Digital Innovations 10185 Skip Dr. Motorized AutoMax Scratch Repair System
by Digital Innovations
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List Price: Category: CE See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Digital Innovations 10185 Skip Dr. Motorized AutoMax Scratch Repair System
Customer Review: Works just as advertised
Summary: 5 Stars
The Skip Dr. is one of those rare devices that does exactly what it is advertised to do (no DVD that has a scratch on the label side of the disk can be repaired, and some very deep scratches on a playing side may not be repairable--if the first repair does not work, repeat the process). Though operation of the device is fairly intuitive, the directions for use are clear and it is worthwhile to read and follow them. It's important to realize that CDs and DVDs aren't read the same way that LPs were, back in the olden days (okay, MY olden days--it's humbling to have to explain to your 14-year-old what a "45" or "LP" or even "an album" is). CD/s and DVDs aren't read starting at the outside and spiraling in, they are read in lines starting from the center of the disk and out toward the edge. This is important to realize so that you know why you should only dry and buff a disk from the center outward, take the cloth off the disk, and do it again (from the center straight out,working your way around the disk. Don't swipe the cloth around and around the face of the disk or you will just create more scratches that will interfere with playback. Don't scrub back and forth, just wipe from the center out. Same with the buffing cloth. The Skip Dr's cleaning wheel cleans the disk in the proper direction, from the center out. It leaves "rays" that are like faint shadow-spokes radiating out from the center of the disk to the edge. These faint lines don't interfere with playback in any way. A drying cloth and buffing cloth are included. The procedure is basically spray on the repair solution, place the disk in Skip Dr. (which will start and stop automatically), remove the disk when ejected, dry it off, buff a little (don't go for a chrome-like shine--it's not important for reading the disk and if "new car shine" is that important to you, forget repair and replace the disk with a new one. This is a repair, not a reincarnation). I have used several manual machines over the years and this does the best of the lot--5 moderately damaged disks, all of which play without errors. Oh, and Disk Dr. comes with a lifetime warranty, but I believe you have to send it in its original box--so hang onto the box.Customer Review: Skip Dr. to the Rescue!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was on the fence for a long time on this Skip Dr Scratch Repair System. A friend of mine had the manual hand crank version, and it seemed to do an OK job. However, once I ruined one of my favorite DVDs (Ben Hur) and then started getting spots on my LOTR extended editions where the DVD would freeze while playing I decided to give this a try. When it arrived I was surprised at how small it was, compared to the hand crank version my friend had once used. The unit comes with a small spray bottle of disc solution (which is just distilled water and isopropyl alcohol) and a cleaning cloth and buffer pad. These extras are stored in their own little holes right on the unit. Cleaning the DVDs is a real no-brainer - just spritz some solution on the disc and then gently push them down into the top slot of the Skip Dr. and it will start cleaning it immediately. Once it stops you just remove the DVD, lay it on the cleaning cloth, and use the buffer pad to wipe it off.
Some of my DVDs needed more than one pass in the Skip Dr. in order to play again without skips or freezes. I could not, however, recover my Ben Hur DVD, but that's only due to my own stupidity - I had the bright idea one night to try to clean the DVD with Goof Off. I recommend you never do this yourself; Goof Off is a great product but not for DVDs - each drop of the fluid effectively burned the surface and left it unplayable. So much for bright ideas.
If you have some DVDs that freeze or skip and you want to recover them then I highly recommend this device. Originally I was going to buy a new DVD player, because some people informed me that the laser was out of alignment (hence the skipping), but then if that were true it wouldn't play any DVDs at all. So my solution was to buy this device and give it a go. Overall the Skip Dr. has repaired six of my troublesome DVDs and sufficiently paid for itself in the process.
Customer Review: Worked as advertised, easy to use!
Summary: 5 Stars
I was very skeptical at first, but it worked!!
Bought the Skip Dr for fixing a non playable scratched wii sports disc. Somehow a circumferential moderately deep 1/2 inch long scratch was near the edge of the wii sports disc, and it's the only scratch on this disc, but the wii could not read it at all. Because of the deep scratch,i had to run the disc through the machine 5 to 6 times to buff the scratch shallow enough, and now the disc WORKS!!
