Twas the DVD Before Christmas

One of my favorite Christmas movies of all time is the old version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas".  Last year, on the night before Christmas Eve, we popped popcorn, poured some cold beverages (the little guys had Capri Suns), and the whole family sat on the couch as the DVD started to play.  The story was about 5 minutes in when the DVD froze on an image of the Grinch.  Crap, it's time to fix something else.

DVD ruined?  Read on.

After popping out the DVD, the issue was obvious.  We had taken the movie on a trip, and the disc never made it back into the case.  A closer inspection revealed that a scratchy haze was covering the data side of the DVD.  The damage was bad enough that the player couldn't read the movie.  What's a guy to do in a pinch?  Unfortunately, the holiday shows weren't all that great on Netflix in 2012.  The best one available was the 1977 version of  "Fat Albert Christmas Special", so I made some jokes about starting a new tradition and hit play.  The show was better than expected, but fell a little short of "The Grinch".



Hey, Hey, Hey

The next day, after running a quick errand, a tool caught my eye.  3M makes a headlight restoration kit (39008) for about 20 bucks, and the sponge for the last step of the process was sitting on the work bench.  In an effort to improve night time visibility in the old Infiniti G35, I spent a couple of hours with the 3M kit and my drill.  These kits do a spectacular job of removing cloudiness and haze from headlamps. Afterword, the plastic looked like new, and the lights were at least 50% brighter. Hmmm, could the same trick work on DVD's? Let's see.

3M Headlamp Kit - Sponge is the last step

The process was pretty simple:

• Put on your eye protection.
• Apply rubbing compound to the shiny side DVD (opposite of the label).  Probably OK to skip if you don't have any, but the 3M kit comes with more than you need for the headlamp job.
• Lightly wet the sponge
• Pop attachment on an electric drill
• Buff the DVD with the drill until the haze starts coming off.  "The Grinch" took a couple of minutes
• Rise off DVD
• Dry off with paper towel

"The Grinch" is shiny again!!!

After finishing, the DVD looked shiny again, but was still a little scratched up (DVD players can handle a few scratches).  I popped the disc into the player and couldn't believe my eyes.  The movie played all the way through flawlessly!!!  Thanks to this little trick, our Christmas tradition of viewing "The Grinch" is still running strong.