Older CD/DVD players?

I have two CDs that have been burned on a newer PC. They play on two other PCs (one PC is from 1998), both vehicle CD players, but not on my older (2000) home entertainment (CD/DVD) system.

What is different over the years for CD players? How can I make an older system compatable? Why does the 1998 PC play the CD, but not the 2000 entertainment system? This is the first time I have had this experience with the entertainment system.

KnK

My last experience with DVD player issues (and this was just as I was getting out of the consumer electronics service industry around the time DVDs were becoming really popular) regarding DVD-RWs had to do with the disc reflectivity. Loads of DVD players were coming in to service, but all of my shop DVDs worked fine in them. Finally a customer sent his homemade DVD to prove that he wasn’t halucinating, and sure enough it didn’t work in certain players, but did work in others.

After consulting with various manufacturers’ engineering departments, it was decided that the darker color of the DVD-ROMs combined with the higher wavelength of the laser light was resulting in a lower reflectivity coefficient which meant a much smaller signal being picked up by the optical heads. I was able to confirm this on my bench by turning up the laser power, but I knew the manufacturer wouldn’t sanction this as a fix because that’s basically burning the candle twice as bright.

Some players make up for this by using two optical heads (an extra one just to read CD-RWs). I don’t know what other fixes are in the works, but I believe the industry has been successful in coming out with multi-read heads in the past year or two, which is why your newer players don’t have a problem.

I don’t believe there is anything you can do to make your older machine “see” the newer DVD-RW discs. I have a 3-year old JVC 3-disc DVD changer that won’t play DVD-RWs and after some hesitation, finally went out this past weekend and bought a $129 current model that has no problem with the discs.

You may also find that your entertainment system will play CD-R’s but not CD-RW’s. This is the case for a lot of older players.

Did you burn the CD on “music” media? If not, the very newest players may refuse to play them. This is not for a technical reason, but a legal one. “Music” blanks are marked by a barcode, which represents a small royalty fee paid to a general fund which is distributed to artists like Elton John (who needs it badly, I’m sure :rolleyes: ). This is supposed to make up for the “stealing” of copyrighted music when you write on blanks.

Computers do not read or recognize the barcode, the older CD players do not either, but the newest ones do. Buy some music blanks (just a few pennies more), and burn a test CD. If this plays, you will know why.

And that’s why I like the older players better than the new ones.

Its not always the player. Sometimes its the program you wrote the cd with or the cd writer or cd writing speed.

The first thing to try is to burn them “disc-at-once” (not “track-at-once” or multi-session). Different color dyes (brands) may also be tried. See the CDR FAQ. The higher priced music media is only needed if you have a stand-alone recorder.