Cassette tape to CD - finished CD won't play

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HI All
I'm having one of those days <g>
I have a large collection of music on cassette tape - 'lo-fi', I know
- but fine for listening in the car. New car doesn't have a tape
player - just a CD....

So - it'd be nice to transfer the music from the old cassettes to
CD-R's....

The on-board sound on the PC wasn't up to it - so I'm using a Turtle
Beach soundcard - which is able to keep up with the cassette deck -
and produces file that are fine on the PC.

I've been trying to create a CD from a double-cassette compilation -
where on cassette's worth produces a wav file that's just over 70
minutes long. Whatever I try, I can't burn a CD that will play on
either of my 'indoor' CD-players - although the PC will play the CD
with no problems. The 'domestic' CD-players can read the first 8 or so
tracks, but on later tracks you can hear the head 'whirring' as it
tries to read the tracks (I guess!)....

The PC will happily copy audio CDs - which then play without problems
in the domestic CD-players.

Is there something 'special' about burning 'longer' CDs that makes
them more difficult for a bog-standard CD-player to read ? If so -
what's the 'magic' number - I could 'lose' a couple of tracks off the
CD's if that would make them play.....

Tech details - CD drive = lite-on LTR-52327S / s/w = Nero express, O/S
= Win XP, CD-R = Mr Data (!!) - Silver 80min / 700MB

Is the simple solution to shell out some money for a dedicated 'hi-fi'
CD-Burner - or would that not help me ??

Many thanks
Adrian
Suffolk UK
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"Adrian Brentnall" wrote ...
> Is there something 'special' about burning 'longer' CDs that makes
> them more difficult for a bog-standard CD-player to read ? If so -
> what's the 'magic' number - I could 'lose' a couple of tracks off the
> CD's if that would make them play.....

How old are your "bog-standard CD-players"?
It may be time to toss them into the bog and get
something up to modern standards.

 

[Guest]

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In article <np8ej1puled7ecpn0tt3kangf9qto38su1@4ax.com>,
Adrian Brentnall <adrian-the papers and the trash@ambquality.co.uk> wrote:

>Is there something 'special' about burning 'longer' CDs that makes
>them more difficult for a bog-standard CD-player to read ? If so -
>what's the 'magic' number - I could 'lose' a couple of tracks off the
>CD's if that would make them play.....

There are several issues here.

The outer edge can be a harder place for a CD player to track. If the
disc doesn't fit flat in the drive spindle, it'll suffer from a
greater amount of vertical wobble out near the edges (the later
portions of the playback) and the laser may have more trouble tracking
the data surface. What's more, if you rarely play discs with more
than 45-50 minutes of content, dust can build up on the outer portions
of the laser-slide rails in some CD players, causing the mechanism to
stick a bit and then mistrack.

CD-R blanks which were molded/manufactured for best compatibility with
the Red Book standards are limited to 74 minutes of audio... this puts
their track spacing and pit/land spacing right at the center of the
Red Book range. 80-minute blanks are right at the edge of the Red
Book tolerance range - the pits and lands, and the tracks in the
spiral are placed as close together as the Red Book spec allows.

Modern CD-R blanks tend to be optimized for burning at high speed...
they have a thin and very laser-sensitive dye layer. This comes at a
double cost - the pit/land contrast isn't as good as it might be
(leads to a poorer signal-to-noise ratio in the reflected laser beam
at playback time) and if they're burned at high speed the discs may be
a bit more prone to wobble or vibrate, throwing off the focus of the
burning laser a bit and further reducing the digital signal quality.

And, alas, "the bad drives out the good". Heavy competition in the
CD-R blank market has put downward pressure on the prices, which has
led to a situation where most of the CD-R blanks easily available at
retail are from factories which don't have the best product quality,
or quality control.

If you want highly-reliable playback of your CD-Rs, I'd suggest that
you locate a source for CD-R blanks which are being sold to the pro
market, for mastering or high-quality proof burns. Look for 74-minute
blanks, optimized for burning at relatively low speeds... and then
burn 'em at a speed which is one notch below their maximum (this seems
to hit a "sweet spot").

Mitsui, HHB, and Taiyo Yuden blanks seem to have a good reputation for
being reliable in audio-mastering applications. These are fairly easy
to buy by mail, but aren't often seen in price-sensitive retail stores.

You can expect to pay more - perhaps several times as much - for
blanks of this sort than you may be used to paying for "bargain"
blanks intended for the mass market such as those made by Ritek, CMC,
and similar OEMs.

--
Dave Platt <dplatt@radagast.org> AE6EO
Hosting the Jade Warrior home page: http/www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

 

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HI Dave

Thanks for the reply.....

