Burned CDs "Skipping" When Playing Last Track

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Level 1

9 points

Burned CDs "Skipping" When Playing Last Track

I have a problem with Audio CDs burned using iTunes. They seem to play just fine in both my cars, at home, etc. until the last track of the CD. When it gets to the last track, the music seems to "skip", as if the player has trouble reading the song data. It's not a bad song as this has happened with 2-3 different CDs, each using different playlists. It's not the CD players because my older CDs seem to work just fine. Could this be a problem with the latest iTunes? All the CDs that have this problem were burned in the past 2 months. I am using the Superdrive to burn and the settings have not been changed since burning older CDs that worked.

Thanks in advance.

quicksilver power pc, Mac OS X (10.4.8)

Posted on Oct 16, 2007 11:03 AM

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Answer 1

NoName

Level 6

12,831 points

Oct 16, 2007 12:03 PM in response to bobpres

See this.

Most likely, your optical drive is not writing properly. Try the tips in the FAQ linked above, and if the problem persists, I would consider trying another optical drive in your Mac. Since you seem to have a desktop Mac, you should be able to use just about any drive out there with a good chance for full support in OS X.

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Answer 2

bobpres Author

Level 1

9 points

Oct 19, 2007 2:47 AM in response to bobpres

Thanks, NoName.

It seems like my superdrive might be bad. Can you tell me what brands/formats, etc can replace it? Can I buy just about any Mac-compatible dvd/cd burner, or is there something "special" about this particular drive? (I'm not used to replacing hardware.)

Thanks.

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Answer 3

NoName

Level 6

12,831 points

Oct 19, 2007 3:16 AM in response to bobpres

You can use pretty much any optical drive in your computer since you have a desktop model and very broad driver support with Tiger. If you only have one optical drive bay (I have two in my Power Mac), then you probably want a do-it-all kind of drive. I strongly favor Plextor and Lite-On drives, and will confidently recommend the Lite-On SHW-160P6S.

Your Power Mac user manual should give you very good and detailed instructions on how to change the drive. If not, you can download virutally any manual from the Apple Support site. Because of the design of the mirrored doors on my Power Mac, I had to remove the faceplate from the front of the drive tray to allow it to open and close, which the manual did not mention.

In my opinion, most stock SuperDrives are not nearly as good as what you can pick up off the shelf in any Wal-Mart, and the Apple firmware often caps things like the drive's write speed, whereas you can benefit from all or nearly all of a third-party's drive using its own manufacturer-supplied firmware.

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Answer 4

NoName

Level 6

12,831 points

Oct 19, 2007 3:49 AM in response to bobpres

Here is the System Profiler information for my Lite-On drive.

LITE-ON DVDRW SHW-160P6S:

Firmware Revision: PS0B
Interconnect: ATAPI
Burn Support: Yes (Unsupported)
Profile Path: None
Cache: 2048 KB
Reads DVD: Yes
CD-Write: -R, -RW
DVD-Write: -R, -RW, +R, +RW, +R DL
Burn Underrun Protection CD: Yes
Burn Underrun Protection DVD: Yes
Write Strategies: CD-TAO, CD-SAO, CD-Raw, DVD-DAO
Media: No

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Answer 5

bobpres Author

Level 1

9 points

Nov 8, 2007 11:06 AM in response to bobpres

Hi again,
Sorry for the delay in getting back to this subject. I replaced the Superdrive with an LG burner, but I have EXACTLY the same problem. Even if I burn at 1x speed, the last song (regardless of order or song) "skips", even when playback is on the mac. The playback in iTunes (off the HD) is perfect. It's only bad when burned to a CD.

I recently put 2 and 2 together and figured out this is also happening when burning DVDs with iMovie/iDVD. I had made a movie that looked great until the final few minutes. I created a second movie with totally different content and got the same results. It plays perfectly from the HD, but "skips" when burned.

I can now assume it was not the Superdrive as it is still happening with a new burner. It's probably not iTunes, since it is also happening with DVDs burned through iMovie/iDVD. Could this problem lie with OSX? I, apparently, started having this problem about 1 year ago when I burned a homemade DVD. I had had problems with it and gave up due to lack of time. Now, I can't seem to burn anything. It makes me wonder if I can even do things like back-ups to CD or DVD. (I'm not sure how I would verify if there's a problem.)

Has anyone seen anything like this?

Thanks.

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Answer 6

NoName

Level 6

12,831 points

Nov 10, 2007 1:10 AM in response to bobpres

This is quite interesting/disturbing.

If you can risk losing one CD-R for testing purposes, I would suggest burning an audio CD using Burn to see if that gets around the problem, if it is indeed software based.

Otherwise, if you have Toast, I would recommend using that to burn your CDs and DVDs. I have to admit that I don't use any Apple applications other than Disk Utility for burning discs, so it's difficult to pinpoint the problem here. One common thing that Mac users over the years have seemed to suggest is lowering burn speed, sometimes to the extreme that burning takes place at real time! Using my Lite-On drive and Toast, I am able to successfully burn CDs and DVDs at very close to the maximum speed allowed by the medium in question, so I don't think that lowering the burn speed is necessarily a solution.

By the way, did you make sure to set the jumper of your new drive according to the instructions in your Power Mac user guide? In the case of my computer, I believe it needed to be set to Cable Select. I'd have to double-check that, but I think I recall having to do that when I installed it, when it would have seemed obvious to set it to Master.

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