Big Picture Big Sound

Back in my vinyl days, I lusted after the fancy Nitty Gritty record cleaning machines that promised to restore my LPs to near new condition by cleaning off years of residue. But since my record collection never exceeded 75 albums, an investment in one of these glorified rotary vacuum cleaners never quite made sense. And now that we're in the digital age of "perfect sound (and picture) forever," the need for disc cleaners is gone. right? Wrong.

Have you ever brought home a DVD from Blockbuster, or received one in the mail from Peerflix or Netflix only to find that it doesn't play properly in your DVD player? Upon closer inspection you see light (or maybe not so light) scratches that mar the surface. What's a poor movie lover to do? Well, you can complain, bring (or send) the disc back to its source, and wait for a replacement. But, with mood lighting set, and popcorn popped, how does that satisfy your craving for the movie that's sitting in your hand? It doesn't. But VenMill Industries has another option - restore it!


VenMill introduced an industrial disc restoration and cleaning machine in 2004, the VMI 3500 Buffer. It repairs most disc defects caused due to scratching in about 30 seconds. But its price tag ($2299.99) puts it out of the reach of most consumers. Its primary target market is for video rental stores, video game stores and libraries. This year, VenMill is expanding its scope to offer two new machines for the consumer market, the "Skip-Away" ($249) and the "Elite 60" ($999.99). Both are easy to use, and feature a self-contained, non-messy repair process that is extremely effective at repairing light to medium surface scratches, and restoring playability to previously unplayable discs.


While not as quick as the commercial model, the Skip Away doesn't make you wait forever either, with the repair process taking around 5 minutes. A light cleaning (to polish off fingerprints or light residue) takes only 10 seconds. And the costs for "consumables" aren't excessive either, with about 40 cents of material used for each repair or 4 cents for each light clean. If you've got a larger collection, or want to get into the disc repair business, the new Elite 60 model is faster and (in the long run) cheaper. Its cleaning cycle is also 10 seconds, but it repairs discs in a speedy 90 seconds. The materials cost of a repair is around 20 cents and a cleaning 2 cents.

At the CES 2007 preview in New York, I watched a demo of the Elite 60 and it was quite impressive how much better looking the CD that came out was compared to the scratched mess that went in. Apparently the restoration process involves warming up the protective layer of the disc to make it more malleable, applying steady pressure to flatten out the scratches and buffing the disc to restore its shine and reflectivity. The process is said to be effective on upwards of 75% of all discs damaged by scratches.

VenMill has already sold out of its first limited production run but expects to have more ready for sale later this year. We've requested a review sample of these new models, and hope to be able to report the full results back to you in a few weeks.