Mp3 cds

[bluewall21]

I created 2 cds containing mp3s with Sonic RecordNow (my Nero doesn't support my burner, its an old version). One of the cds (which contains less) works in both my DVD player and an mp3 cd player. However, the other CD works fine in my computer (except for some minor seek glitches) mpst of the time, but sometimes makes Windows Media or Winamp to freeze. My DVD player and my mp3 cd player play tracks in 3 of the folders, but the ones at the end of the CD skip, don't play, ot have a little of another song in them. The ones that it doesn't play also have many more songs in the folder than the ones that do play. Also, I used a "Smart Buy" brand CD-RW. Is the media creating problems? Or is it something else?

 

[Lord Evermore]

Could be many things. Make sure you use decent media (plenty of reviews around pointing to good brands); there's a reason cheap ones are cheap. Make sure the media is rated for at least the speed that you're burning at. Check for scratches on the disc. If the problem is that the tracks at the end of the disc don't play well, it is probably due to either burning faster than the media can handle when it gets to top speeds at the outer edges (either not rated high enough, or just low quality discs), or you're trying to overburn. And of course depending on the speed of your computer and its configuration, you may be causing it to glitch during burning. Make sure UDMA mode is turned on for the recorder, et cetera.

The off-brands for CD drives are usually all made by the same few companies and just rebadged for another brand; so just because it's a SmartBuy brand doesn't mean it's not made by a good manufacturer. They seem to also sell optical media that is made by the same maker as some other good brands. Big name drives/media are also often made by the same companies (especially CDR media).

 

[bluewall21]

The media is rated at 4x, which is what it was burned at. I think it is the media. And the Error correction on my computer is better than my DVD or CD player.

 

[Lord Evermore]

What makes you say the computer's error correction is better? Audio CDs have the error correcting code burned in along with the actual audio data, any reader playing the CD will read and process that data. Data CDs don't have any built-in error correction, but if your CD or DVD player can play discs with MP3 files, then they have error correction capability to compensate, just like a computer CD drive. If you're actually making audio CDs using MP3s as the source, then the error correction is still on the disc. Either way, it's likely the media.

Another issue is possibly that if you've overburned, many CD or DVD players can't read beyond the standard CD length of 74 minutes/650MB. But if the media's just plain bad that doesn't matter.

 

[Ryoga]

IMX, any time I've gotten inconsistent skipping or corruption of media files I've reburned at a lower speed and been fine. My general rule of thumb I've developed for good quality copies and no nonsense is to burn at 1/2 the rated media speed or 1/2 the max burning speed (whichever is less).