Why a Red Book standard CDR?

[newfuturevintage]

I've had times when Redbook CDs that I've burned from my Masterlink won't play in some CD players, usually boomboxes. Anyone know why that would be? Do you think it is an error that occured while burning rather than a format issue?

sometimes cheap cd players will balk at CDrs, especially if they've been burned at a high speed. Slowing the burn speed can help this (sometimes).

[mfdu]

it's not just a problem of burn-speed with cd's not recognising in cheap players - its also about reflectivity of the data surface not being enough for the poor underpowered cheap-o laser to make sense of. commercially pressed discsuse a more reflective data layer.

combine that with using cheap cd-r's and it compounds the problem.

c.mfdu

[@?,*???&?]

To be honest, I'm fairly sure most replicator houses WILL accept non-Redbook standard CD's. The business environment these days is such that replicators will accept almost anything you give them that plays. At least, this has been my experience.

Depending on intent, there are a number of other standards- beige, Orange, Yellow, etc.

Orange Book standard are specifically burned CDRs without PQ codes, no ISRC codes, lack of appropriately placed start I.D.s, etc.

Indeed, Discmakers and the like are in the business to make money and necessarily need to accept anything they can get. That said, making such a sacrifice suddenly begins the slippery slope of producing a lesser quality end result. Does it not?

[digitaldrummer]

for PC users, I'm pretty sure Nero does red book standard CD-DA also.

Mike

[percussion boy]

for PC users, I'm pretty sure Nero does red book standard CD-DA also.

Mike

Would you send a cdr burned off Nero for any important purpose, though?

I don't trust that thing. Nothing provable, though, could have been hardware issues.

[digitaldrummer]

well yeah, I have sent off masters burned with Nero and nobody has complained yet.

Mike

[thesimulacre]

Wavelab will also do it, but not by itself...

[Mark Alan Miller]

My latest CD went over the maximum "time" stated for Red Book (data is specified in time, even with Enhanced CD formats, basically...) Even though it was the data portion that pushed it over the edge a little, I still had to sign a waiver concerning the possibility of it not playing in some CD players. Frankly, I'm not worried. My master played in every player I tried it in (and that was a lot of them) and in every computer I put it into as well. And the data portion opened up on every computer as well...

[justinmc]

This is a bit of a tangent, but...
I have been using Discmaker's "short run" system. They dinged a recent master of mine twice; it was a "gold master quality blank" CD recorded w/ Nero; they said that it appeared I had a burner hardware problem. I did burn as slow as possible. They did accept a master from me a few months earlier which was created using the same system (who knows, maybe my system went south, or they raised their standards). For the more recent one, I finally gave up and simply used their file upload feature.

Later, I lost all trust in Discmakers for a different reason: they sent us misprinted tray inserts a half-dozen times, though we used their templates religiously. Their customer service folks made so many false promises, nearly drove us nuts. Never again, shoulda gone local from the start.

...
Indeed, Discmakers and the like are in the business to make money and necessarily need to accept anything they can get. That said, making such a sacrifice suddenly begins the slippery slope of producing a lesser quality end result. Does it not?

[MASSIVE Mastering]

Burning slow was the standard for the horrible drives of a decade ago that maxed out at 4x. 20-25% of a drive's rated speed is usually the "sweet spot" as far as accuracy and efficiency are concerned. Many studies (including mine) have shown that BLER can actually rise (sometimes considerably) at lower speeds.

But be happy they even checked the disc you sent in -- Many short-run places don't. And the odd bad disc is just a reality. Discs and drives aren't perfect - Every disc has errors. It's a matter of making sure they're within acceptable limits. The right burner, the right software, isolating the drive from vibration (at my old place, we had a $3,000 drive that wrote at 8x -- If a truck drove by the building during the burn, you could bet that there'd be a cluster of C2's right around that spot), etc., etc.