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 00:42:20 -0000, dplatt@radagast.org (Dave Platt)
wrote:

>In article <np8ej1puled7ecpn0tt3kangf9qto38su1@4ax.com>,
>Adrian Brentnall <adrian-the papers and the trash@ambquality.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>Is there something 'special' about burning 'longer' CDs that makes
>>them more difficult for a bog-standard CD-player to read ? If so -
>>what's the 'magic' number - I could 'lose' a couple of tracks off the
>>CD's if that would make them play.....
>
>There are several issues here.
>
>The outer edge can be a harder place for a CD player to track. If the
>disc doesn't fit flat in the drive spindle, it'll suffer from a
>greater amount of vertical wobble out near the edges (the later
>portions of the playback) and the laser may have more trouble tracking
>the data surface. What's more, if you rarely play discs with more
>than 45-50 minutes of content, dust can build up on the outer portions
>of the laser-slide rails in some CD players, causing the mechanism to
>stick a bit and then mistrack.

I see - so a work-round n this case could be to split the tracks up to
make 3 shorder CDs rather than 2 very long ones...?
This might explain why straight copies of 'commercial' cds (which tend
to be shorter) work without problems ??
>
>CD-R blanks which were molded/manufactured for best compatibility with
>the Red Book standards are limited to 74 minutes of audio... this puts
>their track spacing and pit/land spacing right at the center of the
>Red Book range. 80-minute blanks are right at the edge of the Red
>Book tolerance range - the pits and lands, and the tracks in the
>spiral are placed as close together as the Red Book spec allows.

OK - understood
>
>Modern CD-R blanks tend to be optimized for burning at high speed...
>they have a thin and very laser-sensitive dye layer. This comes at a
>double cost - the pit/land contrast isn't as good as it might be
>(leads to a poorer signal-to-noise ratio in the reflected laser beam
>at playback time) and if they're burned at high speed the discs may be
>a bit more prone to wobble or vibrate, throwing off the focus of the
>burning laser a bit and further reducing the digital signal quality.

Also understood
>
>And, alas, "the bad drives out the good". Heavy competition in the
>CD-R blank market has put downward pressure on the prices, which has
>led to a situation where most of the CD-R blanks easily available at
>retail are from factories which don't have the best product quality,
>or quality control.

Yes - used to find this in the days when I used lots of flopies -
Verbatim were always 100% reliable, but some of the cheaper 'no-name'
floppies could not be trusted !
>
>If you want highly-reliable playback of your CD-Rs, I'd suggest that
>you locate a source for CD-R blanks which are being sold to the pro
>market, for mastering or high-quality proof burns. Look for 74-minute
>blanks, optimized for burning at relatively low speeds... and then
>burn 'em at a speed which is one notch below their maximum (this seems
>to hit a "sweet spot").
>
>Mitsui, HHB, and Taiyo Yuden blanks seem to have a good reputation for
>being reliable in audio-mastering applications. These are fairly easy
>to buy by mail, but aren't often seen in price-sensitive retail stores.
>
>You can expect to pay more - perhaps several times as much - for
>blanks of this sort than you may be used to paying for "bargain"
>blanks intended for the mass market such as those made by Ritek, CMC,
>and similar OEMs.

Hmmm - not sure I'm quite in that league - but maybe buying a
well-known brand might be a good investment. The price differential
soon disappears when you've got an ever-increasing stack of 700MB
'coasters' <g>

Many thanks for all the information - greatly appreciated....

Adrian
Suffolk UK
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Hi Richard

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005 23:49:18 -0700, "Richard Crowley"
<rcrowley@xpr7t.net> wrote:

>"Adrian Brentnall" wrote ...
>> Is there something 'special' about burning 'longer' CDs that makes
>> them more difficult for a bog-standard CD-player to read ? If so -
>> what's the 'magic' number - I could 'lose' a couple of tracks off the
>> CD's if that would make them play.....
>
>How old are your "bog-standard CD-players"?
>It may be time to toss them into the bog and get
>something up to modern standards.

They're not too 'ancient' - there's an Aiwa (yes - I know !)
mini-hi-fi that's about 7 years old - and a fairly decent Phillips
portable that's about the same vintage.

The 'target' player is in the car - one of those 'built-in' devices
rather than a 'slot-in' unit - and I don't think that the suggestion
to change the car because the CD's not good enough would go down very
well <g>

I'll try recording a 'standard' commercial cassette today (one that
contains fewer minutes of music) - and, if that works then I suppose
I've proved something.
Long-term it looks as if higher-quality / non-80-minute blanks might
help. I'm burning them fairly slowly - down to 12x on a 56x drive -
and slower burn speeds do seem to improve things...

