14 replies to this topic

[Cadillac Mike]

Hi,  I made an audio CD - one of the simplist things for Red Box EMC9. I've done it before with no issues.

I loaded the songs into the list and burned the CD. There were no errors. I had no other programs running. I usually just set these off and walk away, with nothing else running to avoid overloading windoze.

When i loaded it in my car, the first several times it couldn't even play track 1. Thinking my car's CD player was finally biting the dust, I swapped in a CD i made several monthh ago using EMC9, and it platyed fine.

Later I was able to get it to play tracks 1 and 2 but by the time track 3 came up, it couldn't play that track or any later ones. (16 tracks on the CD). Again the older CDs from several months ago would play fine.

I know the cheap CD problem - this was a Sony CDR. Machine was my tried & true Thinkpad T30 with XPP SP3, and running EMC9. Burner was one of 6 or 7 IBM DVD/CDRW hot swap units i have. Maybe this particular burner was dying (these are all 8-9 yrs old but they do not get heavy use). Car is a 1996 Fleetwood with factory CD plyer. Again it plays the ones i made earlier just fine.

I made another CD this time a TDK and used the burner that I'm pretty sure i used to make the last ones a few months ago. All tracks played fine.

I brought the "problem child" CD to the office (Dell w/ vista and WMP) The tracks show on the disk in the usual XP / Vista strange listing manner. WMP had a hell of a of time getting started and locked up 3 times. The 4th time it finally found and started track 1 and the next few.

Maybe it was just a bad BD, or a marginally burned one??? That sont Cd - i don't know how old it was...

Edited by Cadillac Mike, 27 October 2011 - 06:37 AM.

[cdanteek]

Cadillac Mike, on 27 October 2011 - 04:35 AM, said:

Hi,  I made an audio CD - one of the simplist things for EMC9. I've done it before with no issues.

I loaded the songs into the list and burned the CD. There were no errors. I had no other programs running. I usually just set these off and walk away, with nothing else running to avoid overloading windoze.

When i loaded it in my car, the first several times it couldn't even play track 1. Thinking my car's CD player was finally biting the dust, I swapped in a CD i made several monthh ago using EMC9, and it platyed fine.

Later I was able to get it to play tracks 1 and 2 but by the time track 3 came up, it couldn't play that track or any later ones. (16 tracks on the CD). Again the older CDs from several months ago would play fine.

I know the cheap CD problem - this was a Sony CDR. Machine was my tried & true Thinkpad T30 with XPP SP3, and running EMC9. Burner was one of 6 or 7 IBM DVD/CDRW hot swap units i have. Maybe this particular burner was dying (these are all 8-9 yrs old but they do not get heavy use). Car is a 1996 Fleetwood with factory CD plyer. Again it plays the ones i made earlier just fine.

I made another CD this time a TDK and used the burner that I'm pretty sure i used to make the last ones a few months ago. All tracks played fine.

I brought the "problem child" CD to the office (Dell w/ vista and WMP) The tracks show on the disk in the usual XP / Vista strange listing manner. WMP had a hell of a of time getting started and locked up 3 times. The 4th time it finally found and started track 1 and the next few.

Maybe it was just a bad BD, or a marginally burned one??? That sont Cd - i don't know how old it was...

Do you have EMC 9 ? Because you posted in 'Easy CD and DVD Burning (in Red Box): Vista & Windows 7 Compatible'

You can test that burned CD that won't play and find out the maker, media ID (MID).

Just because it says Sony or TDK doesn't mean anything, they don't make media. They farm it out to a job bidder could be good or could be junk.


#3. in my signature Opti Drive Control, 30 Day Free Trial.

Will answer both questions above...

[Cadillac Mike]

Thanks, I have the red box but the red box i have is the subset of EMC9, not EMC6 or EMC10. Actually i have red box EMC 10 for my wife's computer and red box EMC6 for my older T22, which I use the same IBM burners to make straight CD copies when backing up newly purchased software. But this T30 is using Red box based on the EMC9 stuff.

I'm thinking it is the media, but the burner is still possibly suspect. I wrote on the back of it to id it. I can try another mix of songs with it and a TDK blank.

Oh, and the CD is finally playing in the vista machine ok. It's up to track 8. Strange.

