Re-writable CDs

Dave Smith · Post by **Dave Smith** » 12 Jan 2001 6:20 am

I've experienced a strange situation that maybe someone can explain. I use Band-in-a-box to create wave files (.wav). I can write them to a "recordable" CD, which is record once only, and everything is hunky dory. The CD plays on my computer, my DVD player, my Bose CD player, my truck CD player, etc. Now, when I record the SAME .wav files to a RE-WRITABLE CD I get very strange results. The CD will play on my computer and my DVD player but NOT on my Bose CD player, my Awai CD player in the music room, my truck CD player or my wife's car CD player. Anyone know what's going on?????

Jim Smith · Post by **Jim Smith** » 12 Jan 2001 6:28 am

CDR's will play on anything. CDRW's, are in a different format, and will only play on devices that can read that format. My advice, use CDRW's to create your CD, then copy the CDRW to a CDR for listening on any device.

Dave Smith · Post by **Dave Smith** » 12 Jan 2001 7:19 am

Thanks Jim - Thought it must be something like that. Guess I'll just use the CDRWs in the business for backups and use the CDRs for my music stuff. Sometimes, you lay down a practice track and it sounds good until you start to play along and you find something you don't like - tempo, rhythm, drums, etc. With a CDRW you could make a change and lay it down on the same CD with no waste. Oh well, they're less than a buck apiece now so live it up.

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 12 Jan 2001 8:00 am

Even if you've copied to a CD-RW just like a CD-R (they ARE in the same format if you use the same software, and copy once using a single-session), they may not play properly on "ordinary" CD players. (which includes some older CD's on PC's, BTW).

Why?

Because the reflectivity of a CD-RW is lower than that of a CD-R (or regular CD), and the "normal" CD-player may not be capable of reading this lower-reflectivity material.

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 12 Jan 2001 10:20 am

My Adaptec CD burning s/w will not let me write an audio file to a CD-RW disk.

I thought that would be a good idea to write test song mixes to a CD-RW to try out the mix on a cheap CD player and on my stereo system. Wrong.

David Pennybaker · Post by **David Pennybaker** » 12 Jan 2001 11:19 am

Really, Jack?

I'd never tried (hate that slow speed of the CD-RW anyway). I'm using version 3.something of EZ CD Creator. Been afraid to go to 4.0, because I heard several horror stories about it. On the other hand, my friend uses it just fine.

I bought a 5 or 10-pack of CD-RW's, and have only (tried) to use one. Thought it'd be a good place to keep some backups of downloaded files, etc.

With multi-session capabilities, and ultra-cheap CD-Rs now, it seems easier just to use CD-R. Even easier, a daily backup of critical files to a Jaz disk works great, too.

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The Unofficial Photographer of The Wilkinsons

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 12 Jan 2001 12:19 pm

David, I have V4. Everything works great in it, and I haven't had any problems. My HP burner came with V3 but is was lacking and I bought Easy CD Creator 4 Deluxe, which has a lot of added features. V4 can't be too bad, it's the best selling CD buring software and most other CD burning S/W compares theirs to Adaptec.

The "audio" I was referring to was when I wanted to create an audio (songs) CD.

It will alow me to copy files to a rewriteable, including .wav or MP3, just not "songs". Almost all audio CD players will not recognize rewriteable CD's and the program is just saving someone the hassle of writing to the CD and then finding out nothing will play it and it was a waste of time.

Al Marcus · Post by **Al Marcus** » 13 Jan 2001 6:56 pm

Jack, I just got an AIWA Cd player and it says it has CD-R/RW Playback. I made sure to get that when I bought it. But it is not a recorder.Except for Cassette.It has a good LP player on it too...al<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Al Marcus on 13 January 2001 at 07:00 PM.]</p></FONT>

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 14 Jan 2001 3:44 am

A few of the newer CD players will play CD-RW, but the biggest majority of them will not. From what I can find out, there isn't any factory car radio/CD players that will play them.

A lot of the newer CD players are advertised as being able to play CD-R disks, but not RW, but that's basically just a marketing ploy.

I had to learn a lot of about this crap fast when I produced my steel guitar instrumental CD.

John Gretzinger · Post by **John Gretzinger** » 15 Jan 2001 12:42 pm

CD-R uses a "closed" file format when recording, where the CD-RW has an "open" format (think of it as having a write protect tab on the CD). The difference in format causes the problem. Audio players look for the disk to be write protected and will not play those that are write enabled. Some of the newer players will accept either format.

Computer CD readers don't care.

jdg

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MSA D-10
'63 Gibson Hummingbird
16/15c Hammered Dulcimer

Steve Frost · Post by **Steve Frost** » 15 Jan 2001 2:44 pm

I just bought both my kids fairly inexpensive ($120)AIWA audio systems for Christmas. They'll play both CDRs and CD-RWs. Of course my 2 year old Aiwa rig wants nothing to do with CD-RW

, and my portable CD player won't read CDRs. Nothin's easy! New is good......