As most parents who have children that play games or watch DVDs know, all it takes is to get a few bad scratches on the disc and it becomes unplayable. Unfortunately, no matter how much the game or movie industry may charge for their media, they don't care about how rugged the media is, thus if the consumer accidentally lets their kids ruin their disc with scratches, that's tough luck.
While there is rugged blank DVD media available, the problem is getting around the copy protection to backup the original discs. This is where d_skin's Protective Disc Skins come in. These snap on to the discs, thus protecting the surface of the disc. They are both transparent to red/infra-red laser light as well as can remain on the disc while loading. The Disc skins themselves are fairly scratch resistant, however if they do become scratched, it is just a matter of replacing it with a new one, thus saving having to replace the disc.
A video DVD covered with a d_skin has been confirmed to work in a DVD player, despite concerns about the disc getting stuck or affecting the readability. Besides protecting DVDs and Game media, the skins have been confirmed to work with rewritable media also including both burning and reading. As these discs are more prone to scratching due to repetitive use, the additional protection becomes useful in this case. When it comes to pricing, they typically cost $5.99 for a 10-pack.
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To try it out, I grabbed The Lord of the Rings DVD from a shelf and snapped a Disc Skin on it. This disc has spent its fair share of time lying in a pile without a cover, thanks to our 17-year-old When I put it in the player, I half expected the disc to be ejected or become stuck. But the door closed normally and the disc began playing. There was no visible degradation of the picture quality -- which is to be expected. Digital signals are either on or off -- there's no in-between. The Disc Skins are made from a laser-transparent material developed with micro-resin engineering techniques, according to d_skin. Not only does a laser read right through the skin for disc playback, but for disc burning as well. This could be handy for a DVD -RW that you want to use now and add to later. I slipped another Protective Sleeve over a CD-RW and burned a 20MB file, ejected the disc, then reinserted it and burned another file, with no problems on burning or playback. Read the full review here. |
When I first read about this product, I thought it was something that could only be used while the disc was not in use, however now it is clear that it is intended to remain on the disc. It will be interesting to see if this product works in slot loading drives as there have been previous reports about DualDisc's getting stuck in these. This also indicates that d_skin's may be unsuitable for use on DualDisc media. I have also seen many CD players that warn against using discs that have had a protective coating applied to them, so it would also be interesting to see if these protective covers would be suitable.
Unlike other gimmicks such as adhesive protective coatings and 'scratch removal' products, at least this does not affect the original disc itself as it can be replaced if it becomes damaged or removed to allow the disc to be loaded in picky players. The only drawback is that many consumers would still be sceptical of loading discs in their equipment with one of these on them, in fear that the disc may jam or harm their equipment.
Source: Digital Media Designer - Product Review
