Creating CDs

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KenekeBarnes

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So if I'm making CDs using my CD-R drive, it works well enough except on older players that can't read them, and aging systems that for some reason stop playing CD-Rs spontaneously. What is the tech behind this? Is it a good use of my money to have CDs made through a professional service so they can be played anywhere?
 
KenekeBarnes said:
Is it a good use of my money to have CDs made through a professional service so they can be played anywhere?
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That would depend on your target audience. Most CD players less than 8 years old should be able to play CD-Rs. If your audience is made up of people that have really old stereo equipment, you need to get them manufactured.

A CD-R and a commercial (manufactured) CD are two different things. You need a different lazer to read CD-Rs, most CD players now have it.
 
What Farview said is on the spot.
Of the 12 CD/ROM/DVD etc laser reading devices in my house only one has trouble with CDRs & then only with some - not all. These machines range in age from 6mnths to 14 years in age - MOST mind are pretty good quality.
The tech issues behind this is are legion but Farview explanation is the most common & accurate.
Just be glad you aren't restricted to minidisc.
Cheers
rayC
 
IIRC,
The issue is with an old spec which had to do with a bit that was preburned on to the CD which identified it as an audio CD. Most players today dont even look for it so no one really adds it to CDRs. Old players might have an issue without it though, so I think using the Audio CDRs is the solution (thats an educated guess though)
 
What altitude said- You'll notice when buying CD-R's that some of them say "Audio CD-R" as opposed to "Data CD-R" or just "CD-R". Even old players will read "audio" CD-R's. However, the skipping or quitting in the middle business is another thing altogether, and usually has to do with the quality of the CD burner, and the relatively low sampling rate of older players. Usually, when you get skipping on older machines, you need to clean the lens on your CD burner or the player, or both.-Richie
 
Richard Monroe said:
What altitude said- You'll notice when buying CD-R's that some of them say "Audio CD-R" as opposed to "Data CD-R" or just "CD-R". Even old players will read "audio" CD-R's.
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From what I have read is that the only difference from an audio CD-R and a data CD-R an archive bit or something. The audio CD-R's are for the home audio CD recorders to burn.

BTW I have the first model sony CD Discman's still and it will play CD-R. I think it was made in 88 or 89.
 
Actually, universal audio CD-R compatibility is a freaking minefield. It's sad, really. Here are the issues I'm aware of:

  • Drives over 2 years old may have problems with 700MB media due to increased track density. 700MB is just barely within the letter of the spec, and some drives that aren't in perfect calibration may choke; drives that were designed to handle this newer, higher density media (i.e. built within the last couple of years) should have ample wiggle room to be able to handle the new media, of course.
  • Drives over 5 years old may have problems with media with dark plastic. Older drives may have problems with things that don't optically look like a CD. While, in theory, most of these plastics should be nearly transparent to the wavelength of light used by the drive's lasers, it isn't completely so, and the resulting loss in reflected output may cause sporadic read errors. I have seen this when burning data CDs for machines built as late as the mid 1990s, too; this problem isn't limited to audio CDs.
  • Drives over 5 years old may have problems with media with a non-silver (e.g. gold) foil layer. The root cause is similar to the previous issue, but this seems to be far less common; almost every (working) drive I've tried could read gold discs.
  • All drives may have problems with media burned at high speeds in a different burner. Generally, the slower the burn, the more consistent the pit length will be, and thus, the more reliable the media will be in other drives. However, some media is reportedly subject to pit smearing problems at low speeds. Thus, the optimal burn speed may not be the slowest speed supported by the drive. Some experimentation may be necessary.
  • Various drives may experience random lock-ups due to scratches, smudges, or poor deposition of the metal film layer. Make sure the metal looks nice and even before you burn it.
  • Various drives may experience random lock-ups due to firmware bugs interacting with incorrect time information in the CD's TOC.

That's a good start of a list. Once you've eliminated those issues, you will be well on your way to CD-R audio nirvana.
 
timboZ said:
Found some links audio vs data CD-R
http://www.33rpm.com/music/article/62256-music-cd-r-vs-data-cd-r-is-there-a.html

http://www.avforums.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-52463.html
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I'm pretty sure both articles are slightly inaccurate, but they're on the right track.

The first one implies that subcode data exists on a blank disc. It does not. Subcode data is data hidden in the underlying encoding generated by the drive when burning a disc. It includes, among other things, CD-TEXT data, ISRC codes, and various other bits of information, all of which describe the content of the disc, which obviously means that it can't be on the disc prior to burning it.

For more information about subcode:

http://www.ee.washington.edu/conselec/CE/reports/Group.1/matt_page_individual/subcode.html

The second one implies that a portion of a CD-R Audio disc is pre-burned. This isn't quite right, AFAIK. The difference between an audio CD-R and a data CD is a special area of the disc which is... I believe... between the main recording area and the center hub, but I may be wrong. In any case, I don't think the information contained there is burned. I think it is pre-stamped on the silver backing.

Anyway, this area contains information that indicates that the disc is a burnable disc, tells the manufacturer, batch information (I think), and the type of media. If memory serves, the optical drive actually burns over part of this region when it finalizes the disc, thus effectively converting it from a CD-R into a CD... but I could be remembering wrong, or I may be thinking of DVDs.
 
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On a related note...

How does one get their information encoded on Gracenote (CDDB) so that anyone that pops said disc in WMP or Winamp or CdEx or whatever, it appears with the tracknames appearing?
 
jesterscourt said:
How does one get their information encoded on Gracenote (CDDB) so that anyone that pops said disc in WMP or Winamp or CdEx or whatever, it appears with the tracknames appearing?
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Buy good CD-R's--- Buy a program that burns in red-book (plextor,wavelab so on) Magix and Samplitude burn CDDB info and burn at the slowest speed able........
 
jesterscourt said:
How does one get their information encoded on Gracenote (CDDB) so that anyone that pops said disc in WMP or Winamp or CdEx or whatever, it appears with the tracknames appearing?
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Most apps that can rip CDs can also upload new information.

(And no, encoding CD-TEXT or whatever isn't strictly necessary to get this info. Most commercial CDs don't have all of the info encoded on them. Some don't even have the basics. That said, if you do encode that info, as NDL mentioned, some apps will automatically pick that up and do the right thing. That doesn't necessarily mean they'll upload the info to CDDB, though, and not all apps can read the subcode text.)
 
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