cd burning issues

[mmj]

Hi there.

I recently compiled some of my music (ie music created by me) for burning onto an audio CD.

Now, my CD-burner supports the disc-at-once recording mode for burning CDs, and it also supports custom pause lengths between tracks.

So I burnt some CDs of my music, and I discovered a lot later that on regular CD players, the CD would not skip past track 1. It could continue playing the next tracks on its own, but as soon as you skipped to a track other than track 1 it would hang and/or eject the CD. I didn't realise the problem because the CD would play fine on my computer's CD-rom drive.

So I fiddled around a lot, and I found that the only way to fix things is to make the gaps between tracks all at least 2 seconds long.

Why is this? I've listened to Audio CDs with no gaps between the tracks before. They played fine on all players.

Keep in mind that YES, I was using disc-at-once so I thought that meant that I could adjust the gap between tracks to zero?

[micmar]

mmj, the way I understand it is disc at once will allow you to remove the 2 second gap between the tracks but by doing that you are effectively writing one continuous track, hence why you cant skip forward to the next track. Most CD players look for that gap as a reference to start playing again.

As for the other Audio CD's you have listened to without gaps, I presume they were professionally produced pressed CD's? The way they produce CD's is different in the fact that they can put "flags" in at certain points of what seems like a continuous track to serve as reference to the CD player.

Other than that I dont know what the problem could be...

[big_al]

HI MMJ,

Micmar is right, but you can achieve this sort of recording with numerous applications, although I do not know of any free ones.

Also, alot of standard CD player have trouble with nomal CDR media, try using some CDR's that are just designed for audio, ie Princo Audio or Kodak Audio CDR's.

We had a client with a cool new DVD that also could write VCD's and Audio cd's but he could not get it to work with normal CDR media until he used the specializes Audio CDR's.

Not sure what the exact difference is, but there most be some

[mmj]

Yes, I believe this is right.

In the past, I've had software that allows me to use one continuous track and put in those "flags" where the individual tracks divide, but I too forget what software it was. In my current software, I did assume that setting the gap to 0 had the same effect, but I was incorrect.

I use high quality TDK stock. I've seen that they also offer some that are labelled "for audio" but I've never needed this, as the ones I use perform well in consumer CD players, DVD players etc.

I've had bad experiences with Princo. They are the most unreliable brand I've ever used and they nearly always develop clicking noises and skipping withing a few months of playing them in my car...

Kodak are OK, but I prefer TDK because I've found their other types of stock (video, MD, miniDV, etc) to be very reliable.

[micmar]

Originally posted by big_al


Also, alot of standard CD player have trouble with nomal CDR media, try using some CDR's that are just designed for audio, ie Princo Audio or Kodak Audio CDR's.

We had a client with a cool new DVD that also could write VCD's and Audio cd's but he could not get it to work with normal CDR media until he used the specializes Audio CDR's.

Not sure what the exact difference is, but there most be some

As far as I know, the normal CD-R media requires a CD/DVD player with a twin laser pickup to read them correctly where as the "Audio CD-R" media gets around this problem somehow, allowing it to be read by any CD/DVD player, regardless of wether they have a twin laser pickup or not. What the difference is between normal CD-R media and "Audio CD-R" media is I dont exactly know.

What I do know is - all Pioneer CD/DVD drives, car CD players and home audio CD/DVD players have the twin laser pickup so they should be able to read any CD-R media you throw at it. I have a pioneer deck in my car and it has read every burnt Audio CD I have put in it without a problem. I love my car stereo

[mmj]

I also love my car stereo

Yes, I have a Pioneer DVD-ROM. Thanks! That'll be why it can read CDR media. I always heard that DVD drives (including DVD-ROM) would not be able to read CD-R media, and I wondered why mine could.

DVD players use a different wavelength, or colour, of laser that supposedly cannot read some types of CD-R disc.

I suppose most standalone DVD players are capable of changing their wavelength or colour, because in my experience they can read Video CD that has been burnt onto CD-R.

hmmm.. I dunno.

[micmar]

Originally posted by mmj

I suppose most standalone DVD players are capable of changing their wavelength or colour, because in my experience they can read Video CD that has been burnt onto CD-R.

hmmm.. I dunno.

I havent bothered to investigate how VCD's work much because they are not what you call a very popular format. Besides there quality sucks the big one compared to DVD. Having seen the same movie in both formats I cant conciously watch VCD's when I know DVD's are available, but I guess that just stems back to me being a perfectionist.