[cdanteek]

Cadillac Mike, on 27 October 2011 - 05:23 AM, said:

Thanks, I have the red box but the red box i have is the subset of EMC9, not EMC6 or EMC10. Actually i have red box EMC 10 for my wife's computer and red box EMC6 for my older T22, which I use the same IBM burners to make straight CD copies when backing up newly purchased software. But this T30 is using Red box based on the EMC9 stuff.

I'm thinking it is the media, but the burner is still possibly suspect. I wrote on the back of it to id it. I can try another mix of songs with it and a TDK blank.

Quote

Oh, and the CD is finally playing in the vista machine ok. It's up to track 8. Strange.

That is a better way to say it. Please use that wording in the future.

The board has some overzealous moderators that would of moved your post as soon as they saw EMC9!     

That CD player in the Vista machine could be better reader than the others.

A disc doesn't get better or heal its self after the burn..

Edited by cdanteek, 27 October 2011 - 05:31 AM.

[Cadillac Mike]

That's still too many characters. How about red box EMC9?

And yes computer CD readers are much better than car CDs and my Fleetwood's reader is almost 16 years old. And older ones are far less tolerant of a "weak burn" which is usually caused by lower quality blank media. so I will re-test with the original burner and the TDK media. I'll re-arrange the songs to better suit my preferences so it won't be a total waste of time. I need to get "Big ole Jet Airliner" closer to the front of that CD.

will slowing down the burn speed help with this??

Edited by Cadillac Mike, 27 October 2011 - 05:50 AM.

[cdanteek]

Cadillac Mike, on 27 October 2011 - 05:43 AM, said:

That's still too many characters. How about red box EMC9?

And yes computer CD readers are much better than car CDs and my Fleetwood's reader is almost 16 years old. And older ones are far less tolerant of a "weak burn" which is usually caused by lower quality blank media. so I will re-test with the original burner and the TDK media. I'll re-arrange the songs to better suit my preferences so it won't be a total waste of time. I need to get "Big ole Jet Airliner" closer to the front of that CD.

I hope this will work until you do that..

Quote

will slowing down the burn speed help with this??

What is the rated speed of the CD Disc's and what speed did you burn them at? Eight to sixteen year old hardware probably isn't helping, how would that old firmware even recognize newer media?

Edited by cdanteek, 27 October 2011 - 05:54 AM.

[Cadillac Mike]

We're talking CDRs here, not high speed CD-RW or DVD-+R/ RW etc. It's late 1980s technology. An 8 year old CD burner should have NO trouble making a good audio CD that my 1996 Fleetwood can read (or my 1995 Fleetwood for that matter), and I have dozens of straight copy audio CDs and custom track layout CDs that i've made in the past and they all work fine in the Fleetwoods (which is the ultimate highway cruiser of all time).

I really don't like CD-RW media, it's too unstable and CANNOT be used to make an audio CD that car CDs can play. We used them in the AOR sometimes to copy data across different networks (DOD ban on USB thumb drives Sucks), but short term file transfer is all that a RD-RW disc is good for. I have newer DVD burners, but why use that to make a CD?

Since this is the only disc i have had read problems with, i suspect the media, but I'll try to check that particular burner out.

The Sony CD does not have a rated speed on it the TDKs are 32, 48, or 52X (but that's read speed not write speed) I think the burner was set to 8 or 16 x write, but I can't remember. I let it use the default setting, I don't try to speed it up, because that's just asking for a bad burn.

I never did see any firmware updates for the IBM Thinkpad internal DVD / CDRWs. These are made by Hitachi, Panasonic (Matsushita) or H-L technologies - all japanese made. They have not given me any problems in the past.

Edited by Cadillac Mike, 27 October 2011 - 12:14 PM.

[cdanteek]

Quote

We're talking CDRs here, not high speed CD-RW or DVD-+R/ RW etc

No one mentioned "high speed CD-RW or DVD-+R/ RW etc" except you!

A Burner has eprom flashed with firmware. That firmware has a list of media ID's from that time/era they couldn't write media ID's for a 8 to 16 year future! Your burners won't even list present day media ID's and throws a generic speed at that media..

[Cadillac Mike]

Audio CD format hasn't changed at all. I can buy a neyly made CD in a store today and it will play in a 25 YEAR OLD player. Similarly CD-R discs follow Standards, including backwards compatibility. Of course you can't write 24x with an 8x burner, but you can write a 24x (or 48x or 52x) disc at 8x speed without issues with that 8x burner. The higher speed ratings are just the result of better throughput of the drive's electronics coupled with cleaner, more 'perfect' media that the blanks are made from. This isn't rocket science.

