CD burning issues

Question

Level 1

0 points

CD burning issues

I've seen a number of posts from folks experiencing speed and quality problems with audio CDs. I have had the same problems with my emac. Apple finally replaced the optical drive that came with the unit, but the burn speed problem is beginning again. The folks who have posted this issue in the past have mostly had no answers to their posts so I wonder if it is really just an isolated an issue with no solution.

I have also had many audio CDs burn, but play back with noise and skips after about 15 minutes or so. The first few tracks are fine, the rest are glitched. I thought perhaps the problem was media, but a sampling of 7 or 8 different major brands ruled that out. I then looked at the labels I was putting on the discs and contacted Memorex (the manufacturer of the labels) and received the following information:

"The burn speed of the internal burner (max 32x) is too slow for the 52 x discs available in al retail stores. The thickness and composition of the new discs causes the noise problem (he called it track noise)."

Also, I tried burning with no label and have the same problems. The skipping is worse in my portable player, but also happens in the combo drive sometimes (not all the time)

My question is this, has anyone else experienced this problem? If anyone is familiar with this situation do you know if it is only related to audio CD burns? Will the same problems in sound quality and skips occur if CDs are burned as MP3 CDs? How does this affect data CDs?

Any information would be appreciated.

emac 1.25, Mac OS X (10.3.9)

Posted on Apr 7, 2006 2:38 PM

Reply

Answer 1

PT

Level 7

20,904 points

Apr 7, 2006 5:03 PM in response to trademark59

Usually the problem with skipping and static noise with burned Audio CDRs is burn speed, as in you burned it too fast! Audio is laid down in a continuous stream and there is a certain amount of errors thrown down. Written too fast and the CD gets lots off errors. Errors are corrected by the electronics (CD player) when the music is read off the disk, but if the error rate is too high, it can not keep up and you get lots of noise, static and other artifacts.
So one test is to simple limit your burn speed and see if you get better results. I personally limit burn speeds to no more than 8x even though my drive can go faster than that. And those are for CDRs to be used in the car. I might even argue 4x would be better.
Of course this is one of those controversial topics where people claim that was then and now burners are better and can lay down audio much faster with much lower block error rates. Could be correct, I don't know, but if you are currently burning at your full 32x speed, try making one at 8x and see if that makes a difference in play back.
Also different players, especially depending on their age, have various success playing back CDRs. One might play it fine, the next with a lot of noise while the third can barely read the disc enough to get the track info from it.
Patrick

Reply

Answer 2

trademark59 Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 7, 2006 8:18 PM in response to PT

Patrick:

That possibility was presented to me some time ago and I'd like to be able to try it. However, I cannot burn above 4x ever or the burn fails and I get error messages telling me my burn speed (6x -8x) is too fast for the media (52x). Since this is clearly not the case there must be more to the story. I'm wondering if it is somehow related to the apple burning software. I'd like to try something else (like Toast or something similar, but I don't want to spend the money without more than my own hunch to go on. An external burner is another possibility, but I'm trying to get soe other ideas about the possible causes.

The staticy sounding noise is not completely consistent. Sometimes the player will do fine and other times it won't. I have the same situation on all 4 CD players in the house, but the cheaper ones are the worst and that tells me that it it might well be and error correction type issue. When I try to import those same discs back into itunes it might take 3 or 4 triuies to get a clean copy. It's pretty confusing.

Any opinio on the audio vs MP3 cd scenario? Would there be less probability of the errors in a data format as opposed to audio? I haven't had any problems with any data discs I've burned.

Reply

Answer 3

trademark59 Author

Level 1

0 points

Apr 9, 2006 8:17 PM in response to trademark59

Well I'd like to thank you all for nothing. What a grand waste of time checking in here is. "Answers to your questions" indeed. You get better help at Wal-Mart.

Reply

Answer 4

PT

Level 7

20,904 points

Apr 9, 2006 8:36 PM in response to trademark59

Hey, no problem! Hope you got your money's worth. Oh ya... this didn't cost you anything, did it?

Reply

Answer 5

JMVP

Level 6

16,851 points

Apr 10, 2006 9:46 AM in response to trademark59

trademark59,

"The burn speed of the internal burner (max 32x) is too slow for the 52 x discs available in al retail stores. The thickness and composition of the new discs causes the noise problem

Ha ha ha ha ha! That's funny! Thanks for sharing that with us!

Seriously, that's a load of BS. Media rated lower than the burn speed of the drive will slow the drive down, but faster rated media will not magically speed up the drive. Maybe you should get computer advice from Wal-Mart; some of the kids working the electronics section know better than that. The Discussions, in case you didn't read the Help & Terms of Use link on the right, is a user-to-user forum; if you post in some forums at some times of the week(say on a weekend night), you may get little if any response, while at other times you can get half a dozen replies in a few minutes, depending on whether your post title attracts interest or not.

In any case, no computer is going to relaiblly burn data at 24x or 32x or higher, whether Mac, high-end PC, or US$250,000 SGI supercomputer. Burns at such high rates are useful for generating coasters. You might be able to actually make such a burn, but the odds of the disc being good even a month later are effectively nil. High speed drives can read at higher speed (at least briefly until the drive buffers fill up) than they can write.

At a technology lab whose name is printed on my paychecks, the practice is to ignore the rated burn speed of the drive or the media and perform burns at either the computer's self-determined maximum or at 8x to 12x (the two usually work out to about the same in practice). Media stating it's rated for 32x, 48x, 56x, or some similar number is simply advertising with no basis in the real world.

BTW, also from practice, I'd advise against putting labels on the discs until after you've burned them. This is the shared empirical observation of other workers here as well; failed burn rates are higher if the label is put on before the burn.

There is one thing you can try that could improve your burn speed and/or qualuty. If you notice a dropoff in performance from past results, one cause (aside from degraded CD-R blanks --- the dye layer on unused blanks does degrade over time) can be a buildup of grime or dust on the LED and/or lens of the optical drive. A pass or two with a CD lens cleaner kit (there are some nice ones in stock at Wal-Mart) would help in that case.

While not directly related to your burn speed question, you should find the NIST's Care and Handling of CDs and DVDs worth checking. Care of unused CD-R blanks can keep them from degrading before use and so affecting your results.

Reply