fixing scratched DVDs and CDs

[miriam_e]

A few years ago I bought a boxed set of the original Outer Limits series. One of the disks in the set was badly scratched, making it difficult to view some of the episodes and completely impossible to view one of the episodes. That disk just wouldn't play on a standalone DVD player. The only way I could see those damaged episodes was to rip them to my hard drive. That worked for 3 of the 4 episodes on that disk, but the final one couldn't even be accessed by the computer.

I'd tried polishing the disk in an attempt to get rid of the scratches, but had actually worsened the problem, because I'd simply covered the surface with numerous, finer scratches. None of the different ways of polishing that I could think of worked. Even gently polishing with talcum powder and a cotton-ball only scratched the soft plastic further.

Today I decided to try a different approach. I used a cotton-ball again, but this time wet with water, and I polished it so softly that intuition told me that it would have no effect at all. I sat and polished for about an hour while listening to an audiobook. Eventually I could see the surface was definitely clearer and shinier. When I tried ripping the previously inaccessible track it worked. The disk was now smooth enough that I could read it. Yay!

The track is still damaged and there are some bad bits where the image breaks up, but most of the episode plays perfectly now. Quite a difference from before when it couldn't be retrieved at all.

Comments

[greylock.livejournal.com]

The Outer Limits is something I need to pick up once I get through all the Twilight Zones, as I'm fairly certain I've seen little of the original Outer Limits at all.

I'm not even sure how much of the newer version I saw. I know I saw GRRM's The Sand Kings (? the one about bugs that live in sand), but that's about it.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

There have been 2 Outer Limits series -- 1963 and 1995. The set I have is the first season from way back in 1963. They are quite embarrassingly dated. That first season was released in 2 box sets. I have only one so far. One of my favorite stories came from that second season -- Robert Culp as "The Demon with the Glass Hand". I hope when I get that set it is half as good as my memory of it.

The second series in 1995 was brilliant. I saw every episode. The Sand Kings was a superb two-part episode that began that series. The production values and the scripts were light-years beyond the first series. But without that clumsy first set there likely would never have been an Outer Limits in 1995. It cultivated the seed so that later ones would bloom.

See http://epguides.com/OuterLimits_1963/ and http://epguides.com/OuterLimits_1995/

[greylock.livejournal.com]

They are quite embarrassingly dated.
SO is the TZ. But there is a charm in it.

The second series in 1995 was brilliant.
'95?
That seems too late. I was sure I watched The Sand Kings at my parent's place. huh.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

It is also interesting to see how the bar for acting has been raised over the years. However that highlights certain films like Roman Holiday, made in 1953 and starring Gregory Peck and Audrey Hepburn, in which the acting stands up very well against anything made today.

It is not just the acting that's embarrassing in the old Outer Limits though, often it is clearly the writing. All too often a great idea was written without a good understanding of human behavior. I suspect much of the fault lies in the directing too. It is interesting to watch certain actors turn corny lines into good viewing. It is also fun to play "spot the new actor who would later become famous".

Humph. The way I speak it sounds as if I dislike the series intensely, but I don't. It was inspiring for me in my childhood, with its themes of looking outward beyond human foibles and xenophobia. Heck, the very first episode features an alien who is accidentally wrenched to Earth and is fired upon by an aggressive military who misunderstand that it is just trying to get back home. I was a little dismayed when I found that this series that had been so rivetting when I was a youngster now looked corny, but it will always have a place in my heart for bringing science fiction to the screen. The Twilight Zone was important for similar reasons, though its stories tended more often to be fantasy rather than science fiction, and science fiction will always remain my first love. :)

[greylock.livejournal.com]

I've just polished off TZ season two.
It is also interesting to see how there has been a blanding of actors.
Fewer non-bit part actors there days have character in their faces. Of course there are more actors who are not Anglo, but if my experiences with things like Heroes are any indication, just because they're not white doesn't mean you can pick them out in a crowd.
Some of the actors in one I just watched had scars on their faces!

The acting is also very broad. I suppose that is a given, assuming most came from theatre or variety.

I agree with all your comment about the actors, part of the fun episode is watching the husband and boss from Bewitched interacting.

I don't make the hard and fast SF/fantasy rule you do, and I haven't seen anywhere near enough Outer Limits to judge, but I don't think the differences between the two shows (good or bad) is nearly as great as all that.

[annie-lyne.livejournal.com]

While it's still readable, you might want to rip it in case the disc fails completely.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

Absolutely! I try to routinely rip my DVDs and CDs as soon as I buy them, then put the originals away as precious archives so they don't get damaged.

The plastic they make them out of is so unbelievably soft -- just a gentle wipe with a tissue will mark them. I wish they'd use something more scratch-resistant.

[miriam-e.livejournal.com]

When I rip them I re-encode them using a codec that uses good compression, like XviD. Because I also reduce the physical size of the image, losing surprisingly little quality, I get filesizes usually around a fifth the original, or in the case of The Outer Limits, about a tenth the size. Even so, they take up a lot of space. Thank heavens for terabyte drives. I do wish I didn't have to use up room on my drive with them though. If the disks were not so fragile and were easier to watch instead of the stupid unskippable propaganda intros, clumsy menus and so on I would be more happy about using them. I wish I could open them with sensible filing systems and simply click the video I want to watch.