How it works:
As you know, the skip dr actually resurfaces the disc, so it will buff off a very thin layer of the plastic on the disc surface so it will buff away the light scratches and make the deeper scratches shallow. BTW, you need 6 AA batteries, everything else is included in the kit (skip dr, resurfacing fluid, drying cloth, buffing square). You can repair 30 discs before the resurfacing wheel needs to be changed.
My experience:
The product is very easy to use, spray the resurfacing fluid on the disc, slide the disc in the machine, and let it do all the work. The key is to use LOTS of the resurfacing fluid provided, when they say use generous amount, believe it, spray lots on the disc. I didn't use enough fluid the first time around, so this created more scratches on the disc. But don't worry if this occurs, you can simply spray more fluid on the disc, and run it in the skip dr a few more times until the scratches are buffed out.
After drying the disc with the included non-scratch cloth, the manual also said to use the buffing square after running the disc through the machine, I didn't even have to use the buffing square, and the disc is running fine now.
Remember, this product is great for light to moderate scratches. Any deep scratches, or scratches on the media side (the side with the disc label) will not work.
Customer Review: Works great. Have recovered movie discs, audio discs, home "burned" discs.
Summary: 5 Stars
I maintain over 300 computers for one of my clients.
Each had a CDRW or DVD-RW.
Needless to say, I get requests at least monthly, to assist with
data recovery from CD and/or DVD media.
As another reviewer mentioned, you can only recover discs that are scrathed on the play-side (if the label, and the foil below it, get scratched; buffing is NOT going to help)
This device works great for surface scratches to the PLAY-SIDE of the disc.
Small scratches can be fixed with maybe a single buffing.
Deeper scratches may require a few more buffings in this device.
NOTE 1: Buffing should be from the inside (center) toward the outside (edge). Or 90 degrees to the center. That is where a buffing unit works great vs hand buffing.
NEVER buff in parallel to the play tracks!
NOTE 2: Repair can be done manually.
Some people have repaired disc media with just a cream polish and some elbow grease. One recommended polish is BRASSO. Google CD repair and you'll find other polishes also mentioned.
I bought a bottle of Brasso but have not yet used it.
So far my Skip DR has fixed every scratch I threw at it.
NOTE 3: Once you get the data disc repaired and READABLE again;
back up your data.
Or CLONE the disc and set the original disc aside.
(Scratch repair is LESS effective the 2nd, 3rd, etc, times around).
NOTE 4: if it is a data disc and buffing fails,
you can also try data recovery utilities such as:
a. CD roller
b. ISO buster
The only negative I had was the the unit I bought did NOT include the AC adapter.
Luckily I use rechargable AA batteries for most electronic appliances/devices.
Customer Review: Great product
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought the Skip Dr. after our X-box put a 2-inch long scratch near the outer edge of our brand new Rock Band 2 disc, rendering it unplayable. I tried buffing it out and other home remedies but had no success. Before buying the Skip Dr., I read many of the reviews and noted two important tips: (1) make sure to get the disc plenty wet with the supplied fluid and (2) make sure to buff the disc radially, or against the grain.
For those of us who grew up with vinyl LPs, tip 2 is somewhat counter intuitive because with analog recordings, you always wipe with the grooves. With digital discs it is important to remember that tangential scratches which run in the direction of the data are very bad while radial scratches that run across the data tend to have have little or no impact.
My first surprise when I received my battery operated Skip Dr. is that the box contained a "bonus" power cube at no extra cost. Operation was easy; I followed the instructions and the above tips. After inspecting the disc I could see that while the 2-inch scratch was less obvious, it was still visible. I wasn't overly concerned because some of the reviews indicated that I might have to repeat the process two or three times to fix deep scratches. But before going for round two, I decided to put the disc into the X-box to see if there was any difference. To my surprise, the disc played perfectly and has been operating flawlessly ever since.
Bottom line: Skip Dr. works as advertised and gave me an immediate return on investment - $30 product cost vs. $60 for a new X-box disc.