CD-R's...any advice?

Hey Luke,

I have an interesting CD, makes a great "proof" disc for your argument that bits are bits, but they somtimes do sound different, and we don't know why:

I have a cd of my brother's music that he burned in 1993 - when CDRs where brand spanking new.

It's been sitting in storage for a good long time. I recently pulled it out to give it a listen, and about halfway into the disc, it started sounding... well, "weird". at first it just sounded grainy, then over the next 10 minutes it started sounding more and more like it was digitally stretched (sorry for the lack of a better description) - almost choppy, but at a consistent & repeating rate. Eventually near the end of the disc, it finally started mistracking completely. But for a good 20 minutes, it was just very gradually getting more and more "off".

Anyways, I pulled the CD out of the player, and put it in the computer and did a rip. It pulled it in fine, and when I played the song on the computer it sounded perfect.

I then burned a new disc, and it too played fine.

Strange eh?

So what happened? Maybe the dye is "dying"? Maybe it smeared? Causing the cd player to not be able to track perfectly accurately?

HZ

 

Jeff, does the program you use to rip CDs have the capability to show you if there are read errors occuring as you rip a disc?

 

Robert - nope

 

Perhaps try EAC Jeff as I've had great results plus it gives you any read errors automatically.

 

Hummph! I can't use EAC! Apparrently, it has driver conflicts with another software package I have installed on my machine, probably CD Creator 4..

 

CD Creator is smooth...Love it! At the moment my burner is not burning...

 

I'd love to use CD Architect but my processor isn't fast enough for it.

 

If you can Grant try and get CD Creator5, I have it and there are no driver conflicts. I am only running a beefed up P1 and Win98.

 

Sometimes, for whatever reason, things don't get burned on the disc as "clearly" as they should. I'm sure that doesn't really describe what's going on, but... As an example, I've got some CD-Rs that literally give me static when I put them in some players. Ripping them works fine, though.

Something to remember - with a standard audio CD player, there's one chance to correctly read things. "Questionable" data can't be checked. On the other hand, a CD-ROM can/will go back several times to make sure what it's reading in is correct.

 

My Nero is a pain in the a**. Most of the time I use my fine standalone JVC CD recorder for most of my needs, but then again, I have a very flexible system which allows me to EQ and incorporate DSP as necessary. The only problem I have with the standalone recorder is that when I use it in multispeed mode, occasionally when dubbing really early CD's (1983-1987), it will clip off the first second or so of each track. But, if I am dubbing in the manual mode (1x speed), it's okay.

Anyone know why?

Paul

 

Hi Paul, and why does my Denon, at a real time speed, have a total time which is about 2 seconds less than the original cd being copied?

 

Damn, I went out and picked up some Mitsui branded discs. The first 3 burned beatutifully then all of a sudden I'm getting errors in EAC regarding illgal write attempts in block and won't write any longer, restarted pc same thing. Switched to Nero and get medium speed error which usually means writing to fast for the rated disk speed but I was writing at 2x and tried 4x. this happened with 3 or four disks before I got one that would write. Doggone disks ran 45.00 for a 50 count. I'll have to try again tonight and on my other pc. I have a plextor on this machine a TDK on the other.

 

Did you find Mitsui CDRs at a store? I can never find them anywhere.

 

I found them at Sam Ash music stores

 

To answer the original question:

I use Mitsui silver unbranded 650 meg discs (74 minutes) and have never had a problem. I get them from american-digital.com. They're a bit more expensive but worth the $$$, IMHO.

For 80 minute discs I only buy discs made in Japan. Usually those are made by Taiyo Yuden. In my experience the best way to tell if they are T-Y discs is to examine the plastic spindle case (the ones that hold 50 discs.) T-Y uses the spindles with the big round white or black screwtop on top. They're really easy to spot in the stores. When Hewlett Packard was still selling CD-R's they used Taiyo Yuden to manufacture them. They had those big screwtop spindles. Alas, H-P has discontinued these discs.

Fuji sometimes uses Taiyo Yuden to manufacture discs. Oddly, I just recently bought a spindle of the dreaded Memorex discs because I saw that screwtop spindle and the product was labelled "Made In Japan." They are definitely T-Y discs. Converely, the same pile in the store had Memorex spindles with the small spindle tops. Sure enough, these were the crappy Memorex discs that I have come to know and dislike, labelled "made in Taiwan." You have to look closely...

One other way to identify Taiyo Yuden discs is to look at the plastic inner ring of the CD-R itself (where the center hole is.) T-Y discs have kind of a smoky plastic, not clear. Usually the Taiwanese manufacturers use the discs with the clear plastic in the center.

This may all sound silly but I am fairly particular about my blanks. I will simply not buy or burn blanks from Taiwan. Most of them are cheaply made and of poor quality.

Sorry for posting in such broad generalities, but I hope this helps!

Chris

 

Interesting...I have a Toshiba SD 3109 DVD Player. It's doesn't play CDRs. It's not supposed to. A friend made a CDR of some songs for me to check out. He used a Princo blank made in Taiwan. Taking a shot, I tried playing it in my Toshiba DVD player and it played perfectly! I decided to try my other CDRs...not one played! How come one of the cheapest CDRs plays in my Tosh? Anyone?

 

What kind of burner did he use, and how was the Princo CD-R burned?

 

Dreaded Memorex? I think I've burned a few hundred, and have had problems with perhaps 3 or 4, and those problems showed up as soon as I burned the disc. For awhile (and perhaps still today, I don't know) Memorex used the same blanks as Imation, and I've *never* had a problem with Imation.

 

I believe it was a Teac, not sure how it was burned. All I know they play perfectly in my Tosh...Any explaination? NO other brand will even cue up on my Tosh? Strange.

 

I took my computer external CD burner back last week and bought another model. The model I purchased this time was dirt cheap, 69.99 after rebates, and came with Nero 5.5 software. What a difference. This new burner is I/O Magic and feels solid as a rock. It came with all cables (plus extras I did not need) and a great booklet. Not only that, but it also came with two separate guides for "fast use of the product" which distilled the booklet into four easy pages.

I've burned about 50 CDR's this weekend, on a spindle of 50 Imation CDR's that I purchased for 2.99 after rebates. None are defective, no static, all sound great. Am I lucky or what?

Paul

 

This probably isn't what's going on, but it might be of use to you anyways...

My Sony DVD jukebox can't play CDRs.

But... it can play audio burned to CDR-W. Try gettting a few and see if it works.

Of course, you'll probably have the opposite problem now - the CDR-W won't play in a regular CD player.

HZ