Indestructible
My brother came up this weekend, and we decided to watch one of our Lovefilm acquisitionsâLundi Matin. Mr. Bsag and I have both seen it before, but my brother hadn’t. I mentioned in my review of the film that it’s full of visual non sequiturs, but it became one long non sequitur because of the dreadful scratching on the disc. All the discs we’ve had from Lovefilm before have been in pretty good condition, but this one looked as if someone had taken wire wool to it. Worse still, the scratches were circumferential, giving the laser a really hard time.
Do you remember that piece that Tomorrows’ World did on CDs when they first came out? I remember distinctly that they covered a disc in jam, then wiped it off roughly before putting it in a CD player and announcing excitedly they they were almost indestructible. I hate to think that Judith Hann and Co. made a mistake (they knew everything!), but people seem to have been unduly influenced by that report. So rememberâdon’t clean your rental DVD and CD media with Brillo pads, wire wool or sandpaper, or use them as drinks coasters. If you get fingerprints on them (orâheaven forbidâjam) wipe them gently in a radial direction with one of those cloths for cleaning spectacles.
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Mmm... actually, wiping them in a radial direction never occurred to me! Thanks for the tip!
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* Not that I've ever had occasion to wipe a CD, since I'm careful with mine to the point of paranoia. I <3 my music...
by Aaron @ 06/12/2004 2:13 am • Permalink •
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I am constantly amazed when I hire DVD's from the rental shop at the state of the playing surface. What on earth do people do with them? Surely you take the disc out of the case, place it in the player, watch the movie, take it out of the player and put it back in the case! Is there any need for the disc to go anywhere else? Obviously under the fridge and then licked by the dog from the state of some discs I've had the misfortune to hire!!
by Pete @ 06/12/2004 12:13 pm • Permalink •
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I have noticed that Sainsburys now seem to be renting DVDs from their web site using Lovefilm, at any rate the sites are almost identical, though the cost of renting 3 DVDs (for those with 3 pairs of eyes) at a time is cheaper via Sainsburys.. Does Sainsburys own them now? Any way this is maybe why people are mistaking these DVDs for baked beans now.
by ThoughtBadger @ 06/12/2004 7:13 pm • Permalink •
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Aaron: Yup. If you wipe around the circumference, then any scratches you create will go in the direction that the laser is trying to track, and will cover significant portions of the data. That's much harder for the software to compensate for than a tiny blip that occurs on each rotation, which will be what you get with radial scratches.
Aaron: Me tooâI handle them gingerly by the edges, and always put them back in the correct cases.
Pete: Heh, I knowâincredible isn't it?
ThoughtBadger: I didn't know that. I hope Lovefilm haven't been taken over, because they've been excellent, and I'm sure that Sainsbury's owning them could only be a bad thing. I suspect that Sainsbury's did a deal with Lovefilm, and that their huge buying power got the price down by a pound a month. I'd still rather deal direct. You're probably right about the baked beans
I must admit that we marvelled that someone with the taste and discernment to rent Lundi Matin would treat the disc in such a shocking way.
by bsag @ 06/12/2004 11:12 pm • Permalink •
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