CD-Rs: There Must Be A DEFINITIVE Answer!!!

really? are newer ones less sensitive. I've always had the best luck playing cdrs that may have trouble on some others players on my like 10 year old no frills panasonic discman.

Can you cite any documented evidence for this? I find it difficult to believe. Certainly there's no direct consistent correlation between write-speed and the integrity of the data - there are studies out there (all the old links from the CD-R FAQ regarding this seems to be broken) that show some combinations of hardware/media work much better at higher burn speeds, others better the slower you go. Usually these studies show the block error rate varying widely but still way below a level that would cause a misread.

Usually the only indication that you should slow down your burn is if it simply doesn't work (a buffer underrun for example - BURN-proof drives avoid this) or produces audibly poor results. If the media is built for speed it should work flawlessly at speed.

The notion that bit-perfect burns at 24x or 32x will later degrade quickly because of the speed of the original burn is a new one on me. I'm not sure yr run-of-the-mill Adaptec and Nero software even allow 1x burning thesedays!

or through mass distribution. If there are enough copies out there, then surely there is at least some good working copies.
And with continued remastering and rereleases the cycle continues on.

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Yes, I know there's no perfect way to do this. But I want to know the best *before* I procede and spend time and money on the kinds of things I want to burn. And I want to have *some* idea of how long these things are supposed to last, and how to take care of 'em. Are people not distressed when they hear that CDs might not last as long as they think? Same thing here, it's just CDRs. I rarely substitute them for the "real" thing--I spent all my money on CDs, practically... But if it was the situation of, say, taping my friend's LP, I could make two copies in case one breaks. With CDRs, if they decay somehow, they'd both bite the dust at the same time, leaving me screwed.

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OK, so here's an issue: burning speed. And it seems we can't agree here, either. Fine, I can err on the side of caution. One question, though, does 1:1 refer to the CD being burned in the same amount of time it would take to be played? Cos I do the lowest--or is it second-lowest?--burning speed, which I think is "4X", and it takes 10-20 minutes for a 30-50-minute-long CD. Is that the same thing...?

The one important thing I learned in one of the CDFreaks articles that the brand isn't important--the place/factory of manufacture is. They give the example of the same brand putting out CDRs made by two different places. Now I don't know if this *still* happens, or what...

But I still don't know (1) if the burner/program you use matters, or just the CDR type*, (2) which places/companies are the agreed-upon best, (3), how in the heck do you know whether or not they made the CDRs you've got in your hand at the store, ready to buy...

*=I know the burner/program matters in the sense that, if it's crappy, the CD won't turn out right. But I assume--I still don't *know*!--that IF it burns correctly, then that is no longer a concern. Meaning: if I use a peice-of-shit set-up and you use state-of-the-art, but we both use the same CDRs, and they both turn out right, then we're on equal footing.

It still happens.

"the burner/program you use matters"

The program matters, but not as much as the CDR. Most burners are pretty much the same.

I don't know any of the answer to the rest of the questions.

the color on the bottom matters apparently but i can never keep straight what means what. Is blue bad or good? Green?

i find the same weird thing about the end of the cds being more prone to skip - nowadays when i make a mix from slsk i sequence the stuff in order of importance

i'm sure i started at least a few of those threads you link to above, so rest assured, there are others out there just as (needlessly?) paranoid as you. but at this point I have HUNDREDS of CDRs, and i wanna know i can still play them when i'm a bitter old man and they are all i have left.

but i've found that no one is an authority, and you'll never get a straight answer

the best way to tell is wait around and see how well they last

my nero won't burn less that 4x. I think 4x is ok but I used to only do 1:1, for what its worth

But I stress again that burning speed does not affect data integrity.

The above thread introduces yet another consideration: the differences between "music" CDRs and, uh, other ones? I was told that "Music CDRs" are, like, something you use/play/make with some kind of other player (ie, not a stereo, PC, Walkman, etc). And that the only difference between them and everything else is that they feature this compatability. And that any ol' CDR can be used for data'n'files, for an MP3 CD, or for an "audio CD"/CDA.

Anyone...?

1) Start with a good ripping/burning program. Toast for Mac works great for burning; Missing Media Burner for OS X is a good and free secure ripping application. For Windows, use EAC. That's free also. The actual burning program is pretty simple - virtually any software that works (just about all of them, in other words) should do a good job. I wouldn't rely on a program like iTunes for burning, as it will leave gaps in between the tracks, even when you set it at "zero gaps". ALways use Disc At Once (DAO) mode and never Track at Once.

2) Media: you DO get what you pay for. That 100 CD-R spindle at CompUSA that's such a steal at $5.99? They may (or may not) burn properly, but you'll soon find out just how much you really saved when

a) the top begins flaking off in six months, and/or
b) it mysteriously becomes unplayable/skips for no good reason

My advice is to get a good quality CD-R. I have burned hundreds of HHB and Quantegy CD-Rs and have never had failures or any of them die. They will cost you a bit more, but the quality is worth it in the long run, if you want them to last. Other brands are more flaky and inconsistent: some Sony may be fine, some TDK, but quality control and manufacturing plants vary from batch to batch. You can never be sure. This is why I ONLY use HHB and Quantegy. Anything else may save a buck or two in the short run, but I'm not about to gamble on this.

