DVD's... make me mad.

We have kid DVD's and parent DVD's. We also have a kid DVD player with built in TV Guardian, and a parent DVD player with surround sound and hi-def.

Our kids are just that....kids. They enjoy being able to handle their own DVDs. If one gets ruined, oh well....as they grow, they will learn. Even our 4 year old can change the DVD and knows how to fast forward the commercials . The only ones that have truly gotten ruined were done so by the baby when they were left within her reach. She doesn't do it to be irresponsible or destructive - she's a year old.

Some things are more important than a simple DVD. I do keep library DVDs up and out of reach. How are children going to learn to care for electronics if they never have the chance to touch and use them?

Huh, I had couple bad ones from Netflix when I first joined couple years ago, but since then all of them have been fine, though few have needed cleaning to remove smudges.

Any you buy, I say make backup copies immediately, then put the originals away for safe keeping. Plus with the backups, you can remove all the extraneous garbage and just have the movie start directly when placed in the player. I mean I dont need to see ads for 5 other movies nor 5 minutes of dire threats of what the FBI or INTERPOL is going to do if I so much as think of making a copy.

I might add that I have bought some of those $1 ones out of bin where I had problems playing it. I made copy on computer and voila, it played fine in player then. Yea seems waste to copy a $1 dvd, but if thats only way to get it to play properly on the stand alone player, then so be it. Profit margin on $1 dvd has to be pretty small so cant get too mad. Now if I gave $20 for a dvd.....

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if you think dvds are bad wait till you get hd dvds or bluray disc. They data is more dense on the platter so a small scratch can ruin the disc much worse than it would on a dvd.
the more data they cram on these disc the worse a scratch is to them.

With nearly a thousand movies rented from netflix, only two were unplayable (one was broken in two, the other had a defect in the movie transfer itself, so it wasn't really scratched).

I believe in making backups as soon as I get a new movie, then keep the original up on a high shelf. The programs are free. I can guarantee you, if you buy a new dvd, and break it, or scratch it, it's unreturnable.

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Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

Yeah, but... "Clicks and Pops and White Noise"

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What programs are you using? I've got a dvd burner, but most of the dvd's have so much info they don't fit on the 4.7 GB discs I have... or do you get the bigger disc's?

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I think I will start making back ups of the movies.

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get a DVD burner (pioneer and sony make nice ones for under $100)

get a spool of blank DVDs (on a sale week, I get a 50 disk spool for 15 bucks)

ok, now, take your new, pristine DVD, and make a copy.
store the new disk and toss around the copy.

repeate when the copy is to damaged to used.
cost, about 25 cents a copy.

You are allowed to make LEGALLY, copies of your purchased DVDs for archive and personal use.

Or, if you have a huge extra HD, rip the DVD and store it on the hard drive.

Or just forgo all that bother and download the movie online and burn it right to a blank for free.

For everyone having this problem,

I have found that some players play scratched cds/dvds better than others. Next time you're in the market for a new player, bring some of your scratched ones to Best Buy or whatever. Put 'em in the floor models and see which will play them and which won't.

RF

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I've had quite a few NetFlix DVD's that skipped or froze(and one that wouldn't play at all). The toothpaste treatment usually works. Just rub some plain white toothpaste onto the DVD's play side,then rinse it off. Dry it with a lint free cloth. I didn't think it would work and I still don't understand how it works,but it usually does the trick for minor scratches.

I think the DVD player matters,too. I had one that was horrible...it would skip easily and the movies all looked so dark. Then I got a new one,and it was much better. I had bought this civil war movie called Pharoah's Army,it's set on a homestead in KY during the winter so it is a slightly dark movie. When I watched it on the new DVD player,I was amazed. There were parts that I hadn't even seen because it was so dark on the old player.

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When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee ~ Isaiah 43:2

you dont have kids, and or CDs/DVDs in close proximity. do ya?
You just dont understand,lol. No offence intended.

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I never heard of it but THAT is an awsome idea

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Back to vinyl? No Way! When CD's first came out I was absolutely stunned by the sound quality and converted my record collection as quickly as I could. Trouble is, I took all those "classic" platters to the dump, oh if I had only known e-bay was coming

No kids here and you'd be hard pressed to find a smudge or speck of dust on our cd's. If a kid did touch them, I probably would eat him

Not only are there non playing issues, but also with DVD you cannot fast forward through all the FBI threats. You are forced to watch all that propaganda.

With Tapes you can.

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download them online, the FBI threats are ripped out.

That my friend is THE SECRET! Keeping the two apart doesn't take much effort now does it? (no offense intended.)

Pat

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richiec

if you are into great sound try a sacd cd - one that will play in a surround
system or regular system - they put much more info than a regular cd
i think a regular cd you can hear 94db, but on these you can hear 120db.
We just got Nora Jones and WOW!.

Anyhow, we never had a problem with the kids scratching disks, it's been a while since they were so young, i probably put them in, but then we just showed them and when they leave one out of it's box, let them know it will be ruined. We kind of treat it like hte library, you don't get a new one out until the other one is put away. We did that when they were younger and they got the hang of it.

Sometimes we rent dvd's and we wonder what people do with them, they are so scratched.

Anyhow, hang in there, as the kids grow, they naturally get more careful with things.

I sorta wish they would have put CDs and DVDs into a cartridge of some sort which would protect the media yet allow for rough handing. Something like the flip up face of a VHS tape. Might have added a bit to the cost of a CD or DVD but it would have made it nicer when one is switching CDs in the car and carefully holding them is more difficult. It might have also dispensed with the horrid jewel box.

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You can get good quality DVD burner for $30 to $40. Models change quickly, just look on web and do your homework as some work much better than others. Never buy on price alone, have to do your homework.

Blank dvds. I got stack of 100-16x for $16 on Black Friday. Think one place even had them advertised 100 for $6 but sure they were nearly immediately sold out. You can match the $16 price from cheapo places online anyday of the year, though generally the dvds will just be shrink
wrapped with no spindle/hat box to hold them for that price.

Hmm, maybe not quite as low as $16 with shipping but close. Examples:
http://www.pricewatch.com/media/dvd+r_100pack.htm

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"What would you do with a brain if you had one?" -Dorothy

"Well, then ignore what I have to say and go with what works for you." -Eliot Coleman

I've never had any trouble with either CDs or DVDs. Except for one thing. Buying them!

You see, DVDs aren't just DVDs, are they? There are countless different kinds - DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, various 'speed' DVDs, just to name a few. How on earth am I supposed to know which kind to buy to record things on??