CD burning conundrum

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 5:56 pm

Can any of you techno-wizards explain this one to me? I bought a spindle of 100 CDs, and now my Mac Mini refuses to burn to them. I burned several onto them a while ago, no problem. All working fine, but now I just get Another make I had to hand burned fine yesterday, it's just this one type that won't do it. I just get 'The attempt to burn a disc failed. the device failed to calibrate the laser power level for this media.' Wha? Could it be that when I spilt water on my desk the other week, some went in and affected it? It needed to rest overnight to recover, and then all was fine. Most odd.

martinfoyle · Post by **martinfoyle** » Tue Oct 02, 2007 6:19 pm

What brand name, if any, cdrs did you get? If they're no-name and your Mac is getting on a bit,i.e. over 3 years old, it could be the laser is going. That water spill probably didn't help either. Anyway what are you using cdrs for anyway? Since my brother refuses to convert to mp3 players I have to burn cdrs for him now and again, that's nearly the only time I use them nowadays. USB sticks are also handy as well. Cdrs are going the way of the floppys and cassettes, and good riddance to them. Sorry, I'm probably not much help.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 6:31 pm

Mr CD or some bollocks. They were a bit cheaper than the better brand ones, thought it wouldn't make any difference. Verbatim ones work fine still. Can't remember if the machine is 2.5 or 3.5 years. The latter, I guess. But if the laser's playing everything fine, shouldn't it be burning fine? It's a bummer.

I don't have an MP3 player (yet - long story, got screwed by a total fuckhead on eBay basically, but at last now humungmous memory iPod 'classics' are coming down in price due to the new generation of touch ones, they look like decent gb for the Â£, so will splash soon), but even when I do, I'll be paranoid about it being stolen or dying and will want stuff backed up. Is it so weird to want things in a physical form? I'm now storing my totally oversized bootleg library as MP3s on a CD-R so I can play them on computer, MP3 playing CD player, and stick 'em on iPod when the time comes. I guess I could busy some USB sticks, but the cost would soon mount.

bambooneedle · Post by **bambooneedle** » Wed Oct 03, 2007 8:23 pm

Otis Westinhouse wrote:Mr CD or some bollocks.

Is that you?

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 1:52 am

Actually, it's 'Mr. CDR'. What was I thinking of?

martinfoyle · Post by **martinfoyle** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 2:27 am

Otis Westinghouse wrote:Mr CD or some bollocks. They were a bit cheaper than the better brand ones, thought it wouldn't make any difference. Verbatim ones work fine still. Can't remember if the machine is 2.5 or 3.5 years. The latter, I guess. But if the laser's playing everything fine, shouldn't it be burning fine? It's a bummer.

I don't have an MP3 player (yet - long story, got screwed by a total fuckhead on eBay basically, but at last now humungmous memory iPod 'classics' are coming down in price due to the new generation of touch ones, they look like decent gb for the Â£, so will splash soon), but even when I do, I'll be paranoid about it being stolen or dying and will want stuff backed up. Is it so weird to want things in a physical form? I'm now storing my totally oversized bootleg library as MP3s on a CD-R so I can play them on computer, MP3 playing CD player, and stick 'em on iPod when the time comes. I guess I could busy some USB sticks, but the cost would soon mount.

Yes, the storage of the bloody things was becoming bit of a problem for me as well. My solution has been to store them all in FLAC form, much better quality than mp3, IMO, on their own external harddrive. That way makes them much more accessible. Also you can easily rip them to a mp3 player, I prefer Zen, or run off a cdr.

Otis Westinghouse · Post by **Otis Westinghouse** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 5:34 pm

But you have to convert from FLAC to a listenable format such as WAV or AIFF before ripping to MP3, no? You do on Mac with iTunes, anyway. I convert the WAV to MP3 as soon as I can to free up space on the computer. Might not do this if I had an external hard-drive, I guess.

ReadyToHearTheWorst · Post by **ReadyToHearTheWorst** » Thu Oct 04, 2007 6:08 pm

Even external harddrives can fill up. Data storage is like the M25, it's just not big enough!
It's a real conumdrum, 'cos backing up to CD / DVD is no guarantee that in 3 years time you can:
a) find that show/track of fond memory; or even
b) read the disc.
Digital technologists are laughing, as they rob us blind!