3) The burner itself: most burners should do the job. Burning that is. Audio extraction is another matter. I'd think most (if not all) modern ROM drives (CD, DVD, etc.) can do an adequate job of digital extraction. But if you want more reliability, Lite-On burners are cheap and highly rated these days. There's also the old standby Plextor. (These are manufacturers, not brand names. Check out CD Freaks to find exact brands and models.)

4) Speed: 4x is the ideal sweet spot. I never go over that, regardless of the capability of the burner.

There is no 100% reliable digital media. (Or analogue for that matter.) I suspect that MiniDiscs (bar any abuse) will outlast any and all CD-Rs, as Magneto-Optical media is, thus far, the most secure and reliable digital storage medium there is. It's far from perfect, but much more stable than any dye.

But I think that a good quality CD-R, properly burned, stored, and cared for, will last a very long time. How long, no one relaly knows, but do get good quality media and don't make shortcuts (burning at 48x speed, etc.).

All CD-Rs have a certain chunk of info pressed into them at manufacture which can't be altered by the user. Music CD-Rs and regular CD-Rs are identical but for the fact that the former has a flag set in this info which allows it to be used on a consumer-grade standalone CD-R burner (if you've not seen them, they're like regular hi-fi separates and work like a tape deck). The music CD-Rs have a levy imposed upon them which is supposed to make up the shortfall in revenue due to folks 'home-taping'; the price differential between music CD-Rs and regular CD-Rs is now so small I can't believe this works.

Music CD-Rs can be used anywhere regular CD-Rs can. The reverse does not apply for the reasons above.

By 'used' do you mean 'used to burn'. Or are burned data CDRs playable in fewer machines than burned music ones?

Stuff that can cause CD-Rs to mess up:

1) It doesn't matter how much you pay for your CD-Rs, but if you want them to last you need to make sure the top side of the CD-R has a cover on it. The side that you copy onto is actually just plastic; the information is stored on the top side of the CD-R. Get one of those cheap silver (blank) topped CD-Rs and scratch it with a pen or a razor or something and it'll peel off and it'll just be clear plastic. Try and go for brands with the brushed aluminium feeling tops on, these will last much longer.

2) I'm quite sure burn speed is only an issue if you have a really old computer. Put simply, shitty computers can't get the information you want to copy to the CD ready in time, so it jitters about and causes problems when its time to play back the CD.

For safety: Don't have crap running in the background and don't do anything on your computer that could cause a peak in CPU usuage or RAM usage (i.e opening up that 10,000 page novel you've just written, surfing the net, leaving virus checkers on etc etc)

3) CDs and CD players have this crazy error correction system thingy that I don't fully understand. On scratched/badly burned CDs where data is missing it can guess what data should fill it, allowing the CD to be played. The quality of a CD player is largly dependent on how good this error correction is...

...This is important with CD-Rs becuase the lazer burns the dye on the CD and this isn't very accurate, whereas "real" CDs are pressed with a glass master, which is a much more accurate process.

4) Read up on your CD Writer, find out what the best settings are for your Operating System.

5) I think it will be quite random what CDs will work on what players. Some CDs that have never worked on some of my CD players sometimes suddenly start working by accident. Although there's no excuse for having a crappy CD player these days and *all* CD-ROM drives made after 1995 should read copied audio CDs.

If you go to http://www.soundonsound.com there's loads of great articles on CD-Rs and how to make sure your stuff will be safe.

I know of no such playback issues. Music CD-Rs are effectively universal CD-Rs - they can be written to and read from in every way you'd expect with a CD-R *plus* you can record onto them in a standalone consumer-grade CD recorder (I keep saying consumer-grade because the pro-grade machines - Tascam, HHB, etc, the sort of stuff you see in Turnkey, Rose-Morris - don't have this limitation. They also bypass the serial copy management system inherent in consumer CD and MD recording decks).

CDs and CD players have this crazy error correction system thingy that I don't fully understand. On scratched/badly burned CDs where data is missing it can guess what data should fill it, allowing the CD to be played. The quality of a CD player is largly dependent on how good this error correction is...

Well, kind of. Some transports are better than others at tracking badly scratched discs and won't skip where others would. But at that point it's gone well beyond error correction into error interpolation and out the other side. Error correction is a fundamental part of CD replay and basically should work equally well in all CD players - thanks to lots of extra info scattered around the disc, small read errors are completely corrected. If the solution to a read error cannot be deduced from the extra data, an interpolative guess is made. Worse than this and audible muting/noise can occur. Worse again and the servomech flips out and loses track of the data stream. The distance from starting to interpolate and skipping isn't that far - which is why it's commonly said that digital media either work flawlessly or not at all.

The quality of a CD player is largely dependent on power supply regulation, accuracy of D/A conversion, reconstruction filtering and its internal clock and the grade of components in the analogue output stage. Above a certain minimum quality threshold they can all read discs to the same standard.