CD R/W My Ass!

Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share (MPSIMS)
#1

So, I just bought a new computer w/ a CD R/W drive which bragged,“Now you can create your own audio CDs that you can listen to on any CD player!!” or some bull-crap like that. Before I leave the store I make sure to buy a 10 pack of the best CD R/W discs they have. So I sit here for a friggin WEEK recording this CD over and over AND OVER, trying all sorts of different things because it won’t play on ANY normal cd player! It will only play on the CD R/W drive and my CD ROM drive. And today I read an article that says the CD R/W discs won’t play on almost ANY cd player unless they have some stupid automatic gain control(which of course none of my cd players have)! Jesus, couldn’t they have warned me about this? MFers lied straight to my face! From what I understand, the CD-Rs play just fine, and they’re only about two bucks a pop, so it’s not THAT big of a deal. But I wasted so much time…I feel better now that I vented though. :wink: Anyone else have a similar experience?

“I would far rather be ignorant than wise in the foreboding of evil.”

-Æschylus. 525-456 B. C.

#2

If I understand you right, I would not want to use the R/W for music only the CD-Rs. The R/W disks are of course more expensive and apparently do not work on all CD players.

Sorry.

Jeffery

#3

str is right.
Record on CD-Rs. It only records once, but it will play on any CD drive. CD-RWs get written to differently and cannot be treated like CDs in most drives. Buy a pack of CD-Rs and you’ll see a pleasent difference.
Oh yeah, speaking from experience. Record on 1X or 2X. the faster you record, the less quality you get on the CD. if you’re putting data on it’s fine, but with CD-Audio 1X/2X is the only way to go. Also, do very little with the computer while it’s writing, otherwise the CD is likely to error, thus ruining the CD.
hope this helped

i am special. i am cool. i am doper 3000!

#4

Yep, that’s what I’ve done. Everything’s working fine now. :wink:

#5

poogas: Haven’t noticed any problems with copying one CD to another at 6x, does it matter about the qaulity of the recorder or what?

“There are many sweeping generalizations that are always true” -Space Ghost

#6

What counts most is what software is used to make them.

On the net you can read all sorts of stories on which program is best.

#7

Shall we be technical?

A CD-RW will only play on a CD-RW or compatible drive.

A CD-R will play on most drives, be it home- or car-audio or cd-rom.

Exceptions:

Regular CD-Rs will not play or record on many Sony component CD recorders.

Regular CD-Rs will not play on any Kenwood head unit (car audio).

To correct this problem, you must use a CD-DA-R, which is about three times as much as a CD-R. CD-DA-Rs are a slightly different ink type, in that it is blue, as opposed to green, like normal CD-Rs. Yes. Three times as much for fancy-ass blue ink. Whoopity frickin doo.

–Tim

We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.

#8

Need to read the threads closer.

The problem you seem to be having, Poogas, is an underrun. Your buffer is too small. Get the new Acer 8x4x32. It has an 8 meg buffer, four times the size of most drives’ buffers. You shouldn’t have any more problems. Also, sound quality is most assuredly NOT affected by speed at which it is written. I’ve burned so freaking many of these things, I think I would notice. To justify my arguments, until it was stolen (I trust we all know the story… :slight_smile: ), I was using a very fancy all-Rockford Fosgate, very nice car audio system. Not the best, but you could tell the difference between a 96 and 128 bit recording, if that’s any indicator. The speed is but the speed, and nothing more. It doesn’t cut out any ones or zeros, it just lays them down faster. Maybe you have a shitty drive. Mine’s a Yamaha scsi. Very nice.

–Tim

We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first “lost generation” nor today’s lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.

#9

OK, so got the CD-R’s and everything is hunky dory. BUT, I’ve been DLing MP3s from wherever I can(can’t find many good sites) so I turned to newsgroups. What’s up with the binary stuff? I am using Netscape communicator and can’t figure out how to decode the mp3s in binary form. Help!? :wink: (I swear to god, I’ve read all the freakin’ FAQs I can stomach)

“I would far rather be ignorant than wise in the foreboding of evil.”

-Æschylus. 525-456 B. C.

#10

actually i never tried recording on full 6X speed that my drive can do, my friend that has one told me that his works best on slow speed, so i took his word to heart, but next time i burn a CD, i’ll be sure to test that out! thanks!

i am special. i am cool. i am doper 3000!

#11

At first, I used floppy disks. Then I got piles of them. So then I used Zip disks, then I got piles of them. Then I used backup cassettes, then I got piles of them. Then I got CDR’s, now I have piles of them. Soon, Ill probably get a dvd r/w & soon, Im sure im going to have piles of them.

