Cds Won't Play

[Ancestxor]

Audio CDs burned with Toast 11 often won't play on my CD player. The player can't index the disk and won't start, begins erratically, re-tracks or simply won't recognise the disk. On the computer the music plays perfectly through Quick Time Player or iTunes. This suggests a problem in Toast writing the lead-in to enable the player to recognise the track information. I have been making two copies of each disk - often one works, the other doesn't suggesting it's not the player.

 

Background: I'm digitising a music collection recorded on reel-to-reel, using Wire Tap Studio Pro. I am burning the disks on the iMac itself. Has anybody struck this problem - or can suggest a cure?

 

A second issue: Although I name each track separately in Toast, the finished CD simply lists each track as "(Nr) Audio AIFF". Is this normal, or why can't the track names be shown?

[Ancestxor]

Thanks to everyone for all the info. 1) I have now cleaned the lens of the laser. Found a surprising amount of dust and hair under the magnifying glass! 2) I named all the tracks before burning and was suprised to see them all come up correctly on the screen of my car. 3)

 

Suddenly now Toast won't load today although it burned perfectly last night. Force quitting didn't fix it, nor trashing the plist file or re-registering the program. It keeps treating it as installing and loading for the first time, but won't go any further. I'll try permissions, checking with MacKeeper and re-starting. Something has tripped up.

[tsantee]

You can download the latest installer from Roxio's software updates page and reinstall.

[Ancestxor]

Apologies to Toast! I have now checked the disks on my car player (newer than my NAD unit) and all play perfectly. They load, indicate the track numbers and display the name of each track on-screen. So the problem is with my disk player - perhaps laser units deteriorate over time?

 

While the track numbers display on screen, it still seems a pity they are not recorded on the disk itself.

[Brendon]

So the problem is with my disk player - perhaps laser units deteriorate over time?

 

They do, and they also collect dust.

 

Over many months resistors can go high, and capacitors go dry, so voltages inside the machine change and more buzz and hum gets through where it shouldn't.

 

Also, if the disc plays with its label side up in your player, then the laser is also facing upward and dust can collect on the lens. That can cause a real problem over time.

 

It might pay to ask your favorite computer service shop if they can check and clean the unit for you. Get an estimate of their price first, though.

[d_deweywright]

Another suggestion is to try different brands of blank discs. Some players prefer one brand over another, and that can vary from one batch of discs to another. So try another brand of disc (or two) and see if that makes any difference.

[tsantee]

I'll chime in about the track names. The audio CD format does not write track names to the tracks. That is because the format was created before computers had CD drives. Sony created CD Text as a workaround which requires a player that can read CD Text such as the one in your car. Toast can read CD Text if you drag the audio CD into the Toast Audio or Convert windows.

 

What computers do is download track information from the online Gracenote CDDB database when an audio CD is first inserted into the computer. The computer is asking Gracenote for a match of audio CDs that have the same number of tracks and track lengths. If your audio CD is your own mix, it is unlikely to find a match on Gracenote or one that is totally wrong. When a match is found the information is written to a cdinfo file in your computer's library which is then read to replace the generic names whenever you insert the disc.

 

You also can enter information within iTunes to update the cdinfo file. Apple doesn't allow Toast to write to that file.

 

If you have a lot of custom audio CDs containing CD Text that you want to be properly identified on your Mac, you can get a free applescript from dougscripts.com called CD Text to cdinfo. This runs from the scripts menu in iTunes.

 

Hope this is helpful to you.