What's the best kind of CD case to prevent scratches?

We have one with the slide-in vinyl pockets with the white soft 'protectors'.

The other is the kind with the connected plastic parts that are like the inside of the jewel box the CD comes in.  The CD just presses on, no 'protector'.

My son has a bunch of favorite CD's that have gotten scratched up.  While he admits he isn't the best at putting back in the carrying case, them away, he thinks they're getting scratched in the cases.  

One theory is that the white so-called 'protectors' get dust & dirt embedded in the material.  He thinks just plain vinyl pockets would be better.

An idea I have is on the other kind of case, where it's held by the whole.  I can see the CD's rubbing against the backing.  However, those would be circular scratches.

Anybody got any ideas, solutions, sites? on this?

The consolation:   In spite of his whole collection deteriorrating, I thin for the amount of play they get, the CD's are lasting better than casette tapes would.

My old tapes would get bound up and warble or do other things, get eaten in the player occasionally, etc., and the sparkle of a trashed tape blowing in the wind is a familiar roadside .

I like the slimline jewel cases - I have good luck with them, even when I ship them thru the mail!

As far as removing the scuffs and scratches you already have, try Meguiar's Plastic Polish (I think it's #9 or #10...)  Apply with a cotton ball - gently! - and buff clean with the fuzzy side of an OLD terrycloth or cotton sweater.  As long as the scratches are not too deep, most of the scuffs should be polished out...  It's worked for me for about five years.

For my field tech CD's, I use the Case Logic soft cases.  They have the fabric backing for the pockets, and work very well for all the CD's I have to carry around on service calls...  As long as you don't expose the case to anything that's likely to release a lot of dust around, it should be fine.

FFZ

The best way? Making copies of the Cds before you use it, and use the copies instead of the originals.

Also, if the original CD is too scratched to be played in a car or other standard CD player, your computer CD drive should still be able to read them...to make a last ditch effort to save the content of the CD.

Now, music companies start equipping CDs with copy protection to prevent this. These CDs can't be played in, and might even damage your computer CD drive. If such a "anti-piracy measure" is not mentioned on the CDs outside, you CAN BRING IT BACK to the store and demand your money back, because what you thought you bought was a CD, while what you got is an object that merely looks like one, but doesn't comply with the Phillips standard of what a CD is (ie. redbook)

... I've had good luck burning a scratched CD that won't play. For some reason after copying it they play just fine.

Use a Disc Doctor on it.  It will polish the scratches right out of it so it is usable again.

Clear-coat car polish works wonders as well....

It is not so much the scratches on the plain/play side of the disc that affect it's performance.  It is the scratches in the [b]LABEL[/b] side that will really kill your disc.

[b]MOST[/b] discs print the data on the back of the label side.  The laser reads through the clear plastic disc, and gets the data off the back of the label.

Do not place CD's with the label side down!  The label will scratch, taking chunks of data with it.  Place CD's label side up, on a clean smooth surface, or cloth surface if nothing better is available.  It is better to scuff the plastic than the foil that the music is printed on.

If you have a disc that won't play very well, hold it up to the sun.  If you see 'stars' or holes in foil, you have a damaged cd.

Extract the data on a computer, and reburn onto an undamaged disc.  Usually the data lost is insigninicant.  There are many ways to do this.
1.  Copy the disc.
2.  Rip the disc into *.wav files, then burn a new music cd.  I prefer this method.  If there are any major skips or holes in the music, you can repair them using a Wave Editor.  Convert the *.wav's to *.mp3's for archival, and remove crappy songs from the disc.

It always has been, and probably always will be possible to play the music from the cd drive, and record it through the sound card to the hard drive.  Sure it isn't quick & easy, but it is nearly perfect, and nearly foolproof.