Better yet, why do they make it so home and car stereos won’t play CDRW’s?
It’s not like they don’t have the technology. Is it a ploy by Sony to ensure that people continue to buy CD’s? I have a good feeling they will allow in the future, so why won’t they do it now? It’s a f*cked up industry standard, Big Brother at work before your very eyes.
The specification for CD (called the red book IIRC) lays down, amongst other things, the difference in reflectance (is that a word?) between the pits and non-pits which make up the data on a CD. CDRW has a much lower contrast between the pits and non-pits than the red book standard requires because the surface is not made of that nice shiny aluminum so some players may not register the differences when reading.
That said, many cd players will happily read CDRW, including the three I ave at home.
Just use a CDR, even my car cd player from 1993 can play those. CRDs cost what, 30 cents if you buy a bunch (Whatever you do don’t get the ones labeld music, they are a ploy to steal your money). CDRWs cost what, about $3?
They don’t want you to play bootleg music. Music downloaded from Napster and the like is considered theft. Given recent court decisions, it’s unlikely that they will allow it in the future, your “good feeling” notwithstanding.
I just have to comment on this statement which makes almost no sense. Big Brother would properly be used for a government regulation involving personal freedom. An industry standard safeguarding against theft from that very industry doesn’t apply. You are not prevented from listening to certain types of music, you just have to pay for it.
“Before your very eyes”? That kind of made me chuckle.
Haj
CDRs work in every CD player I have ever used them in. These are the cheap kinds of CDs that most people use to burn bootleg music from a CD burner. Like a real CD, they can only be used once.
CDRWs dont’ work in some CD players for reasons already covered. They’re rewritable, hence the RW.
If not listening to bootlegged music was the reason behind this, CDRs wouldn’t work either! But they do.
CDRWs don’t work because they reflect differently or something.
**
Actually, this has nothing to do with it. Ticker got it right. There are some stereos that work, some that don’t, and sometimes two identical units will be differant.
Oh, and there are tons of car and home stereos that advertise that they will play CDR/CDRWs. Even a few that will play MP3 files off a cdr. The factory cd player in my Yukon would play CDRW’.
As for the legal aspect, there is nothing illegal about creating your own cd’s with songs from several differant CD’s. Putting them in MP3 format means you can get many more songs(that you legally purchased), onto one disk. Havent you seen the philips comercials where people are making their own mix of songs on cd’s? The one with the butchered beatles song? It’s called fair use.
I’ve lately noticed several portable CD players that can play RWs. Perhaps more car players are not far behind.
My car player can play MP3s or audio CDs, both on either Rs or RWs. It’s made by AIWA, cost about 300 bucks.
I’m sorry to break the news to you, I know it may come as a surprise, but government and leaders on industry have been rubbing elbows since the beginning of government and industry. My definition of Big Brother in this day and age definitely includes large corporations. I think it would be naive to dismiss the possibility.
While Haj took it as a fact, I meant it hypothetically, mea copa if I was not clear. If in fact the industry did it intentionally, and it was not a matter of an entire difference in technology, as in a tape deck to a cd player, then it would be a blatant control of technology. But if it is just that the CDRW is an entire different technology then it is understandable, since people are already able to record onto CDR’s.
I may be confused but I think ticker has the CDR confused with thr CDRW.
No, it pretty much goes for both. Some units will play cdrw, some wont, and some are specifically marketed to point out that they do play cdrw/cdr. Its usually a question of quality.
There’s a catch to playing CD-RWs in many stereos- the disk has to be closed before it’ll be recognized as a readable disk.
I got bit by this one myself- I have the Kenwood equivalent (Z919) of Revtim’s Aiwa MP3 playing car stereo, and I was quite pissed at first when I tried playing CD-RWs, and then noticed one sentence in the manual that said that the disk has to be closed.
Try that & see if it helps!
As opposed to being naive enough to see a conspiracy behind every corner…
It doesn’t work because most players adhere to a widely known spec thats been set in stone since for nearly 20 years. CDRW, OTOH, is a spec that probably wasn’t even dreamed of by the designers of the original CD players at Sony and Philips. Consumer-grade recordable equipment was a long way off in 1981. Consumer-grade (or any grade, for that matter) re-recordable discs were probably thought nearly impossible then.
Additionally, until about a year ago, the number of consumers with their own re-recordable CD devices was so tiny as to be undetectable by mass-marketers. Why make a device more expensive (which will turn off 99.999% of your potential customers) to satisfy a few computer geeks?
I don’t think control of technology is particularily just either, as in the degree of accuracy programmed into GPS’ that restrict you from "dropping a missile through the chimmney of the White House, but it is justifiable.
Plus, the fact that the US Gov’t own’s the satellites from which the GPS’ gain their coordinates, it is actually a privelage that they let us use their sattelites. If I had enough money to put 24 satellites into space then I would keep them to myself. 
Thanks everyone.
I’ll explain from where my fervor has stemmed. I used to get my CDR’s from work. The guy there that orders supplies accidentally ordered CDRW’s. The boss knows that they work just fine for storing data, so we didn’t return them. We now have several hundred packs of CDRW’s and I no longer have my free and ample supply of CDR’s. 
I brought some home anyway and up popped the warning that says it won’t play in my car or home stereos. I’ll burn something and see which stereos I can play on.
Thanks again.
No, Copyrighted music downloaded from Napster that you have NOT purchased otherwise is considered theft. It is like with ROMS, the disclaimer says, only download if you ownt he cartridge.
Thanks,
Matt Shepard
Just to add to the confusion, many artists gave permision to download their songs from napster.
And to muddy up the whole conspiracy notion, Sony makes CDR/CDRW drives for the PC.
It’s not intentional. CDRWs are one of those “be happy it works at all” technologies. It’s not fully backwards compatable because they just wern’t able to make it. The whole thing is held together with bubble-gum and twine, metaphorically speaking. CDRs are comparitivly much simpler.
Keep in mind there’s a fair chance that your sterio is older than the CDRW format itself . . . CDRWs from my drive won’t play in anything, but I have the cheapest CD burner ever made, so it’s understandable.
If it was a conspiricy, wouldn’t it make more sense to make dirt-cheap, faster to burn, thus thus better to distribute pirate music on CDRs?
And isn’t it bad form to complain about a media that you’re technically stealing from your boss anyway? 
–
“You know, with this digital format, the sukiness comes through with great clairity . . .”
The reasion that a CDRW wont work in many CD players is that they dont have the technology to read the RW…
CDR’s are recongised simply as a CD, nothing needed to read them, 99% of all CD players will read CDR’s
CDRW’s are a bit different – special software called UDF readers are required to be able to read CDRW’s. CDRW’s generally carry that software on them to teach computers how to read the disc, its not able to teach normal CD players
but the world is catching up – most new CD players can read CDRWs, and as it was said both kenwood and aiwa make car players that can read MP3 files off of CDRs and CDRWs
I’ve only slept 4 hours since that post but it seems to have cleared up my head a bit. I just have a fetish for conspiracy theories.