Video Rental operations as commercial enterprises & Public Institutions who loan optical media including DVD, CDROM, PS2, XBox media, & Laserdisc media to a customer base are being confronted with a whole new challenge as the changeover from VHS and game cards to these optical mediums accelerates. This presentation is offered as a Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) document and is targeted toward the employees of these commercial and public venues for rental or loan of Optical media. When you integrate this document into your entities operations manual, these particular goals should be met.;
| 1. | Procedures for handling Optical Media will be standardized. |
| 2. | Methods detailing care maintenance and prevention of damage to the media will be established. |
| 3. | Employee awareness and education concerning the media itself will be expanded. |
| 4. | Customer satisfaction will be increased through better education at the point of sale. |
| 5. | Establishes a repair program to keep discs in service to enhance cash flow from turns, and minimize the need for replacing inventory ahead of it's cyclical peak revenue period. |
Combined these goals become cornerstones to the successful transition to optical formats in rental and loan applications. If followed accordingly the utilizing venue should experience fewer problems than would otherwise take place.
The Optical Disc has been around now for many years. Some estimates are that the installed base world wide of all optical mediums is around 8 Billion units. This staggering number is primarily made up of the Compact Disc variety popularized by the Music and computer industries. Lesser numbers of discs in other categories such as Laserdisc, and other more obscure formats of optical which never took hold in the marketplace, make up the balance of the first and second generations of optical media. With the advent of DVD a whole new ranges of applications are being written. DVD and its variants are the 3rd generation of Optical media. Not only is the momentum for DVD strong in the Computer and video game industries, but the predominate driver of growth is taking place in the Video industry, which up to now has been dominated by VHS tape. This momentum will accelerate as new game formats such as PS2 and XBOX begin to penetrate the marketplace. Most of planned new game formats are or are scheduled to be DVD compatible, this increases the necessity for a proactive hands on awareness of the handling, protection, storage and repair of the discs themselves. Every Medium new or old has its unique characteristics. The new media is no different. DVD, PS2 and DVD Writeable to name a few keep an enormous amount of information in the same size space as the old reliable CD's. This means that the discs themselves are more susceptible to the effects of handling than the older CD's. The picture below shows a side by side comparison of a typical DVD and a typical CD.
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The Images above clearly demonstrate the huge increase in data written to a DVD format compared to a CD. Take a moment and place your finger on the image of the DVD, note how many of the pits you are covering! Do the same for the CD. This little exercise simply demonstrates to you what happens when a surface smudge, scratch or just plain grime is laid on the discs surface. It covers more of the data that the Laser cannot see. Hence these new media are MORE sensitive to handling than older generations of discs. Every Scratch on the surface of a disc, splays out minute tears in the polycarbonate, which is what the discs are made from, these splays deflect the lasers return path and many symptoms show up on the viewers screen. Some of the common ones are artifacts or mosaic patterns, Pops and hisses or complete abrupt stops. Each is annoying to the viewer and needs to be minimized. Every finger Print leaves a residue behind. If the party has dirty fingers the chances of a problem increase. Clean Dry hands are good for the media. Dirty or wet soiled hands are bad for the discs. Dropping particles from food, or beverages, or laying a disc down on an unclean counter, table or other place, subjects the disc to whatever is there at the time. None of these things are good for the disc, so do be careful. The difference between one accident or another means sometimes absolutely nothing will be affected, while other times these accidents can cause total failure. The Margin for error is small, so please be careful.
