Recommendation for Scratched Discs

[demon0]

I currently have a very old Sony DVD player. I don't really feel like looking up the model number right now, but it doesn't matter. I use NetFlix a lot, and noticed that if discs have scratches or smudges that the DVD player hiccups and makes playback painful in certain scenes (it goes REALLY slow, then skips backward like 10 scenes). The only way to get around it is to literally skip the trouble scenes, which totally take away from the immersion of movies.

Anyway, I have a little portable DVD player that I bought for $49 at Walmart. It can play every last DVD. I was half tempted to take a bite out of a DVD and see if it could still play it. I bet it would. Unfortunately, it has no way to connect to my TV, nor would I want to do that.

I was wondering what DVD players (hopefully cheap ones) you guys have experience with that never stumble, even on the dirtiest DVDs. Thanks!

P.S. I'm also in the market for an upconverting DVD player with DivX support, so if you knew one of those that also could play scratched discs well, I would be unbelievably thankful!!

[lordsmurf]

Toshiba DVD players.

[jameshgross]

A soft lint free cloth and a little isopropyl alcohol (rubbing) will work wonders on dirty DVDs..

[SCDVD]

In the same vein, I would like to hear opinions on which DVD writer does the best job on reading scratched and damaged media. On the player side, I have found older Sony players to be very bad at reading scratched discs as well as any kind of recordable media.

[budz]

In the same vein, I would like to hear opinions on which DVD writer does the best job on reading scratched and damaged media. On the player side, I have found older Sony players to be very bad at reading scratched discs as well as any kind of recordable media.

I found my PLEXTOR 708A drive being able to read scratch discs very well. It takes long to rip but it will read the scratch disc. The BENQ 1640/1650 are also good readers as well as LITEON dvd-roms/burners. This is just from my own experiences with scratch discs.

[demon0]

I'm using all my lint-free clothes for cleaning my glasses and applying thermal compound to my computer processors.

It's not that I couldn't get more, but I think it's a hassle to have to clean discs when I know that some lasers could easily read them.

Toshiba DVD players.

Any Toshiba is good? I just read a couple of the cheaper Toshiba reviews here on VideoHelp and a lot of them have issues with bad media and do a lot of glitchey playback. That is what I'm hoping to get away from.

[oldandinthe way]

My LG GSA-4163 writer is reasonably tolerant of scratches, doesn't like dirty disks and tolerates almost any media for writing.

Experienced no player incompatibilities other than old SONY's.

Most cheap players are fairly similar to each other, almost all use chip maker's reference designs. And there are only a couple of chipmakers still making DVD chips. The closer you get to a commodity product the greater the compatibility. Name brands still may have clever designers, and clever designers are the source of most compatibility problems.

[demon0]

Well, I'm starting to think my issue isn't as common as I first believed. My grandparents use a Sony I bought for them, and also use NetFlix. They never have any skipping (I know, because they would call me and flip out if it did anything unexpected. I just taught them how to use Scene Selection ).

But wow... playing DivX will make my life a heck of a lot easier.

[lordsmurf]

In the same vein, I would like to hear opinions on which DVD writer does the best job on reading scratched and damaged media. On the player side, I have found older Sony players to be very bad at reading scratched discs as well as any kind of recordable media.

BTC, hands down, no contest.