While not exactly the most exciting bit of technology, before you rip out a wonky DVD player from your Mac (or throw your AV DVD player away), spend $7 to run this cleaning DVD with brushes over the laser eye – in many cases, the ONLY reason your DVD player is working spotty and wonky is the household dust on the lens is diffusing the laser.

While the link here is to Amazon, you can buy it at most places like Target, WM or your electronic stores … from what I’ve seen, most places charge around $7-$8 and paying more isn’t really going to get you much better …

For those who’ve never used one, it’s the simplest cleaner device. Put it in, press PLAY. Nothing to spray, nothing to wipe. Press PLAY a second time to just to be sure. Eject. Done.

The Memorex one also has a speaker tester, nothing sophisticated but you get a speaker testing portion – highs, lows, seperation, left, right, etc … so give it a shot, it can’t hurt and after you run it twice and you still have problems, THEN you should consider replacing the DVD-R … Good luck!

(You can also run it for your AV DVD player as well as your car deck).