Instructions for NEW DISC Protection: CD PLAYRIGHT invented a proprietary formula
to seal a discs surface, so as to minimize the damage done in the course of
Routine handling of the discs. This Product is called Quick Shield, familiarize
yourself with these bottles and lets get some protection on the media, before
you put it into your rental pool. What you'll need before starting are;
| 1. | Quick Shield Spray Bottle. |
| 2. | Two Soft Cloths such as ones supplied by CD PLAYRIGHT Product # 0094 or provided & approved by store management. Applicator Cloth, Drying Cloth & resting place cloth. |
| 3. | A Clean dry protected surface, free from dust, crumbs or other small messes. |
| 4. | Clean DRY Hands. |
| 4a. | a blow dryer with cool setting. |
| 5. | (Optional) A Plastic Baggy for your applicator cloth |
Quick Shield is water based so you do not have to wear protective clothing
or gloves. If you spill it, the area could become slippery, so please make sure
the cap is screwed on tight and the pump is pointed in the direction you want
to spray. Remove a DVD from its package; some storage boxes require you to push
a center release tab, please familiarize the type of packaging that is in the
stores, if you are not sure ask your supervisor to show you the ins and outs
of the different styles of cases. Never Pull a disc out of its case from the
center hub, it stresses the bond between the two sides, if this is done often
enough the center hub can crack making the disc susceptible to all sorts of
problems you do not need or want. Be careful, take the time to be familiar with
packaging, and if you are at all confused, ASK someone, tell them this manual
says ASK, before risking damage. Assuming you've successfully removed the disc
from its case;
| Technique | |
| 1. | Holding the Disc approximately a foot in front of you, remove the Quick Shield top, and locate the nozzles opening. |
| 2. | Point the nozzle at the disc and pump a few times drawing the solution into the sprayer, (Sometimes you have to clear the nozzle of air) |
| 3. | A fine mist should begin to coat the surface, do this two or three even four times. |
| 4. | Lay the disc down on a soft towel or piece of plastic wrap so it wont slide. |
| 5. | Begin wiping from the center out to the edge, do this so the entire disc surface is covered. Go around the disc center out drying the material, shouldn't spend more than 45 seconds doing this. |
| 6. | Once the treatment is complete the disc may look a little wet or even hazy, do not worry this is normal, the disc can be dried just sitting still or even dried using a blow dryer on cool setting. |
| 7. | Turn the disc over and repeat these steps for the other side. |
| 8. | Now that you've finished a particular disc, carefully place the disc back into its box, remove and repeat the steps for each of your discs. |
Some stores have implemented a team approach where a couple of your shift partners will team up together spritzing and drying, moving right through a whole bunch of media in a short period of time. Kind of reminds a lot of us 40 something's of what we did at home before they invented dishwashers. The key is to focus on what your doing, it's important to the business and the customers that rent or use the discs. These times should be taken seriously. Everyone down the line will appreciate your attention to these details. Lastly, keep an orderly work space. Even if your work area is a stack of boxes covered in towels, do not forget to put all your materials in a storage area according to the system your store has decided upon. Clean up any spills, place the towels your using in a plastic baggy with a sealable top, and be proud of the job you just did.
On GOING CARE
Since we just covered the practice of sealing New Discs, your experience now
should help you with the practice of using Quick Shield at the sales counter
to keep your media in great shape every time it goes out the door. Your Stores
checkout area is alive with activity, so getting in the habit of providing routine
maintenance of discs going in and out of the shop is an on the fly job. Hence
to be prepared a team approach during busy times is the best practice to keep
the customer flow from being interrupted. This requires just a few things;
| 1. | The Cloth you put in the baggy after finishing the check in and treatment, should be at the register ready to quickly wipe down outgoing discs. Doing this gives you a moment to do a quick inspection of the disc, helping you identify problem customers. Some people could care less if they damage the disc, its always easy to blame someone else who handled it before them. This SOP helps you standardize a procedure and a practice for checking and maintaining your stores discs. When there are lines, its important to Quick Check the media, so simply hold the disc up and wipe it with your cloth. Putting it right back into its case unless you detected heavy scratching, dirt or something that tells you that this disc might be bad. Telltale signs of a bad disc include; | |
| 1. | Deep Scratches clearly visible on the surface. | |
| 2. | Many light scratches visible on the surface | |
| 3. | A Disc that is full of grime, dirt, dust, food or any other substance that should not be there. | |
| 4. | Excessive finger prints that look grimy. | |
| 2. | Sort the discs during routine inspections into categories. | |
| Category 1: | Discs that are NOT Repairable These discs are easy to Spot, because you will be able to see Light shining through a scratch. In this event the disc should be set aside as it is not repairable. | |
| Category 2 | Discs with Scratches either shallow or deep. DVD discs in particular have the data located in the middle as pictured below. | |
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| The Red and Yellow lines show where the data is encoded at the time of manufacture. CD data is twice as deep and the number of data points encoded are substantially less. Hence a scratch on a DVD is far more likely to cause playback errors than CD Discs. | ||
| 3. | Take all scratched media which customers have complained about, and set these aside. You may be able to use Quick Shield to correct the problem, especially if the scratches are very light and not very deep. A Greater number of scratches and deeper scratches must be resurfaced. CD DVD PLAYRIGHT has provided your business with Repair Materials to correct the damage of these discs. Set these discs aside and alert management to the problem. Management will assign staff to begin the repair process. Ask before proceeding on your own to try to repair a disc. | |
Training to Use the Repair Procedure.
The Most effective repairs are done by people who have practiced the procedure
and read all of the Instructions. Management can do tests with employees with
a strong aptitude for detail by providing an AOL or other disc received in the
mail. These discs can be used for testing an employees ability to follow instructions,
and complete a successful repair. Time is of the essence, and practice makes
perfect. Please experiment before beginning this process.
The Repair Procedure will be talked about in detail as Part 2 of this SOP. Please check back before Proceeding
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