If the IBM burners i have can't see the "Media ID"' speed rating, they sure as heck can tell it's a blank CD-R. That's pretty obvious from the roxio screens where the blank media type is shown right on the screen. And if the burner is too old to write at the newer 52x speed - so what, it will write at a speed it is comfortable with.  Slower writes are always more reliable anyways. I don't know if you remember vinyl audio's days with Original Master Recordings (I still have a couple of those). Those masters were written at 16 &2/3 RPM to quadrouple the reliability of the master discs from which the records were stamped.

Like I said, i have no problems with direct copies of data and audio discs and have had no prior problems with custom tracked discs, until i made that disc yesterday using a sony CD-R.

I only had that 1 blank Sony CD-R. I'm not a fan of sony because it of its continued attempts to introduce proprietary hardware and media to the world. (beta, memorystick, blueray).

[cdanteek]

Cadillac Mike, on 27 October 2011 - 12:32 PM, said:

Audio CD format hasn't changed at all. I can buy a neyly made CD in a store today and it will play in a 25 YEAR OLD player. Similarly CD-R discs follow Standards, including backwards compatibility. Of course you can't write 24x with an 8x burner, but you can write a 24x (or 48x or 52x) disc at 8x speed without issues with that 8x burner. The higher speed ratings are just the result of better throughput of the drive's electronics coupled with cleaner, more 'perfect' media that the blanks are made from. This isn't rocket science.

If the IBM burners i have can't see the "Media ID"' speed rating, they sure as heck can tell it's a blank CD-R. That's pretty obvious from the roxio screens where the blank media type is shown right on the screen. And if the burner is too old to write at the newer 52x speed - so what, it will write at a speed it is comfortable with.  Slower writes are always more reliable anyways. I don't know if you remember vinyl audio's days with Original Master Recordings (I still have a couple of those). Those masters were written at 16 &2/3 RPM to quadrouple the reliability of the master discs from which the records were stamped.

Like I said, i have no problems with direct copies of data and audio discs and have had no prior problems with custom tracked discs, until i made that disc yesterday using a sony CD-R.

I only had that 1 blank Sony CD-R. I'm not a fan of sony because it of its continued attempts to introduce proprietary hardware and media to the world. (beta, memorystick, blueray).

Times have changed since your hardware was made in the 90's!

Most new disc's don't have a X speed ( Write Speed Descriptor(s)) below 12x, back to the generic speed your machine throws at your disc.

The days of 4X 8X is the best burn speed match the date of your hardware and not true today.

[Brendon]

Hi Mike, cd. I've just arrived - late as usual

Mike, that'll probably be Redbox 9  [which is version 9.0.554] you have, I think. It's a cut-down subset of EMC9 which is the full suite.

You said "That sont Cd - i don't know how old it was... " and that caught my eye. We're told that blank CDs have a shelf life, and you already know that Sony don't make their own CDs so any bottom-feeder manufacturer could have made it. I imagine that if you tested it the error rate would be horrendous.

To be practical, I'd suggest you frizbee that disc and start with a fresh blank. It should work much better.

Best regards,
Brendon

[Cadillac Mike]

Hi gents, (I hope i don't have to use that term loosely!)

First CD - my burners can do over 24X; it's listed in the specs and they were made from 2002 thru 2006, the mfr date is right on the bottom, i looked. What's from the 90s is my CAR CD PLAYER.

Second, the burners are high quality Hitachi and Matsushita units, and they are durable.

Third, my red box EMC9 shows the blank discs (I am using some TDKs that i bought last year) as CDRs with Acer as the maker. So my burners CAN read the media types on these discs.

So, I made another disk, using the suspect burner with one of the TDK discs. I told roxio to limit burn speed to 16X, it hovered b/w 11-16X during the burn, It played fine with WMP on the thinkpad, but i left it in my room when i went to work this morning. I'll get it at lunch and see how it works in the Fleetwood.

I remember some real el-cheapo portable CD players that i bought in 2003 on my way to iraq - jwin and coby, etc... real cheap, below walmart quality even. They couldn't play CDRs that i made in my computer (back then a T22) but the computer could play them fine. I think i used Imation or 3M (same company) discs. I eventually bought a panasonic player which worked fine.

