Protect your CDs and DVDs

Opinion poll

How do you store your DVDs and CDs?

In their cases

In a wallet

On a spool

On the floor, usually

Someplace else

I don't have any CDs or DVDs

Vote Result

The most vulnerable part of a CD is the label side.

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Oh how I loathe those horrible plastic cases in which DVDs are packaged.

For a start, they could be heaps more compact and they're slippery little suckers, too - try to pick up a handful and you inevitably wind up with them spread all over the floor.

At least they don't break like the hard-plastic cases of CDs. I hate them even more.

No wonder so many people throw these cases away and store their DVDs, CDs and computer discs in the little soft-plastic disc sleeves you can buy in bulk at office supply stores. Some of these even have space for the disc's cover and liner notes.

And when you amass enough of them, you can even buy a nice container in which to store them.

Of course, it's not that easy. There are plastic sleeves and plastic sleeves - and if you buy the wrong ones, you can do permanent damage to your discs and even render them unplayable.

If you want to know how to pick the right sleeve, go no further than your nose.

The thing is that the cheapies are made with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), while the wallets that won't damage your discs are made with polypropylene (PP).

I was once given a most instructive talk on the difference between these two substances by an American who makes CD wallets. He told me, darkly, that PVC is the stuff with which shower curtains are made.

"Stick your nose in one of the sleeves. If it smells like a shower curtain, well, it should be a shower curtain, it shouldn't be a CD sleeve," he said.

The problem with PVC is that, over weeks and months, it can weld itself to things stored hard up against it, including optical discs, paper, plastics and all manner of other things.

It usually takes six weeks or so but the welding process is faster in hot weather.

That's why the ghostly images of documents stored in PVC sleeves can be read on the sleeve itself after the document has been removed. Ask any kid who has left a backpack full of homework out in the sun.

With DVDs and CDs, this welding leads to disaster.

The label side of the disc is especially vulnerable to damage and it's this side that mostly gets stored against the PVC - so you can see the label of the disc through the clear PVC.

If the disc has been in the sleeve for a while, unsticking it from the PVC often results in parts of the label tearing off the disc to remain bonded to the PVC of the sleeve.

When this happens, the disc is rendered unplayable forever because the wafer-thin reflective coating that bounces light from the disc player's laser is immediately under the label and when parts of the label tear off, the light will no longer reflect at that point. Repair is impossible.

All you can do is throw away the disc and start the hunt for a replacement.

The best-value disc sleeves are made of paper but, of course, you can't see the disc's label through paper so PP sleeves are the choice of those who know their disc-holders.

When smell doesn't work

I have instructed many folk in the art of the smell test for sleeves holding optical discs. It worked right up until I met a man who had no sense of smell.

Picking one from the other was, for him, more complex. You can tell the difference quite quickly by setting fire to the disc sleeves (when PVC burns it emits black, toxic smoke, while PP melts and cracks) but this is hardly the sort of thing you'd be likely to try in a shop. There is another method.

The makers of PP disc sleeves usually know their stuff and they're proud to be using PP, so they'll mostly make a point of telling you about it. Somewhere on the packaging will be a line explaining that PP is being used. If there isn't, you should assume the sleeves are made with PVC. Steer clear of them.

Getting by with PVC

So, if you've just invested a small fortune in disc sleeves that smell like shower curtains, is there anything you can do?

Try this. Cut the cover art supplied with the disc to the size of the sleeve and insert it between the disc and the sleeve's surface. That way, the disc is not hard up against PVC, it's against the cover's light cardboard. And you'll be able to tell which disc is in whatever sleeve because the cover art will be visible.

Just don't try to remove the cover art from the disc because it will probably become welded to the PVC sleeve.