Thanks
Adrian

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"Adrian Brentnall" <adrian-the papers and the trash@ambquality.co.uk> wrote
in message news:np8ej1puled7ecpn0tt3kangf9qto38su1@4ax.com...
> HI All
> I'm having one of those days <g>
> I have a large collection of music on cassette tape - 'lo-fi', I know
> - but fine for listening in the car. New car doesn't have a tape
> player - just a CD....
>
> So - it'd be nice to transfer the music from the old cassettes to
> CD-R's....
>
> The on-board sound on the PC wasn't up to it - so I'm using a Turtle
> Beach soundcard - which is able to keep up with the cassette deck -
> and produces file that are fine on the PC.
>
> I've been trying to create a CD from a double-cassette compilation -
> where on cassette's worth produces a wav file that's just over 70
> minutes long. Whatever I try, I can't burn a CD that will play on
> either of my 'indoor' CD-players - although the PC will play the CD
> with no problems. The 'domestic' CD-players can read the first 8 or so
> tracks, but on later tracks you can hear the head 'whirring' as it
> tries to read the tracks (I guess!)....
>
> The PC will happily copy audio CDs - which then play without problems
> in the domestic CD-players.
>
> Is there something 'special' about burning 'longer' CDs that makes
> them more difficult for a bog-standard CD-player to read ? If so -
> what's the 'magic' number - I could 'lose' a couple of tracks off the
> CD's if that would make them play.....
>
> Tech details - CD drive = lite-on LTR-52327S / s/w = Nero express, O/S
> = Win XP, CD-R = Mr Data (!!) - Silver 80min / 700MB

You're saying that you can copy a CD to CDR and it plays fine on all your CD
players, but a CDR of the same length made from a cassette using Nero
Express will not play properly? Since you're using Nero Express, have you
looked at the finished product with CDSpeed? Does CDSpeed show up any
problems?

Norm Strong

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

What speed are you burning the CDs at? If the maximum available,
they are almost guaranteed to be unplayable on domestic equipment.
Choose something around 10X or slower.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

Hi Laurence

On Tue, 27 Sep 2005 00:32:49 +0100, Laurence Payne
<lpayne1NOSPAM@dsl.pipexSPAMTRAP.com> wrote:

>What speed are you burning the CDs at? If the maximum available,
>they are almost guaranteed to be unplayable on domestic equipment.
>Choose something around 10X or slower.

I'm burning the cds at x12 or x16.
I did some more experimenting - and the 'cassette-to-cd' process does
seem to be fine with 'standard length' cassettes - and produces a
result which is playable on all of my domestic CD players plus the one
in the car.

I suppose the work-around for the long double-cassette material is to
produce three cds rather than cramming all the material onto two of
them - or edit out a couple of tracks to avoid filling the CDs...

Thanks
Adrian
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H Norm

On Mon, 26 Sep 2005 19:04:10 -0700, <normanstrong@comcast.net> wrote:

>
>"Adrian Brentnall" <adrian-the papers and the trash@ambquality.co.uk> wrote
>in message news:np8ej1puled7ecpn0tt3kangf9qto38su1@4ax.com...
>> HI All
>> I'm having one of those days <g>
>> I have a large collection of music on cassette tape - 'lo-fi', I know
>> - but fine for listening in the car. New car doesn't have a tape
>> player - just a CD....
>>
>> So - it'd be nice to transfer the music from the old cassettes to
>> CD-R's....
>>
>> The on-board sound on the PC wasn't up to it - so I'm using a Turtle
>> Beach soundcard - which is able to keep up with the cassette deck -
>> and produces file that are fine on the PC.
>>
>> I've been trying to create a CD from a double-cassette compilation -
>> where on cassette's worth produces a wav file that's just over 70
>> minutes long. Whatever I try, I can't burn a CD that will play on
>> either of my 'indoor' CD-players - although the PC will play the CD
>> with no problems. The 'domestic' CD-players can read the first 8 or so
>> tracks, but on later tracks you can hear the head 'whirring' as it
>> tries to read the tracks (I guess!)....
>>
>> The PC will happily copy audio CDs - which then play without problems
>> in the domestic CD-players.
>>
>> Is there something 'special' about burning 'longer' CDs that makes
>> them more difficult for a bog-standard CD-player to read ? If so -
>> what's the 'magic' number - I could 'lose' a couple of tracks off the
>> CD's if that would make them play.....
>>
>> Tech details - CD drive = lite-on LTR-52327S / s/w = Nero express, O/S
>> = Win XP, CD-R = Mr Data (!!) - Silver 80min / 700MB
>
>You're saying that you can copy a CD to CDR and it plays fine on all your CD
>players, but a CDR of the same length made from a cassette using Nero
>Express will not play properly? Since you're using Nero Express, have you
>looked at the finished product with CDSpeed? Does CDSpeed show up any
>problems?

