Abstract: An improved optical cards includes one or more of the following features, comparatively high density material disposed at or near the periphery of the optical card to increase the rotational moment of inertia of a card without increasing the thickness of the card, comparatively high density layers added to a side opposite of the optical read side of an optical card, scratch protection disposed on the optical read surface of the optical media but not covering the tracks containing optically encoded data, or comparatively high density scratch protection disposed on the optical read surface of the optical media but not covering the tracks containing optically encoded data, and combinations of these features.