#12

Democritus, when you said decode, do you mean turn it back into .wav files, turn it back into CD audio, or just play it? For the last, go to www.winamp.com . For the other two, www.scour.net used to have that kind of stuff, but they’ve gotten legal lately, so they may not anymore.

#13

Democritus-

I use a shareware program for downloading files from newsgroups called Newsbot (by SBNews [Scott Baker]). It automatically DLs all files from a newsgroup and pieces together files posted in multiple parts. It also allows you to lock out specific posters, subjects, or filenames.

Typically I’ll DL a bunch of MP3s, archive em to CD, and if I really like em, I’ll convert then to WAV files (using Winamp) and burn them to Audio CD. Although my writer does have CD-RW capabilities, I never use it because of the reasons stated previously and rewriting has been a dicey proposition with me.

#14

Thanks Mojo, I’ve been using SBNews for years now to DL pictures. Didn’t know it had the capability to do sound files too.

#15

Scour still has tons of it, it’s just tougher to find.

Also, what he means by decode is that he needs to turn it into .wav form so it can be written to an R and played on a audio player. Just search for mp3+decoder. You’ll find tons. I use something called mumble mumble and it’s really good. Use Easy CD Creator by Adaptec if you’re new at this, but if you’re getting good, switch to MSWrite (I think it’s called that), then you can mess with indices.

#16

I see the CD Writing Techies have gathered here. Cool ! Just what I need. Here are MY questions.

I have a PIII 550 Mhz, 64 MB RAM, HP 8100 CD Writer. It copies audio CD’s just fine, although I can certainly second the speed notion: some “quickly” copied CD’s won’t play in my car, although they do play at home. But I digress. Last night, I wanted to back up some files off my HD. I’m using a program called Easy CD Creator, it has a fool-proof wizard thing, it’s great. Here it comes: the #^%#%%$#^thing doesn’t seem to copy ANYTHING from the HD, whereas it does CD’s from the CD-Rom just fine. Problem ? Buffer underrun. So I look up the Help File. Says I gotta change my settings for my HD and Writer to both allow ‘disconnect’. Checked the Writer, and it was set OK. The HD wasn’t. Problem located, problem solved, you’d say.

NOT !!

I can’t check the damn box that says “disconnect” in my HD specs ! It’s gray, uncheckable, illegal, whatever, but I can’t check it. How do I solve this problem ? Should I update my HD config files (there’s a button for that, I noticed) ? Should I physically change somehting on my HD (jumpers and other scary stuff) ?
Shortly, AM I DOOMED ???

Thanks, guys. I hope you can help me out…

Coldfire

“You know how complex women are”

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
#17

Coldfire-
Some background: The CD burner we use at work is on a P90 with only 32 MB of RAM. Its an HP 4020i (the predecessor to the 8100) attached with a SCSI card and we are using EZ CD Creator 3.5c. The hard drive settings are not set to disconnect. We do most of the burning from hard drive to CD and are successful 90+% of the time.

Although the help file says change the HD/CD settings to disconnect, I do not think this is the problem. We used to have a buffer underrun issue that was solved by DLing a patch from Adaptec and running Defrag weekly, even if the HD is only 1% fragmented. The problem could be that, since you’re burning the contents of your HD, the files change from when you start the burn to when it finishes. Since you’re doing a HD backup, there are several possibilities as to why it is failing. I strongly recommend following these steps in order to burn your CD: Defragging, making a disk image of the files to be burned, running a Test & Create CD, and burning at the slowest speed. If you’re still having problems, e-mail me or contact Adaptec.

PS- The help file is worthless. Check here instead: http://www.adaptec.com/support/faqs/bufunder.html

#18

Almost forgot the most common reason- lack of hard drive space. If you are making a disk image or caching the files to be burned on your HD (even if they already are on the HD) and there isn’t enough space on your HD for the temp files, it’ll fail and give you a buffer underrun error.

#19

Thanks Mojo, I’ll check that tonight when I get home !

Coldfire

“You know how complex women are”

  • Neil Peart, Rush (1993)
#20

HP and Adaptec both carry patches that address this problem with the 8100 drive (Coldfire has a more-detailed message being sent to him).

Another thing which can cause buffer underruns is Microsoft’s FindFast program. If this is being loaded at startup time, it will periodically (@ every 12 min.) check your hard drives for any changes to the files it is tracking. This extra disk activity has been known to cause buffer underruns while burning at top speeds.

Also, another disadvantage to recording audio CDs on CDR/W media is the reduced storage capacity in comparison to standard CDR discs. BTW: look around and you can find CDR media with 80 min. audio storage capacity. (Your writer may not be able to utilize this extra capacity, but you never know until you try it.)