my car cd player won't play "some" burned cds

[MrPink]

So I had some trouble deciding if this belonged in software, general discussion, or hardware. But since my cd burning process depends the most on software I thought that it deserved a home here.

So I got a volvo (idk exact year, mid-nineties, '96 maybe?) and it has a stock cd player. I tried burning a music cd and playing it, but it doesn't play. I burn my cds using windows media player....

the car plays regular cds just fine.

But the other night I was at an "outdoors" party, and I was playing music with my car doors open, and someone slipped in a burned cd they had. But it played! Can anyone think of what might cause their burned cd to play, but not mine?

[NamesSolidSnake]

They must have to add something to make it start /:

I've never made burnt CD's, so I don't know...

[cottonvibes]

old car CD players can't play certain types of discs.

burn the disc using regualar CD-R format, you're probably using CD-RW or some other type of CD.

also, don't burn the CD as an MP3 disk, burn it as a regular Audio CD.

[MrPink]

yep yep, i know that they are cd-r, and regular audio cds, not mp3 ones. because they do play in other cd players

[PCXL-Fan]

Still, the really old ones don't always play CD-Rs even if they are in Redbook format (standard audio cd format)

Thats why for a while before the advent of mp3 capable cd players, you'd see a CD-r/w logo on some cd players, confirming that they could play CD-R/Ws.

[Kazuya Mishima]

Its the brand of cds. Search for the particular brand you friend was using and try it.

The way diferent cds reflect is a hint plus the color in the bottom varies and makes it difficult for the laser to read it.

[a_en]

and your burning speed, set it to lowest as you can.

[refraction]

as above, i think thats the most important factor, i tend to do 4-8x speed for burning cds for the car.

other than that, may i suggest higher quality media?

[cottonvibes]

well i'm not an expert, but logically the burning speed just depends on how well your CD burner is.

back when CD burners were a new thing, I used to go through ~10 CDs just to burn a good copy! the rest would fail.

now with my CD/DVD burner, every CD i burn works!


but hes probably using crapy CDs and a crapy burner. So try burning at 1x

[refraction]

while newer drives can give good copies at high speeds, you will always get a better/deeper burn from using a lower speed, so those drives with weaker lasers can still read them.

[cottonvibes]

Originally Posted by refraction

while newer drives can give good copies at high speeds, you will always get a better/deeper burn from using a lower speed, so those drives with weaker lasers can still read them.

oh that makes sense

i didn't think about that


i'm just suprised at how fast DVDs burn now. you can burn like a 4.6GB DVD in like 8~15 minutes!

thats shorter than what a CD used to take

[MrPink]

yeah, that all seems like good advice. i'll just try burning at the lowest speed, because I have burned cds before with my burner drive and the cds were failures

[PCXL-Fan]

For anyone in the future who wishes to buy a car audio system and uses cd-r/w, just like dvd players you want to make sure the specs say it is cd-r/w capable other wise the drives can be finicky in what brands of media they accept and how the disc was burnt.