Not quite <g>

CD to CD-R is fine - no problems (burning at x12 or x16)

Standard length cassette to CD-R is also fine.

The problem comes when I try to copy a long (about 72 minute) cassette
to CD-R - as the first few tracks are readable by a domestic CD player
but everything above about track 8 causes problems - as the player
continually tries to seek the start of the track and thrashes
backwards and forwards.
The 'faulty' CD-R will read / play OK on the PC.

It seems that the problem is somehow linked to the length of the
recorded material - possibly a tolerance issue on the outer limits of
the CD-R as a previous poster suggested..... Never mind - there is a
work-around <g>

Thanks
Adrian

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Adrian Brentnall <adrian-the papers and the trash@ambquality.co.uk> writes:

> Standard length cassette to CD-R is also fine.
>
> The problem comes when I try to copy a long (about 72 minute) cassette
> to CD-R - as the first few tracks are readable by a domestic CD player
> but everything above about track 8 causes problems - as the player
> continually tries to seek the start of the track and thrashes
> backwards and forwards.
> The 'faulty' CD-R will read / play OK on the PC.
>
> It seems that the problem is somehow linked to the length of the
> recorded material - possibly a tolerance issue on the outer limits of
> the CD-R as a previous poster suggested..... Never mind - there is a
> work-around <g>
>
This may not be of much help but it is at least one more 'data point'.
I have problems simmilar with the ones described above - end of CD
tracking failuer - for one or two or so commercial CDs! I never
have this problem with CDs I have burned myself regardless of burn
speed or how long the CD is.

This is with a domestic CD player from Camebridge (says Sony under
the hood).

The CDs that are troublesome to my domestic player plays OK in
my computer.

And then I have one home-burned CD I got from a friend - it is a
real trouble maker when I try to play it in my computer but works
just fine in the domestic player.

???

--
========================================================================
Martin Schöön <Martin.Schoon@ericsson.com>

"Problems worthy of attack
prove their worth by hitting back"
Piet Hein
========================================================================

 

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Archived from groups: rec.audio.tech (More info?)

HI Martin

On 27 Sep 2005 13:17:48 +0200, Martin.Schoon@dont.spam.ericsson.com
(Schöön Martin) wrote:

>Adrian Brentnall <adrian-the papers and the trash@ambquality.co.uk> writes:
>
>> Standard length cassette to CD-R is also fine.
>>
>> The problem comes when I try to copy a long (about 72 minute) cassette
>> to CD-R - as the first few tracks are readable by a domestic CD player
>> but everything above about track 8 causes problems - as the player
>> continually tries to seek the start of the track and thrashes
>> backwards and forwards.
>> The 'faulty' CD-R will read / play OK on the PC.
>>
>> It seems that the problem is somehow linked to the length of the
>> recorded material - possibly a tolerance issue on the outer limits of
>> the CD-R as a previous poster suggested..... Never mind - there is a
>> work-around <g>
>>
>This may not be of much help but it is at least one more 'data point'.
>I have problems simmilar with the ones described above - end of CD
>tracking failuer - for one or two or so commercial CDs! I never
>have this problem with CDs I have burned myself regardless of burn
>speed or how long the CD is.
>
>This is with a domestic CD player from Camebridge (says Sony under
>the hood).
>
>The CDs that are troublesome to my domestic player plays OK in
>my computer.
>
>And then I have one home-burned CD I got from a friend - it is a
>real trouble maker when I try to play it in my computer but works
>just fine in the domestic player.
>
>???

Certainly adds another layer of confusion <g>

FWIW - had a CD yesterday that had been lying around in the car,
played fine in the car but was unreadable on the PC. The playing
surface was fairly scuffed - but 5 minutes with some metal polish and
a soft cloth restored it to the state that the PC could read it....

There's clearly a few variables here !

Regards
Adrian
Suffolk UK
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[Rippit]

There are a number of reasons a CD-R might not play. Some of them are pretty technical, and not at all obvious. I discuss a number of them in my new article Why Can't I Play the CDs That I Burn?. It's the first in a series of digital music how-to articles that I have planned.

A disturbing problem is that many older CD players cannot play the non-standard, higher capacity 80 minute CD-Rs. A common symptom is that the CD not only won't play, but can't be removed from the player. The solution, of course, is to use standards-compliant 72 minute media. The problem is that it has become hard to find. If anyone can point out where to buy it online, I'd be happy to link it from my article.