Scratched DVD help please

[The Charmed One]

Hi,

Not sure if this is the right place to post this but here we go.

Just received our wedding dvd and it's got a scratch on it, it's watchable, but it's the only copy, my uncle did it on his dvd camcorder, because of this we can't copy the whole dvd just upto the error, I'm thinking of taking it to the local pc shop and having it polished, what I want to know is, is it safe to do this, the dvd is a DVD-RW 1.4GB Mini Rewritable dvd.

Or should I buy a kit and do it myself.

Will it be ok, I'd hate to lose it all.

Thank you.

 

[mabas9395]

I would not buy a consumer grade kit. I have tried a few and they all stink. If you decide on the polish/repair route, have it professionally done.

 

[boBQuincy]

Most kits merely replace the big scratch with a lot of tiny scratches, which usually doesn't work.
Before doing anything to the DVD try playing it in some different DVD players. It's likely you will find one that plays the whole thing and you can make a good copy.

 

[photo_chick]

Also make sure it is clean. Sometimes oil from the skin will get into the scratches and make it worse. Sometimes that will get it to read.

 

[AndrewWG]

My suggestion would be to try all you can to get it to play or copy at home. If all else fails, you could bring it to a local video rental store and maybe they can buff it out for you. They usually have a machine that can do it real quickly. I'm sure that they probably aren't supposed to do that for people, but if you shed a little and explain the situation, they will have to try for you. Not all places will have them, but some might. I'm assuming there are video rental stores in the UK? I'm sure there must be.

Andy

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I haven't ever tried it, but I'd be inclined to try waxing it or doing something like that to fill in the scratch before I'd take abrasives (however mild) to it in hopes of buffing out the scratch. If the wax fails, I think you could still try the buffing.

 

[photo_chick]

I haven't ever tried it, but I'd be inclined to try waxing it or doing something like that to fill in the scratch before I'd take abrasives (however mild) to it in hopes of buffing out the scratch. If the wax fails, I think you could still try the buffing.

I have used furniture wax (my Dad told me to do it, he was my computer guru) to help repair a few gamecube discs that were subjected to a 3 year old. It works ok on minor scratches sometimes.

 

[donaldduck1967]

I've taken scrtached DVD Games to Gamestop and asked them to clean them and they worked just fine afterwards.

 

[ukcatfan]

Download DVD Decrypter and give it a try. It is freeware. The development of it was shut down, but I just found a mirror of it here

It has an option to ignore disk errors so it will not bomb out on the copy process.

Kevin


Edit: I didn't try to use the link I provided at first as I was on my way out the door, but I see now that it looks like it is a dead link. You might be able to find it out there somewhere and I bet it is still floating around on peer networks. It is freeware, so there is nothing illegal about getting it from one of those.

 

[Groucho]

I think Doom9 may have a link to a DVD Decrypter download. You could also try ImgBurn, which is from the same author and has many of the same features except that it can't decrypt the CSS that is used on commercial DVDs. That shouldn't be an issue with a wedding DVD. (It also can't do IFO stuff, but again, that shouldn't be an issue in this case.)

I've never really had much luck polishing, but I have found big differences in how different DVD readers perform. Several times, I've found a disc that won't read in my usual DVD burner that reads fine in one of the DVD readers in the various PCs around the house.