire disk. The scratches appear to be nearly straight and go from the center hole toward the outside edge, at about a 20 degree angle from the radius (20 degrees clockwise from the radius). There are literally hundreds of these scratchs. They seem to be pretty fine and not deep. Of the 3 disks with this scratch pattern:
1. Seems to play OK in my players.

2. Doesn't play in my standalone player (Momitsu V880 upscaling deck) or either of my PC DVD drives (Pioneer 106S slot loading player, NEC ND-2510A DVD-RW rea/write drive).

3. Doesn't play in either PC DVD drive, but plays in the Momitsu standalone deck with occasional hiccups (momentary pauses, sound dropouts).

All 3 seem to play (haven't played all the way through, just a few minutes) in my Philips DVP642 cheapie standalone DVD player (no upscaling, no digital output). However, I keep the Philips attached to my 20" TV and it would be a major hassle to have to set it up in my home theater just to play these disks (It resides under a VCR).

Someone at Anandtech said "the weird scratches are probably from DVD Doctor." What does this mean?

Is there something I might be able to do to get the disks to play OK in my Momitsu V800 deck? I did clean them with tissue paper and 10% rubbing alcohol, but that didn't fix things. Thanks for any insight or help.

DVDChris

yep, that's definitely a result of DVD Doctor. It's this device that resurfaces the data side by adding all those micro scratches. This will supposedly fix deep scratches and similar things that make a disc unplayable.

Joe Molotov

Yeah, it's been Disc Doctored. I have one that I've used on occasions to remove deep scratches. It doesn't look pretty after you've run a disc through it, but sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. I've had it go either way. But at least I've never had a disc play worse after it's been run though the Disc Doctor.

Kocheese99

Yep, its been disk doctored. If it bothers you, i would take them to someplace that has disk resurfacer, those machines will probably clear everything up.

speedy1961

Well you could try boiling the DVD to see if that helps (and no, I'm not kidding) but what I would first recommend is to see if you have a Hollywood Video store near you.

Hollywood Video usually has DVD polishing machines and usually if you ask nicely / are a customer, they may run your damaged disc through their machine to see if that clears up the problem enough so that it's playable. If they won't do it for free, you could offer a couple of dollars for them to do it.

I buy used DVD from Hollywood all the time and the DVDs I'm hesitant to buy due to scratches / marks, they'll run through their machine and I've had no problems with the DVD afterward.

Barring that, you could see if there are any places that do disc resurfacing in your phone book.

Here are a couple of threads which deal with this topic (including boiling):

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....hlight=Boiling

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....hlight=Boiling

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/showthread....hlight=Boiling

tofferman

I can vouch for the disc resurfacing machines as well. These machines can restore most discs to like new. Any time I purchase a used disc on Ebay, I always ask if it was a former rental copy. Being a collector, I want dvds in As New condition only. Unfortunately, many dvd sellers on Ebay are deceptiveor stretch the facts about the dvds condition.

dvd_luver

Disc Doctor I think may be a sign of the apocalypse. Haha.

It just ruins media and doesn't fix it one bit from my 1 experience with it. Every DVD junkie or CD lover may have at one point in their collecting careers gone out and bought 1 only to be maddened and outraged by how freaking crappy it is. The device just ruins discs. I think it stinks, it ruined a dvd I ran on it.

zombiezilla

Out of every DVD or CD I've Disc Dr'd (probably only about 20 or 30 discs in 10 years or so), I've only had ONE that wouldn't play afterward. It's a GREAT product!

joltman

I just got a replacement pack for my Disc Doctor, it works great for me! I've been ripping my CDs to my hard drive using CDEx, and it tells me how many jitters occurred while ripping it. Just yesterday I had a CD with a track that went from 42 jitters to 0 after using it. An, as others have said, I've never had a CD be worse than it was before I doctor'd it.
Just wanted to throw that out there.

Muse

Thanks for all the great replies. I don't know for sure, but I suspect that they Disk Doctored these disks unnecessarily. Just a guess, really. All I know is the worst one plays in only one of my four drives now, the one that resides under one of my VCR's. And it might not play properly all the way through, I haven't tried that.

