DVD's... make me mad.

Most current dvd burners do best on DVD-R, but many can still use DVD+R also. The RWs are the rewritable disks and cost more unless you are going to reuse them several times, then they are worth the extra. Look on the front of your burner it will tell you the max speed and what kind +/- that it uses. Will have both symbols if it is capable of using both.

Theoretically even an older slow dvd burner can use say 16x single layer blank dvd, however it can only record at its max speed. So say a 4x max dvd burner can only burn 4x no matter the speed of the blank dvd. Now in some cases that old dvd burner would have tohave a firmware upgrade to even recognize the 16x dvd as usable. Now a 16x burner can use any older blank dvds +/- dependent on which or both it was capable of. It will only burn dvd at the max speed of the dvd, so if its a 4x blank dvd then it can only burn at max of 4x. I have a 16x burner and until recently I was using 8x blanks cause they were cheaper and thus it could only burn at max speed of 8x. Now the 16x blanks are just as cheap and I use them. Think my burner is capable of doing double layer dvds so if they come way down in price I could theoretically use them.

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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

They did for a while. There was a competing standard that was in a cartridge. It didn't do well. Costs were much higher.

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if you work at it you can polish out most light scratches with a very very fine abrasive such as toothpaste. CD's and DVD's dont actually store the data on the bottom surface of the disk, thats just plastic filler to protect the actual storage area which is the TOP of the disk, technically the silver are on the underside of the top of the disk. I see people who leave thier cd's and dvd's laying around and always have the bottom side facing up, thats the worst way to set them....if the top of the disk get a scratch theres no saving it.

also cd's have more error correction stored in the data than dvd's which is why you can still play a cd thats pretty well scratched

You nailed it. The scratches have the same effect on the light beam that a scratched or filthy window has when you try to look through it. Companies that "fix" them cannot replace data that is lost so what they are doing is in effect replacing the smoothness and shinyness lost via the scratch.

This method can be compared to the scratches in your car that obscure your reflection. If the scratch is deep to the metal there is nothing you can do but paint it. However if the scratch is just in the paint a good wax job with buffing will almost always minimize the scratch or even hide it altogether often to the point that your reflection has been restored.

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Barack Obama - Spending beyond belief, dismantling our military, groveling to enemies, and wiping his butt on our constitution daily.

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Don't blame it on Cd's and DVDs.

Most of you people have posted the reasons for the scratches on there DVDs and Cd's.

It is the improper use of letting them be jarred and rough handling by children, grandchildren, and even grown-ups who don't handle the properly.

Handle them properly and you won't have damaged products.
It's the owners responsibility.

bumpus
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The mini-disc (MD) or something else? I had a minidisc recorder/player that I procured when I was in Japan back, gosh, 1992 possibly? I think I got it during my first work assignment there. I think it was a Sony MZ-1? something like that. Slick little unit. Street price was pretty outrageous, something like 800 bucks. The client I was working with bought it for me as a gift. We were in an electronics shop browsing and he had seen me looking at it and the next day he had someone go back and buy it for me.

I really enjoyed it but unfortunately it was stolen when I had a storage locker broken into while I was away.

I think I'll ave to do a little googling of CD development. My curiosity is piqued.

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Respect The Cactus!

Don't know if this will work on DVD"S But, last night I was watching this kid's science show from Korea (English subtitles) and they fixed a cd that was all scratched up (by them) with a banana peel. rub the inside of the peel over the cd, then wash it with a spray cleaner (like windex), dried it and it played like brand new. Worth a try, no?

Mini disc was started by sony its a audio only thing.
I still have a few machines I use here. We had a few at a radio studio I worked at for commercials.
Best product ever. record and erase like a tape.
looks like a mini cd in a enclosed plastic case so it cant get scratched.
good quality sound.
small and compact.
hold as much as a regular audio cd.
I use them to this day to record and erase on. IThey make walkmans, home units and car units. They are around 149 or less sometimes now for the home unit. even less for the walkmans.

I've used some plain chapstick and the spinney cleaner on mine, it usually works.

CD Exchange will resurface them, do you have one near you? they charge $3.

Wow, I learned some good stuff from this thread!

hollym

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Philo of Alexandria

DVDdecryptor is (or rather, was) the standard. It's hard to find nowadays on the net. There's still DVDFab HD Decryptor...readily available... and Ripit4me (hard to find, but out there). Those will rip the movie to your hard drive. If you don't (or like me 'won't) use double sided dvd discs, you need DVD Shrink. It's still available. When burning, to avoid pixellation artifacts, I do nothing else on the computer, and burn at 8x max.

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