By the way, those old discs play fine in both my Fleetwoods, my ElDorado convertible AND my 1968 DeVille convertible (with a 2000 era CD player installed in the trunk - the signal & data cord barely reached from the trunk to the dash!) They work in my Wife's CTS' but she doesn't like my music... (so I play it on her all the time - her new CTS has an internal HDD which i copied the pussycat dolls' dont'cha song to just to annoy her!!!)

Since the reader (car player) is not suspect - at least i don't think it is suspect, I am still leaning on the bad media explanation.

I'll make some more test discs using the TDK and some newer Imations over the weekend, I've been meaning to do this for a while, but roxio was fried on my computer until i figured out what was hosing it.

[Cadillac Mike]

Brendon, on 27 October 2011 - 02:47 PM, said:

Hi Mike, cd. I've just arrived - late as usual

Mike, that'll probably be Redbox 9  [which is version 9.0.554] you have, I think. It's a cut-down subset of EMC9 which is the full suite.

You said "That sont Cd - i don't know how old it was... " and that caught my eye. We're told that blank CDs have a shelf life, and you already know that Sony don't make their own CDs so any bottom-feeder manufacturer could have made it. I imagine that if you tested it the error rate would be horrendous.

To be practical, I'd suggest you frizbee that disc and start with a fresh blank. It should work much better.

Best regards,
Brendon

That sony CD WAS old and it was from one of my Captains who brought it from Puerto Rico - it was probably a real el-cheapo disc. I should be able to tell who made it now that i know how to look, but i gave it to the Colonel to try out in his car, so I'll have to wait.

But this all only serves to reinfoce the issue that QUALITY MEDIA is very important to this whole burning process.

How do you "test the error rate" on a disk that's already burned??

Edited by Cadillac Mike, 28 October 2011 - 06:24 AM.

[cdanteek]

Cadillac Mike, on 28 October 2011 - 06:21 AM, said:

That sony CD WAS old and it was from one of my Captains who brought it from Puerto Rico - it was probably a real el-cheapo disc. I should be able to tell who made it now that i know how to look, but i gave it to the Colonel to try out in his car, so I'll have to wait.

But this all only serves to reinfoce the issue that QUALITY MEDIA is very important to this whole burning process.

How do you "test the error rate" on a disk that's already burned??

Only way to test it is after it's burned.

Nero CD-DVD Speed v4.7.7.16

You may need a copy of nero aspi (wnaspi32.dll) in the same folder for it to work..

If so send me a PM.

[Cadillac Mike]

As soon as i get the Sony CD back from the colonel, I'll test it's error rate.

In the meantime i made more test CDs. The forced 16x max played out through track 12, it didn't want to play 13-16. So i made another test with 12X max and it plays fine all the way through. So I'll just keep the burners set to 12x max burn speed. I then made a steely dan CD 12x max burn speed, and that plays fine too.

All the disks work in computer reader / burners. It is the car CDs that are much less tolerant of any weak or error prone burns. And quality media cannot be over emphasized.  But I think I'm good now with these TDKs and 12x max. and all my burners seem to be OK too.

Now i have to investigate a couple pops in one song, probably a bad MP3 rip. i'll have to copy the CD back to the HDD and make a new CD.

Big ol Jet Airliner is now #4 on the latest iteration of the CD (fixed the ending of Question).

This is what's on it now:
Head East - Never Been any Reason
Who - Bargain
Moody Blues - Question
Steve Miller - Big ol Jet Airliner
Rush - Red Barchetta
Lynyrd Skynyrd - Ballard of Curtis Lowe
Night Ranger - Sister Christian
Manfred Mann - Blinded by the Light
Traffic _Low spark of High Heel Boys
Robert Plant - Tall Cool One
Warren Zevon - Wearwolves of London & Send Lawyers Guns & Money
Bon Jovi - Blaze of Glory & Dead or Alive

Strange mix, but i like it, and, it's the optimum length for the weekly drives Tampa back & forth to Orlando.

I made a couple more test discs - I have an entire stack of Imations - these used to be problem free - but one i just made, problems seeing the tracks with the car player. I loaned out 4 or 5 of the test dics to friends and asked them to try them in their cars. Of course they're so lazy, none of them have tried them yet! If i can make further definitive findings, i'll post them here.

Edited by Cadillac Mike, 02 November 2011 - 06:42 AM.