CD-R question....tech support can not decide on an answer!

[Colleen A.]

I just bought a CD RW over the weekend. I didn't know what type of CDs to purchase so I asked the sales person. She handed me a pack of CD-R Music cds. I told her that I wanted to burn photos. I have been having problems getting this burner to work so I called the manufacturer (Phillips). Two of their tech people told me that it doesn't matter whether it says music or data....it will still work on photos. The 3rd said, no, it must say data. I figured I would ask the experts here! You guys haven't steered me wrong yet!

Colleen

PS To make matters worse, the burner I got is defective and they are sending me a new one!

 

[coqui]

Data would be your best bet on this. They all should work but some Burners are pickier than others.

 

[jfulcer]

Did you ever go into the store to get cold medicine? And there are like 600 different kinds? If you got the active ingredients list of all of them you would notice that 95% of the medicine has the same drug. But some are packaged pretty and some are packaged plain. The plain ones cost less and of course, do the same thing as the pretty ones.

So what does this have to do with CDR's? Some are packaged pretty, some are not. Some are colorful, some are not. The ONLY different (besides name and minor manufacturing differences) are there are some CDR's that are 800 meg, and some that are less. For the most part, ALL CDRW drives and cdroms should read/write every kind of CDR. They tech that told you that the music CD's are the wrong kind doesn't really know what he's talking about. It should work fine for whatever use you want to use it for.

Just remember, the next time you buy them, generic is OK.

 

[Towncrier]

The Audio CD-R's are encoded specially so that they work with a special type of CD recorder that can be used to tape music much like a cassette recorder. These CD recorders will only work with the specially formatted Audio CD-R's. I believe that these blanks cost a bit extra because a royalty is paid to the music industry for each blank. These CD-Rs will work fine in your CD-RW drive, but there is no need to pay extra the next time that you go shopping for blanks.

 

[Fire14]

i personally use memorex or sony cdr or cdrw. all my wedding pictures are on these. like someone else said generic is fine and there is always a store or 3 that have rebates on cdr's i have gotten a lot free this way by just watching the ads.

 

[jfulcer]

Originally posted by Towncrier
The Audio CD-R's are encoded specially so that they work with a special type of CD recorder that can be used to tape music much like a cassette recorder. These CD recorders will only work with the specially formatted Audio CD-R's. I believe that these blanks cost a bit extra because a royalty is paid to the music industry for each blank. These CD-Rs will work fine in your CD-RW drive, but there is no need to pay extra the next time that you go shopping for blanks.

TC, I stand corrected. I did not know that. But like you said, for photo storage regular old CD-R's are just fine.

 

[jfulcer]

I was doing a little more looking about this subject tonight - I wanted to know what was 'different' about the audio CD's. I found this link:

http://www.cyberwizards.com.au/cdr-help.php

I still don't know the difference, but it's interesting about what the article says:

A word of caution: There are some CDR discs designed exclusively for use in home stereo-style CD burners (which don't require a computer), such as the Philips unit sold at retail chains like Best Buy and Circuit City. The discs are called "CDR Music" or "Music only", and are generally more expensive because the recording industry gets a cut of each one sold. These discs may not work with some CD burners and burner software. So best to steer clear.

I wonder whether if it was actually your CD's causing the problem with your burner???

 

[Colleen A.]

When I spoke to tech support the last time, the tech wanted to see if the unit would play a cd. We put the installation disk in that came with it and after making a loud noise (kind of like an overwound toy unwinding! ), it would not play! That's how he determined that the unit was defective. If it would of played the cd, it would of been a different story! I also had tried to use the sample cd (non music)...still nothing!