3 of the 8 DVD's I got from this guy had the scratches. One is unrecognized in my Momitsu. As many times as I've cleaned the disk, it's still not recognized.

The DVD polishing offered by some stores sounds like a very excellent idea. I'm going to pursue that one. Where I am I should be able to find places that can do that.

Edit: Looking them up, there's a Hollywood Video store less than a mile from me!

Muse

There were a couple of things about this seller that I should have taken as red flags:

1. He was selling a LOT of DVD's. He was seriously a volume seller.

2. Every single disk was listed as either mint (disk and case) or new. As it turned out, the "mint" ones all had only partially removed stickers on the cases and the "new" ones were similar but didn't have those stickers (IOW, they most definitely were not new).

He had a good reduced shipping policy for multiple purchases, so I decided to take the plunge. It really wasn't worth the trouble.

Muse

Having read through a whole lot of the linked threads that talked about boiling DVD's to restore playability, I think I'm going to give that a shot. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll try Hollywood Video and see if they will work on the disks with their disk restoration process. Thanks for the ideas!

jaycrow

try putting something like toothpaste on the disc and working it in gently with a cloth.
i have heard this works for some people.

Muse

I did the boiling water thing 3 times and there's no evident improvement. My computer's driver still doesn't see it nor my STB (Momitsu V880). I'm going to go into my local Hollywood Video today and ask them if they will give it the treatment. No harm in asking.

grundle

DVDs are made of aluminum, which has a boiling point of 4566 °F. How do you get it that hot?

Muse

Aluminum? Are you sure of that? I thought they were made of some kind of plastic. Surely AL wouldn't be opaque to the lasers. I guess you are putting us on, anyway. Sheesh.

mbs

If the inner aluminum layer is scrated, the DVD is done. Nothing will fix that.

On the other hand, if there are scratches in the plastic coating (which divert the laser), then boiling can soften the plastic and make the laser able to target the correct area.

This sounds like the plastic is scratched. Boiling may indeed help.

speedy1961

You don't boil it to that point. 212 degrees or whatever the boiling point of water is fine.

Instructions are in the threads I posted earlier.

speedy1961

Exactly.

They've done it for me and there is no harm in asking.

Muse

I was going to go into Hollywood Video yesterday but decided to test one of my other Dr. DVD scratched disks first. There were 3 that I got from that eBay seller that had the scratch pattern. One wouldn't play on any but my Philips deck, one would play in my home theater deck, the Momitsu V880, but it had occasional audio dropouts and momentary freezes (Dumb and Dumber), and one appeared to play OK in all drives. I gave the Dumb and Dumber the boil treatment and watched it all the way through on my Momitsu HT deck last night. Whereas it had stutters before (even after cleaning), after boiling it played all the way through without a hiccup. The funny thing was, it froze 15 seconds into the final credits!!! Who needs the final credits?! So, I got one extra laugh at the end of Dumb & Dumber last night! Upshot of this is that I will only bring one DVD to Hollywood Video in hopes that they will give it the treatment.

Edit: Question - I noticed a deeper scratch that runs pretty much along a radius for almost 1/4 inch and it's near the outer edge of the disk. How do DVD's play? I figure it's possible that stuff earlier in a movie is written closer to the center and something like the final credits might be written closer to the outer edge of the disk, which might account for my freeze during the final credits. Of course, on disks with several extra features, those extra features might be located toward the outer edge. Am I wrong about all this or does it actually work something like this?

speedy1961

DVDs start at the center hub and radiate outward towards the outer edge.

I've got a better explanation at home in one of my books but someone here will probably show up and explain it more detailed than I.

grundle

That would boil the water, but the DVD would still remain a solid.

Nick Danger

Grundle has never boiled an egg.

speedy1961

Not knowing him (as you apparently DO), it sounded like he was looking to "cook" the DVD for human (?) consumption.....

Nick Danger

I thought that grundle was arguing that, since aluminum boils at 2467*C, we can't boil a DVD in water, because it won't get much hotter than 100*C. I was pointing out that we also use the word "boiling" to refer to putting things like eggs (or DVDs) into a pan of boiling water.