Probably dust particles and slight rotation while in the backpack.
Probably dust particles and slight rotation while in the backpack.
Oh this takes me back
Likely a slightly warped CD case with a grippy bit in the middle that's undersized. Which means the discs can rotate and then collide with the case. But key to the scratches is the undersized grippy thing, a good case won't let your discs spin.
Cheap cases have been doing that since I was a kid and I burned my first CDs back in the day. Nothing quite like being the cool kid with a CD burner back in the day.
God I'm getting old.
This wear pattern is formed by spinning while some rough object touches the disk. Are you spinning them a lot in the cases with your fingers - absentmindedly? If not, it's for sure the player.
Nope, but they may spin while in the backpack. Additionally they may also get pressed slightly. The scratches also develop on the cases themselves.
I find it hard to believe that they'd spin so much while inside a case, no matter how it's rattled. That said, stranger things have happened.
In the book "Off To See The Wizard" by Scott Meyer, the wizards are time travelling hackers. One of them has a glowing blue orb in his study that turns out to be the display of his Commodore 64 computer.
That's exactly how I see Orbs.
Inter-related information stored in an Orb-like disc: https://www.mathsisfun.com/geometry/circle-theorems.html
Are you sure it's the case and not the dvd player? My old PS2 would scratch the disks with its lens and made circular scratches similar to this.
I ruined so many games that way. Once or twice was me bumping the Ps2. Other than that it was just being a petty fuck.
Hmmm... Would a piece of felt with double sided tape inside the case be enough to stop it spinning without scratching it?
That looks like damage to the plastic coating, blast from the past, but you could just throw them in a resurfacer if you can find one, every resurface will be less reliable than the one before it though.
May not be worth it, how old are these? My knowledge is maybe out of date, but if it's a dvd-rw opposed to a generic dvd-r, the usable lifespan used to be pretty limited. In theory, manufacturers claim 10-25 years based on their accelerated testing methods, but in actual lifespan, some data hoarders were seeing numbers average as low as 2 years for large collections. No good studies out there I'm aware of though. I used to have all of my media on dvd-rs and almost all of mine were showing read errors after 5 years, even the ones from the good manufacturer, this was back in... 2010ish.
1 year in a backpack can do wonders, especially when in buses and trains. Especially if backpack lint is involved and the case is fairly flexible.
