What are People's Opinions on Using DVD-Wallets?

[rkr1958]

1. I use the 24-disc DVD-Wallets to keep my DVD backups and TV Cap ==> DVDs in. I probably have 10 or so of these wallets organized by types (Disney for my son, movies for my wife & "guy" movies for me).

2. I like the compactness and convenience of this method. I've read, on other forums, from some who say that wallets can warp and/or scratch the discs and cause playback problems.

3. I've been using DVD wallets for a couple of years now and not experience any problems yet. The biggest are fingerprints and smudges that my son (& wife) leave. A good cleaning using rubbing acohol takes care of this.

4. I have the originals store in a safe place and can create another backup if one goes bad. But, I was just curious what other people's experience and opinion ares with respect to storing DVDs in DVD Wallets.

[KpeX]

IMO if you use care when inserting and removing discs (as well as when handling discs of course) wallets are not any worse for wear than standard cases. The other thing I look for is wallets that have an upper 'lip' to go over the top of the DVD to keep the disc from moving around in the wallet.

[rkr1958]

Thanks for the reply ... The DVDs in the wallets I use are snug and don't move around. I'm very careful removing them. A disc failure only costs me 40-cents so not a big deal. I probably have less than 3 of 4 failures a year and these are due, as best as I can tell, to improper handling by my son (who's suppose not to touch them) or my wife. I guess I won't worry unless I start getting a lot of failures.

[phædrus]

The minute scratches from insertion and removal is one issue. I had a wallet-type device that had a chemical residue on the plastic. When the discs were removed after a year or two, they had a hatched pattern where the chemical residue on the textured surface of the wallet envelopes reacted with the polycarbonate (I say reacted because it could not be washed off). These were disc wallets I got free with a purchase of PNY CD-Rs. I'm not saying this is a common occurrence, because I don't know that, but it is possible for this to happen.

Maybe other plastics are perfectly inert. Or, maybe it will just take longer for the effects of other wallet materials to become evident as fogging and deterioration of disc surfaces. Chemical reactions occur at different rates depending on the concentration, the temperature, and the nature of the chemicals, of course. How can you tell the wallet you have selected is contaminant-free or will not leech some harmful substance?

Personally, I don't like anything contacting the surface of my optical media. I used the wallet out of convenience because I didn't have a lot of slim jewelcases at the time. That has now been remedied, and I won't use the wallets again.

[FootBoy]

or you could just stack your disks on a spindle

[rkr1958]

or you could just stack your disks on a spindleIf I did this, between my wife and my son I'd have discs all over the house. Also, I'd have to handle each disk in the spindle (or most anyway) each time I wanted to watch a movie.

[Arachnotron]

I had one which opened like a book with CD sleeves on each page. The sleeves had a V-shaped cut-out, which resulted in the exposed part of the CD's backs rubbing against each other when the wallet was closed. The first CD's started dying after about a year...

DVD's are much toucher since the dye is not near to the surface as it is with CD's. Still, I hate scratches. :)

[zilog jones]

I just use whatever jewel cases the CDs/DVDs came in. They take up a lot of space, and sometimes I forget were I put certain discs, but I have a lot of shelves and drawers ^_^