I've got a **** ton of DVD's (legal) that I've ended up scratching to hell over the years. Problem is, I still tend to like to watch them every now and then, but certain points the obvious thing happens, severe skipping to not-reading of discs. I was at the local Best BUy the other day just browsing and I came across an entire aisle that was dedicated to CD/DVD cleaners, etc. They had this stuff that you could put onto the back of your discs that got rid of the scratches and "claimed" to make them readable again.. So, my simple question is, does this stuff actually work? If I were to use it on my DVD's that skip would it eliminate the problem?

I uhh, put toothpaste on my MotS CD 6 years ago, that made it work.
Trooper still works to this day.

Yea I've tried the old toothpaste trick and it works on a couple of em but not all. There are a couple that are also completely scratched beyond belief (I have no clue how).

as far as scratch repair devices go the SkipDr product line is probably the best

toothpaste trick and brasso work for lighter scratches but the deeper scratches need a resurfacing tool (and sometimes you still need to use brasso or toothpaste) and the really deep scratches.... you might as well replace

I rented some video for my daughter, and it was all scratched up and was unwatchable. I took it back and they put it in some sort of buffer. It came out almost like new and played fine when we got it home. I was impressed.

If I had a crapload of scratched up DVDs and CDs, I'd check and see how much one of those buffer things were.

Any ideas what the actual search terms would be, or what exactly I would ask the clerks for when I head over to the store?

As for the scratches, they aren't deep at all. They are just everywhere on some DVD's, only a couple on some others, while the majority remain completely clean. The vast majority of scratches come from the usual "having the DVD reflective side down" and the DVD sliding back and forth on the surface, but nothing deep or rigid into the DVD itself. As far as I can tell they all look to be surface scratches.

You could always pay to get them resurfaced.

I wouldn't have been. I mean would it have killed them to check for scratches and cleaned it up BEFORE you rented it?

Also there are tools (Disc Doctor is the name of one I believe) that will fix scratched discs. Last I checked GameStop carries Disc Doctor, and probably any big store that sells DVDs or CDs will too.

Once you DO get a working DVD, back it up to a harddrive. Then you don't have to worry about scratches on it anymore.

I didn't mean to imply I was impressed by their job performance, because no, I was kinda pissed that I made it home with a crappy DVD and a daughter whining about it not working.

I was impressed that there was a machine that would take out nearly all the scratches and wished I had one.

All you need to know is that scratches parallel to the circumference of the disk will throw the eye off, but scratches parallel to the radius will not disturb the eye. Polishing with any sort of abrasive like toothpaste or polishing/rubbing compound for automotive finishes in such a way that you can sand out the circumferential scratches in favor of radial scratches will fix your problem.

Usually, judging by how far along in the content the disturbance is, you can guess which scratch on the disk is causing the problem (towards the center is beginning, towards the outskirts of the disk is towards the end). Spend some time polishing out that scratch and you can fix it.

It's important to remember that ANY polishing you do MUST ABSOLUTELY be parallel to the radius, meaning you only polish in a straight line from the center out toward to the edge.

If the buffer is the same one we had in my old Hollywood Video store, the machine runs about $900. You can always take them over to your local HV and they'll resurface 5 disks for $2 I think.

Best Buy used to sell something called the "Disc Doctor" which is basically a cheapy version of those buffers... not sure how well it worked..

SkipDr it's called SkipDr (there's also DVDDr and GameDr but they are the same product)

they work alright at light-medium scratches

the machines they use at rental places do a better overall job but they are expensive (SkipDr will always leave marks from the resurfacing while those machines rarely do)

one scratch repair tool to stay away from is the memorex optifix... i had one at one point and not only did it not repair the discs using the cleaning mode actually sratched one of my CDs beyond what the SkipDr could fix

Awesome advice, thanks a lot guys. I'll be looking around Future Shop or Best Buy within the next few days to see what I can find.