Black Cd's

I'll have to go grab one to double check, but those black disks aren't really black. If you look at 'em from the right angle, you'll see that they're actually really deep red. So, it's absorbing all other colors EXCEPT red. Since the laser attempting to do the reading is also red, wouldn't it functionally be "clear" from the viewpoint of the laser?

You're right, a black disk might fail by design, but these disks aren't black 🙂

If you look at 'em from the right angle, you'll see that they're actually really deep red. So, it's absorbing all other colors EXCEPT red.

Not exactly. Red, in terms of RGB (which is how we see color) would be bright, full on red with no hint of blue or green wavelengths. That it's a "really deep red", as you put it, means there's also a lot of green and blue being absorbed. The result, while we observe it as a shade of red, is still a near black color since there's just a bit less red being absorbed than blue and green.

It certainly does help at least some for a CD or DVD since that's a red light laser, but it's still a poor amount of reflection if it's that dark.

I am always amazed at the condescension of people giving advice on the internet >>when they do not know what they are talking about.

Sorry to hear that you do not understand the basic physics of light.

Hilarious. You just hit the jackpot with that one, kurt!

Did you know that the reflective layer itself is not the bit that's black? The laser focuses on the silver surface that sits behind the dark layer.

Simple point here is that macbooks can't read the disks, but other drives can, therefore the fault is with the macbook. Occams razor.

The laser focuses on the silver surface that sits behind the dark layer.

Big deal, through a dark layer. The effect is still black. The dark layer doesn't suddenly become clear regardless of what's behind it.

Big deal, through a dark layer. The effect is still black. The dark layer doesn't suddenly become clear regardless of what's behind it.

It is dark, not opaque, it doesn't have to be clear.
You are missing the point entirely.

I'm also missing information on the massive marketing campaign that led me to black bottom CDs. I must be the type of person who doesn't really care about appearances.

This conversation is getting rather juvenile. Rather than people with no background in either optics, hardware driver design, or anything else significant proposing solutions to a problem they don't understand in the first place, can we perhaps get some unity among people who have seen this and get some leverage on Apple to address the problem?

"Hey the problem doesn't affect me but I'm going to give my layman's opinion on it anyway and see if I can get in a fight on the internet."

That's awesome thanks for your input.

You are missing the point entirely.

No, I'm not. The dark color filters out light. Less light comes back to the drive. In the case of these disks, a lot less. You can't change that.

Here's a simple experiment to help you understand. Take a translucent piece of colored plastic or glass. Hold it up to a mirror. The mirror of course has a completely reflective silver coating behind the glass. Did the plastic or glass suddenly become clear when you held it up to the mirror? Of course not. It's still filtering out as much as color as necessary to be the color we see.

Same thing with the disks. That dark layer is still filtering out most of the light from the laser, resulting in much less coming back to help the drive read the disk.

Me'nLP wrote:
The point of my question was why won't my optical drive read it, considering this is a really nice computer. I know they weren't the most expensive cds, but that's the point. It wasn't anything complicated and I expected my laptop to breeze through them.

Take about half of what you've heard in this topic and believe about 1/4 of that. I've never seen so much BS and half truths.. the simple fact is the recent drives Apple is using (some pretty cheap ones at that) do not like the black coating. It's not that the disks are necessarily cheap it's just that they are incompatible with the drive. It's possible a drive firmware update could fix the problem. If you run a search in Apple discussions or on Google using your drive model number, HL-DT-ST DVDRW GSA-S10N, you will see there's been a lot of problems.

The days of Apple using the best components are long gone.

pancenter-

Here's an article that gives an ok (not great) overview of CD media but he's right about the Taiyo Yuden disks.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/syltguides/fullview/Q0DSVI8GU0T2

I purchase the Taiyo Yuden in bulk lots of 100 (not from the link above) and have never had a master returned from a pressing plant because of faulty media or errors.

The Maxell (made in Japan) are Taiyo Yuden and seem to be the best commercially available disks.

pancenter-

Dave,

For what it's worth, I've had a far higher incidence of problems with Memorex disks than with all the other brands of disks I've used combined.

I NEVER use or recommend Memorex or Imation media.

Maxell and Verbatim have always worked well for me in all my drives.

I'm thinking red not as in visible light red, more as in BEYOND red, infrared. Just did some checking and the lasers aren't red in a visible sense, the read/write laser in CDR's are infrared. That would imply that the polycarbonate can be of ANY color (and they make 'em in all colors) and, as long as the color isn't infrared opaque, the laser sees right through it.

Of course, now the question is are there ANY "black" discs that will work in a new unibody Macbook Pro? In other words, is there a quality problem with the substrate under the infrared clear polycarbonate OR, as someone else in the thread put it, are there quality issues with the lasers? Dunno!

Now that makes more sense. Everything I've read on the subject always refers to them as a red light laser. No mention of infrared, an entirely different thing. If that is the case, then no, the color of the disk shouldn't make any difference as long as there's at least enough translucence (opaque obviously wouldn't work).